2202112 English Two                                                                     Supplementary Reading/Unit 8

1. You are going to read an article about Paul Newman, the Hollywood film star. Look at the pictures. What do they tell you about Paul?
2. Work in groups. On a separate piece of paper, add to the charts.

     3. Compare your information and questions as a class.

Reading    Read the article, and try to find the answers to your questions.

1) Paul Newman, actor, director, and racing driver, was born so good-looking that people said it was a shame to waste such beauty on a boy. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1925, and did some acting in high school and college, but never seriously considered making it his future career. However, after graduating, he immediately started working in the theatre. He met his first wife, Jackie Witte, while they were actin together, and they got married in 1949. They had three children, a boy and two girls.

2) He found work in the theatre and on several TV shows in New York. When he was thirty, he went to Los Angeles and made his first film, It was what Newman called an ‘uncomfortable’ start in the movies, in the role of a Greek slave. The experience was so bad that he went back to the theatre, and didn’t accept another film role for two years.

3) The film he chose was his big break. He played the boxer, Rocky Graziano, in the film Someone up There Likes Me. Newman is a method actor who believes in living the part before beginning the film. He spent days – from morning till night – with Graziano. He studied the fighter’s speech and watched him box, and they talked endlessly about Graziano’s childhood. The picture brought Newman stardom overnight.

4) He was living in Los Angeles away from his family when he met Joanne Woodward, an actress who he had first met in New York. They worked together in The Long Hot Summer. His wife, Jackie, and Paul recognized that their marriage wasn’t working. And got divorced. Newman and Miss Woodward were married in Las Vegas in 1958.

5) Newman went on to make films such as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Hustler, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting and Towering Inferno. He has made over forty-five films, and has won many awards, but he has never won an Oscar.

6)  His marriage to Woodward is one of the longest and strongest in Hollywood. They have three daughters, and they have co-starred in six films. Ever since the film Winning, Newman has been passionately interested in car racing. And in 1979 he came second in the twenty-four hour Le Mans race. But the end of the 1970s was not all good news for him. In 1978 his only son, Scott, died of a drug overdose, and as a result Newman created the Scott Newman Foundation to inform young people on drug abuse.

7) He has a strong social conscience, and has supported causes such as the anti-nuclear movement, the environment, and driver education. All the money from ‘Newman’s Own’ salad dressing, popcorn, and spaghetti sauce, now a multi-million dollar business, goes to charity. He is more than just a movie star. ‘I would like to be remembered as a man who has tried to help people to communicate with each other,’ says Newman, ‘and who has tried to do something good with his life. You have to keep trying. That’s the most important thing.’

1. Which of your questions were answered?
2. What interested you most about Paul Newman? What did you learn that you didn’t know before?
3. Here are summaries of the seven paragraphs of the article. Match them to the correct paragraph.

1. ____Some of his films.
2. ____His rise to stardom.
3. ____the end of one marriage, the beginning of another
4. ____His early life.
5. ____The highs and lows of his later life.
6. ____His first professional work.
7. ____Newman the person, not the movie star.

      4. Here are the answers to some questions from paragraphs 1 – 3. What are the questions?

1. In 1925.
2. After graduating
3. While they were acting together.
4. In 1949.
5. Three.
6. He was thirty.
7. A Greek slave.
8. No, he didn’t (enjoy making the film).
9. About Graziano’s childhood.

  Write some questions based on paragraphs 4 – 7. Ask the rest of the class your questions.

1. There are two other words that mean a film in the text. Find them. Which one is mainly American English?
2. Match a word in the text to the following definitions.

a. to use badly or unproductively (e.g. tine/money)
b. a profession or occupation

c. a person who is the ‘property’ of someone else and who has to work for them

d. a lucky opportunity that leads to success
e. the state of being a star

f. more of something (e.g. a drug) than is safe
g.using something in the wrong way

h. a person’s understanding of what is right and wrong.
i. an organization that helps people who need
j. to do something again and again

Write about a living film star, or a musician (or group) that you admire. Write about their background, their successes, and why you like them.

This activity provides plenty of practice with yes/no questions. It is similar to the well-known game of ‘Twenty Questions’.

1 The day before this game, ask students to write down and give to you the names of the most famous people and places they know.

2 Compare their lists. Choose some names and add others that you think will be familiar to them.

People                                                                                 Places

Modern political leaders                                                            The Atlantic Ocean

1 Pair the students. One member of each pair stands with their back to the board to make a row of standing students. Their partners sit about one and a half metres away, facing the standing students.

1. Students take turns if you want everyone to hear all the questions. For example:
   First stander : Am I a man?
   First partner: Yes.
   Second stander: Am I a politician?
   Second partner: No.
   etc.
   Standers guessing the answer must be careful! If they call out the correct answer they win, but if they call out a wrong guess their pair is out of that round.
   
2. Alternatively, all standing students simultaneously call out questions to their seated partners as quickly as they can think of them. Here is where the metre and a half distance works well - questions and answers are loud enough for other pairs to over-hear. When the game is played in this way, students are challenged to speak, listen, think quickly and remember.

4 Paris swap roles and the game begins again with a different name on the board.