Grace and cool, that’s the rare combo he had. Add in a dozen films that stack up against the best of all time, a humanitarian streak that should be emulated by all, and delicious sense of mischief always in those iconic blue eyes, and there you had Paul Newman. Yesterday Paul Newman died at 83 years old. We saw it coming but it doesn’t make it any less painful.

I came to Newman pretty late, I suppose, after “Cool Hand Luke” and “The Sting” and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and even “The Verdict.” I circled back to those when I was old enough to know better. My first and most vivid memory of Newman is as Fast Eddie Felson. “The Color of Money” came out in 1986 and it granted Newman his first (and only) long-overdue Oscar for reprising his role from the 1961 classic, “The Hustler.” Those two performances, in the Robert Rossen original and the Martin Scorsese sequel, have always stuck with me as few others have. Felson in the original is a cock-sure wunderkind with a self-destructive streak as big as his talent. When we meet him 25 years later the same guy is buried underneath a whole lot of sorrow, the angst of who he was supposed to be but never was. It’s a tremendous performance.

In the final moment of the film, Felson decides to go toe to toe with his one-time protege (played by Tom Cruise). Slowed by crappy vision and the baggage of a hard life, he’s not the pool player he once was. But he’s found himself. The protege asks his mentor why he thinks he’s going to beat him: “What make you so sure?” he asks. Newman breaks from the shot he was about to make and stands up with a start to look the young man in the eye. It’s such a small moment and indeed wordless but it’s, well it’s just genius. Take a look and remember Paul Newman fondly today. He was one of the best.