As highlighted by Vanity Fair, Paul Newman was basically a private man who didn't enjoy sharing details from his personal life. When it was time to let go of Newman's Own, for example, the actor did so discreetly without making a big deal about the transition. He decided to donate everything from his ownership in the company to charity. And when Newman battled cancer in 2008, he refused to be open about his struggles and remained, as always, guarded about his personal life.
This didn't stop the tabloids, though, and there were several stories that kept circulating about the actor — that he went through a lung operation, his cancer was killing him, and that he was basically an outpatient at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Newman was funny and unperturbed. When he was asked what he was getting medical attention for, he simply said, "Athlete's foot and hair loss."
Newman refused to boast about being famous or his countless achievements, including the sheer amount of hard work he'd put in as a philanthropist. As far as his personal life was concerned, he remained firm about it until the very end and simply would say, "It's nobody's business."
Newman died of cancer in 2008 at age 83.
