Claire Olivia Newman- Truth about Paul Newman’s daughter

Claire Olivia Newman is the daughter of Paul Newman. Claire Olivia Newman’s father was an American actor, film director, race car driver, and entrepreneur. Newman was the recipient of numerous awards, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, three Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. As an actor, he is known for  Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Hustler, The Sting, and The Towering Inferno.

Claire Olivia Newman: Bio Summary

How old is Claire Olivia Newman?

Born on April 21, 1965, Claire Olivia Newman is the daughter of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. As of 2024, Claire is 59 years old. Her birth sign is Taurus. Claire Olivia Newman’s mother, Woodward is an American actress, producer, and philanthropist. One of the last major stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood, having made her career breakthrough in the 1950s, Woodward is the earliest surviving Academy Award winner in a leading category.

According to the Daily Mail, Claire “looks like her father, with his vivid eyes and the same shape face, only blonder like her mother.” Claire Olivia Newman is not the only child of her parents, she has three other siblings,  Nell Newman, and Melissa Newman, and three step-siblings, they are Stephanie Newman, Susan Kendall Newman, and Scott Newman.

ALSO, READ; Stephanie Newman: Facts about Paul Newman’s daughter

Growing up as the daughter of a famous actor, she had a chance to meet some big names in the industry including Robert Redford coming over for dinner. Although she was surrounded by all these big names she never envisaged following her parents into acting. She just wanted to be riding horses and by 16 she was competing at a national level.

She told Daily Mail -“My mother always wanted me to be a ballerina and my father wanted me to be a concert pianist. I was good at both, but aged 13 I quit them to focus on horses – much to the horror of my parents.“

She studied law and practiced for a while but she later called it a quit to join his father’s startup-Newman’s Owns- a food company that donates all of its after-tax profits to charity through Newman’s Own Foundation. Claire Olivia Newman also worked for other non-profit organizations but one way or another she has been involved in her father’s good causes since her childhood when he would take her around with him.

Paul Newman’s youngest daughter Claire (Clea) is also working as a producer in Hollywood on shows like Big Little Lies, The Big C, Mad Men, and more. As per IMDb, Olivia also served in the editorial department for Raising the Bar and Mad Men.

Claire Olivia Newman is married to Kurt Soderlund

Claire is married to Kurt Soderlund, whom she met through a then-housemate. She told DailyMail- ‘We met about 15 years ago; he was single, I was single – timing was everything. I had kissed a lot of frogs and I was getting to an age where I was ready to settle down, We married in the garden of our home and dad walked me down the aisle.’ Kurt is now CEO of Safe Water Network, a charity co-founded by Paul to help provide clean water in parts of India and Africa. 

The couple doesn’t have any children which is Claire’s only regret-  ‘We did want children and it was sad that it didn’t work out. We tried for a while. I think we should have adopted but we kept putting it off, and then Dad got sick. My mother says to me, “But sweetie, you are the service of hundreds of thousands of children around the world,” but it’s not the same.’- She told Daily Mail.

Claire’s parents first met in 1953. They later reconnected on the set of The Long, Hot Summer in 1957. Newman divorced his wife Jackie Witte, with whom he already had three children, and married Woodward on January 29, 1958, in Las Vegas. On March 28 of the same year, Woodward won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Three Faces of Eve. The couple remained married for 50 years until Newman’s death from lung cancer on September 26, 2008. 

Claire Olivia Newman’s mother, Woodward has said: “He’s very good looking and very sexy and all of those things, but all of that goes out the window and what is finally left is if you can make somebody laugh… And he sure does keep me laughing.” Newman attributed their relationship success to “some combination of lust and respect and patience and determination.”

ALSO READ ABOUT; Prince Michael Jackson II, Michael Jackson’s son

It is Paul Newman, Claire Olivia Newman’s father who has been quoted as saying, in response to a question to him about marital cheating, “I don’t like to discuss my marriage, but I will tell you something which may sound corny but which happens to be true. I have steak at home. Why should I go out for a hamburger?”

In 1988, Newman founded the SeriousFun Children’s Network, a global family of summer camps and programs for children with a serious illness that has served 1.3 million children and family members since its inception. The name was changed to SeriousFun some years ago at around the time Claire Olivia Newman took over running the organization. It was almost inevitable that she would end up at the helm.

Claire Olivia Newman’s father Paul Newman sadly died on the morning of September 26, 2008, from cancer, surrounded by friends and family per Biography. He was 83 years old. Newman was cremated after a private funeral service near his home in Westport, Connecticut.