From the Associated Press:
Paul Newman says he’s given up acting.“I’m not able to work anymore as an actor at the level I would want to,” Newman, 82, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Thursday. “You start to lose your memory, your confidence, your invention. So that’s pretty much a closed book for me.”Newman, star of films such as “Hud,” “Cool Hand Luke” and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” added: “I’ve been doing it for 50 years. That’s enough.”
He has other plates spinning. Newman plans to focus on the Dressing Room, his new organic restaurant in Westport, Conn., and his Hole in the Wall Gang camps for critically ill children.
His Newman’s Own brand of dressings, pasta sauces, popcorn and salsa has raised more than $200 million for charities.
Newman, who won an Oscar for his leading role in 1986’s “The Color of Money,” was last seen – or heard, rather – as the voice of Doc Hudson in the 2006 animated feature “Cars.”
This is sad to hear. The last thing he had said, regarding acting, was that he wanted his last film to be opposite long-time friend Robert Redford. The two of them have worked together twice before, in the iconic Academy Award-winning classics Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid (Four Oscars) and The Sting (Seven Oscars).
At one point, the rumor was they would do film version of Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods, a story about two old college buddies that walked all 2,100 miles of the Appalachian trail.
Both were interested in the project, but were also quite adamant that anything they did, was going to have to be on par with the aforementioned classics. Can you imagine the pressure the director would have on his shoulders?Mr. Newman did indeed win an Oscar for The Color of Money, but was also given an honorary one in 1986 and was given the Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1994. He has an additional nine nominations, with the last being for his supporting role in The Last Road to Perdition.I am upset, quite selfishly, because I will never get the pleasure of seeing a new character brought to life by a masterful performer.
The article mentions some of his films, but just mentioning those few hardly does him justice. So I am simply going to list his Oscar wins and nominations:
2003
Nomination
Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Road to Perdition
1995
Nomination
Best Actor in a Leading Role for Nobody’s Fool
1994
Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award
1987
Won
Best Actor in a Leading Role for The Color of Money
1986
Honorary Award
“In recognition of his many and memorable and compelling screen performances and for his personal integrity and dedication to his craft.”
1983
Nomination
Best Actor in a Leading Role for The Verdict
1982
Nomination
Best Actor in a Leading Role for Absence of Malice
In the thirteen years between nominations, Newman starred in Slap Shot, The Sting, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Drowning Pool( based on the novel by Ross Macdonald, Towering Inferno and The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean among others…just so you don’t think he was just sitting around.
1969
Nomination
Best Picture for Rachel, Rachel (Newman produced and directed)
1968
Nomination
Best Actor in a Leading Role for Cool Hand Luke
1964
Nomination
Best Actor in a Leading Role for Hud
1962
Best Actor in a Leading Role for The Hustler
1959
Nomination
Best Actor in a Leading Role for Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

Hey Robert,
Talk him out of it! Give us a third film with the two of you.