Paul Newman Felt Guilty About Leaving His First Wife —Their 3 Children Felt Like Outsiders

Nov 19, 2021 by apost team

Paul Newman was a beloved American actor, film director and race car driver. He won several awards during his life and was recognized for achieving an amazing amount of success in various career ventures. To this day, Newman is still remembered as being one of the greats, and it’s clear that his legacy will continue to be shared with others.

However, Newman’s life wasn’t as glamorous as it seemed. While most people remember his beautiful marriage to Joanne Woodward, fans may be surprised to hear that Newman was actually married twice during his lifetime. His second marriage -- the marriage to Woodward -- was a high-profile spectacle as the famous couple went on to be recognized as a golden couple in Hollywood. They were together for five decades, sharing their love for one another with the world there to witness.

However, Newman’s first marriage was a bit more under wraps. Before getting into a long-lasting relationship with Woodward, Newman was married to a woman named Jackie Witte. They got married pretty young and pretty fast, leaving many to speculate what the reason was. However, it seemed like Newman and Witte were just genuinely in love with each other and wanted to embrace it to the fullest. Together, they started a family and had one son and two daughters.

However, they did not get a happy ending as Newman ended up divorcing Witte to marry the other woman he had fallen head over heels for: Woodward. Read on to find out more about Newman and his complicated relationship history.

Although Newman’s most famous marriage was his second one to Woodward, more details have continued to come to light about his first marriage to Witte. Witte was a tall, dark-eyed blonde aspiring actress who was the first woman to marry Newman, according to Rocks Off magazine. She was born in September 1929 and was just 19 years old when she met a 24-year-old Newman. The two instantly fell for each other, and got married in December 1949. Together they had three children: Scott, Susan and Stephanie.

The pair met before Newman had become a household name and a good majority of their relationship was spent with him trying to finally make it in the acting industry. He started off as a stage actor but seemed to give it up following the birth of his son. According to Rocks Off, Newman attended Yale University in hopes of obtaining a degree in theater, but eventually dropped out after Witte became pregnant again. Still, he tried to make it big in the world of acting.

According to the Daily Mail, it took some time but Newman finally started to land small roles here and there before his career really took off. He was cast as the understudy for the leading role in a play called “Picnic,” where his character portrayed a renegade who wreaked havoc among lonely women in a small southern town. It was a huge change for Newman, but he committed to the role. He also began to form a great bond with his co-star, Woodward.

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“She was modern and independent whereas I was shy and a bit conservative,” Newman had once said about Woodward. “It took me a long time to persuade her that I wasn’t as dull as I looked.” It was clear that there was something going on between the pair, much different than the relationship Newman had with Witte. However, he continued to stay in his marriage, appearing happy on the surface.

As Newman’s career progressed, he spent more and more time with Woodward, as she helped him practice his lines. His reputation had gone downhill after a drunken incident at a party, and it seemed like his marriage was the next to crumble, according to the Daily Mail. Newman and Woodward’s romance has taken off, and Newman finally admitted that he was in love with Woodward.

Although Witte wanted to work on their relationship, Newman finally ended up filing for divorce, and the pair went their separate ways in 1958. Newman married Woodward later that same year. According to the Daily Mail, Newman went on to be celebrated for his long-lasting marriage to Woodward, although it had started due to the fact that his previous marriage had been failing.

“I was probably too immature to make a success of my first marriage,” Newman once admitted. “What happened to us during that period is nobody’s business.” Still, the fact that he had felt so estranged from his wife and their three children continued to haunt him. Newman confessed that he felt “guilty as hell” about how he went about his first marriage, and said, “And I’ll carry it with me for the rest of my life.”

Were you surprised to learn about Paul Newman’s first marriage? Let us know, and feel free to pass this along to your friends and family, too.