Only later did I realize that not every small town has a bona fide movie star so tightly woven into the fabric of daily life.
It's almost impossible to imagine this small Connecticut town on the Long Island Sound now that he is gone.
"He was always at ease in the town, not pretentious," said Westport News columnist and high school soccer coach Dan Woog. "He stayed in the town for 50 years and became part of the community without imposing himself or being overwhelming. When he'd speak to school classes, it was as a father, not as Butch Cassidy."
Newman died at his home Friday surrounded by his family and close friends, his publicist said.
We used to see the actor buying apple cider at the farm stands in the fall. He came to our high school, at the height of the psychedelic era, to lecture us on the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse, a cause he embraced even before the traumatic loss of his only son to an accidental overdose.
As he aged and stepped back from the demands of making film after film, he and his wife, the actress Joanne Woodward, helped revitalize the endangered Westport Country Playhouse and also aided with the construction of a new library, a treasured town resource.
They loaned their star power to local causes large and small, with Newman often vending popcorn at charity events. In exchange, they received something quite precious - near total privacy, far from the glaring lights of Hollywood and New York.
"People were very proud that he was here, but they really respected his personal life," said Mollie Donovan, a Westport Historical Society leader who worked with Newman and Woodward on a variety of projects. "We never got in his face. Even if they hadn't been stars, you would have been happy to have them as friends - such warm people."
She said Newman and Woodward showed their affection for Westport in a variety of ways, from helping establish a permanent art collection for the town schools to donating land to preserve open spaces here. Newman also acted in and directed local dramas and sometimes read stories to children at the library.
"That tells you how he felt about Westport," she said.
Donovan remembers an occasion several years back when Newman and Woodward opened the renovated barn where they lived to the public for a charity fundraiser. The house was just like any other in town - except for the Emmys and Oscars on discreet display on a little shelf with other family knick-knacks.
"I'll never forget that," Donovan said.
Rumors about Newman's fading health swirled throughout Westport this summer, but Donovan and others said they shied away from asking Woodward about her husband's fight against cancer because she didn't want to violate their privacy. Those who had seen Newman said he appeared painfully thin and frail.
Everyone in town knew where Newman and Woodward lived in the woods near Coleytown school, but no security perimeter was established because none was needed. No one ventured in without an invitation.
The only exception, Woodward told me when we had a working lunch two years ago to discuss her work at the Playhouse, came during what she jokingly referred to as her husband's "international sex symbol phase."
Those were the high-profile days when Newman teamed up with pal Robert Redford for several smash hits, including "The Sting" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."
Back then, Woodward said, curious female fans would sometimes cruise up to the house hoping to catch a glimpse of the star, only to be chased away by the couple's children and their false-fierce Irish wolfhound.
I only interviewed Newman once. He was distant until I asked about the way the town had changed, how the precious old orchards had been bulldozed to make way for condos and car dealerships.
Then the famous blue eyes flashed with anger.
Woodward told me they moved to Westport - spending $96,000 in 1960 for a house and two barns that are worth millions today - for the same reason that drew so many to the suburbs during the Eisenhower and Kennedy eras: they were looking for a quiet place to raise their kids.
They avoided the flashy and the opulent, settling in a peaceful, bucolic part of town deep in the forest rather than buying one of the Gold Coast estates favored by corporate chieftains and entertainment moguls.
When Newman and Woodward moved in, Westport was still known as something of a writers and artists retreat. During his lifetime it would become a wealthy town popular with investment bankers and financiers - a transformation symbolized by the changing face of Main Street, where Bill's Smoke Shop shut down and Tiffany & Co.
opened up.
Newman and Woodward chose to live far from Hollywood, where their scintillating romance had generated far more coverage than they wanted, especially since Newman was married to another woman when they met.
Since then, the gossip ceased because there was nothing to gossip about - no boozy confrontations, no reports of secret lovers, no financial scandals. Just a conventional, rock-solid marriage.
Woodward even supported, a bit reluctantly, Newman's late-in-life embrace of auto racing, though she did suggest he slow down, literally, when he passed 80.
In a town that is now marked by conspicuous consumption - matching his-and-her Mercedes are common - Newman and Woodward chose to downplay their financial success, although he did sometimes fly home by helicopter, landing in the open school grounds near his house before flight regulations made that more difficult.
Woodward told me she was appalled by the huge houses sprouting throughout the town as cookie-cutter "McMansions" replaced the aging, colonial-style homes she treasured. She said she wanted to buy up a nearby house several years ago to prevent it from being demolished, but was overruled by her husband, who felt it was too pricey.
"I think like everybody else they remembered the town as it was, the mom-and-pop stores that are gone now, and they recognized it wasn't the same," said Woog. "But even as it changed something kept them here, they still thought it was a special place."
