  During an acting career that spanned six decades, Newman, who
died Friday at 83, brought to life some of the most vivid
characters in American cinema and avoided the traps that tripped
other leading men.  "He was such a handsome man that it would
have been easy for him to get stuck in a narrow range," says
Jeanine Basinger, the Corwin-Fuller professor of film studies at
Wesleyan University. "You can have a definition assigned to you.
He didn't let his looks limit him. That was what his longevity
was about."  Newman gained fame after playing a series of
intense characters in the late 1950s and early 1960s but his
acting gifts were most obvious later in his career during "The
Verdict" and "Nobody's Fool."  "In some ways, he was the Greta
Garbo of male stars," Basinger says. "We say that we relate to
movie stars because we feel understand them, know what they're
thinking and feeling but Paul Newman is one of the exceptions
that proves the rule. He had this air of quietly contained
power. He didn't let you insi