In the final scene of director Sidney Lumet’s The Verdict (1982), Paul Newman, who plays a down-at-the-heels personal-injury lawyer (a self-described “ambulance chaser”), sits in his office, sipping coffee. The phone is jangling; it’s a call from a woman with whom Mr. Newman’s character, Frank Galvin, had had a brief but intense affair. (He subsequently discovered that the woman had been paid to work against him during the course of a high-profile jury trial.)

The phone continues to ring. Galvin sits there, feet up on the desk, head tilted back, eyes closed. He senses who’s calling (it’s the now-remorseful lady), makes a sudden move for the receiver, then quickly withdraws his hand. Should he pick up that phone? He takes a gulp of his coffee and tilts back in his chair. The phone rings on. Fade to black. A simple shot, really, but one that, to me, demonstrates the power of a great actor to wordlessly convey emotions behind a scene.

Mr. Newman, who died last month at his Connecticut home at age 83, garnered one of his eight Academy Award nominations for his performance in The Verdict. No other “Method”-trained actor was more successful than Paul Newman at making the Stanislavskian principle of living the part seem effortless, and his work in The Verdict is a textbook example. “Paul was wonderfully brave,” Lumet said. “He’s honest with the character. He doesn’t spare himself. He doesn’t spare the character he’s playing.”

Indeed, Paul Newman’s high character shined in his private life as well. He recently donated $120 million, the entire value of his “Newman’s Own” food brand, to charity. He founded the “Hole in the Wall Gang Camp” in Connecticut to provide free summer activities for children with serious illnesses. (An acquaintance of mine who worked at the camp told me that whenever his schedule permitted, Mr. Newman would pitch in and help out with even the most menial camp chores.)

With his glorious looks, Paul Newman could have played it safe with hero parts or romantic leads. But Newman took a more honest route by consistently seeking out imperfect characters, and over a 50-year career inhabited a parade of such flawed men: “Fast Eddie” Felsen (The Hustler, The Color of Money); Hud Bannon (Hud); the boxer Rocky Graziano (Mr. Newman’s first major role, in Somebody Up There Likes Me); Hank Stamper (the self-directed Sometimes a Great Notion); and Brick Pollitt (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof).

The list goes on. “Acting,” Mr. Newman once noted, “is really nothing but exploring certain facets of your own personality trying to be someone else.” And let’s not forget that Mr. Newman (who won his sole Best Actor Oscar, in 1987, for Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money) was one-half of a great acting team. He and his wife of 50 years, the Academy Award-winning Joanne Woodward, made 10 pictures together, including the delightful James Ivory film Mr. and Mrs. Bridge. In that 1990 movie, they played a staid, middle-aged couple in 1930s St. Louis. The scenes between Mr. Newman and Ms. Woodward bore a tender truth beyond the cameras. (Mr. Newman also directed his wife in four films.)

I like Sidney Lumet’s testimony to Mr. Newman’s craft: “It was,” said the veteran director, “the great part of working on (The Verdict): discovering how far Paul’s talent could go. His characterizations are so complete. He’s the complete actor.”

— Bob Leddy