By Don Eldredge

The second generation of screen actors are mostly gone now, but none, including the death of Marlon Brando, seem to have had an impact like the death of Paul Newman on Friday, Sept. 26.

First, let's consider this generation thing. Putting them into 20- to 25-year cycles, beginning earnestly in the 1920s, we are now into the fourth generation era of Viggo Mortensen, Jude Law, Charlize Theron and Keira Knightley, just to name a few, though not definitive in that it is contemporary. It's easier to point out the superstars of earlier eras.

It started with Rudolph Valentino, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Janet Gaynor, Charlie Chaplin and Lon Chaney, who were joined by Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, Katherine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Henry Fonda. It was followed by Brando, Newman, Audrey Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor, who were joined by Jack Lemmon, Gregory Peck and Julie Andrews.

The third generation is still with us, including Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Faye Dunaway, Julie Christie, Jane Fonda and Robert Redford. But their output on the screen is being overshadowed by the current crowd that was preceded such transitional performers as Tom Hanks, Harrison Ford, Meryl Streep, Sissy Spacek, Jodie Foster, Mel Gibson and Kevin Costner.

Sure, there are plenty of others to mix in, from Buster Keaton to James Cagney to Van Johnson to Fred Astaire to Ginger Rogers to Ingrid Bergman to Montgomery Clift and so on. But this isn't a definitive list of acting giants. Let's consider more acting influence on both their industry and viewers.

Brando, from the late '40s to the early '70s, was considered the giant who led the way for Newman, James Dean, and later De Niro, Pacino and others. But it was Newman, who like Gable, Wayne and Katherine Hepburn before him, defied the generation pigeon holes to remain a vital screen force all the way to the end.

When Newman announced his screen retirement just last year, it was hard to believe that he would no longer create another role as he had been doing for the past half century. His screen presence, mixed with his charity endeavors that put his face on grocery shelves everywhere, and his love for fast cars that made him a strong figure in auto racing circles, elevated him to a rare level among entertainers.

How many different roles among his many have been called by reviewers and critics as "perhaps his best"? How about those in the films "The Hustler," "Hud," "Cool Hand Luke," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "The Verdict." Such opinions dismiss his performances in "Somebody Up There Likes Me," "The Long, Hot Summer," "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," "The Prize," "The Sting," "Slap Shot," "Absence of Malice," and even his Oscar-winning role in "The Color of Money," not to mention later roles in "Nobody's Fool" and Road to Perdition."

For my money, a couple of those hold special prominence. "The Prize" was no world shaking film in critics' eyes, but his performance as a Nobel Prize winner who stumbles upon a mystery includes some nuances that only a craftsman of immense talent in his field could have achieved. There is a scene from "The Prize" in an apartment when Newman is called to express fear that his life might be in immediate danger. He does so with such craft that it makes the viewer shudder with recognition of moments of when we all were just plain scared.

Later in his career, he created the role of Sully Sullivan in "Nobody's Fool," taking the tact of Spencer Tracy, who underplayed most every role he ever created. Newman commanded the screen in a slight, simple film about a grandfather who never took the time to recognize family and finally is forced to confront it.

I'm a firm believer that we can all learn a lot about life by studying the movies. Also, if we don't take for fact all we see on the screen but use films to jump-start our curiosity into learning more about history, we can all be better rounded people. It's really pretty simple, and can actually be called a lazy person's way to knowledge.

Meanwhile, we find favorites to help us into this crazy kind of philosophy about learning. For me it has been Bogart, the Hepburns, Nicholson, Lemmon and, maybe at the top of the list, Paul Newman.

His classic good looks made him a female's favorite for so many years. His personal decision to help the world by giving millions of dollars to charity made him admirable to many. His ability to create so many memorable characters on screen made him among filmdom's best -- and that will live on as long as movies exist.

To me, Humphrey Bogart isn't dead. Katherine Hepburn isn't dead. Jack Lemmon isn't dead. I watch their movies constantly, and they live on in their roles. Paul Newman isn't dead to the millions who will continue to watch his pictures and will be entertained for years to come.