Clea Newman 'Dad's happy place'

Paul Newman's youngest daughter, Clea, shares treasured memories of growing up with her screen legend dad as she brings his camps for kids with serious illnesses down under.

- SAMANTHA TRENOWETH

Clea Newman's happiest memories of her father are set in nature – deep in the forest, in her home state of Connecticut, at a camp he created for kids living with serious illness. “We used to go there a lot,” she tells The Weekly, as a stream of memories begins to flow.

“Dad built us a cabin there, and we'd go there for Thanksgiving. It was his happy place. It was a place where he could really be himself. The kids didn't know him as an actor. They just knew him as the founder of the camp: This kooky guy who rode around on a funky painted bicycle with streamers hanging off it. He was just this kooky guy in a baseball cap, and he loved it. He was so happy when he was at camp.”

Few families were more famous than the Newmans when Clea was growing up in 1970s America. After years as a hardworking actor in theatre and film, Paul Newman had shot to fame with Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1958, and his status as all-American screen legend was cemented with a string of roles that spoke to the heart of the nation's cultural identity, including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Verdict and The Color of Money.

Clea was the youngest of Paul's six children. Scott, Susan and Stephanie's mother was Paul's first wife, Jackie Witte. That marriage ended not long after Paul costarred with Joanne Woodward in The Long, Hot Summer. He and Joanne married in 1958 and raised their three daughters, Nell, Lissy and Clea, in the sleepy, slightly bohemian town of Westport, Connecticut.

“Our family was pretty normal,” Clea says, and then adds with a chuckle: “Well, I only had one set of parents, so I didn't know any different, but my parents worked really hard at being present, being there.

“They worked a lot, but they were really present parents when they were at home. So even with all the hoopla that went on around it, our family felt very normal.