It's the face that we remember. Paul Newman starred in many of Hollywood's most successful films, but when his death was announced at the weekend it was not Newman as Butch Cassidy or Cool Hand Luke that accompanied the news stories, but his own unadorned image.

The firm jaw, long nose, and above all those startling blue eyes, combined to create a rare masculine beauty that appealed to women and men alike, elevating him into a category that many movie stars aspire to but few reach.

How many of today's stars could carry an entire front page? Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio are terrific actors, but the star quality fades when they are no longer in a role. With Newman it was just the opposite. He was able to convince audiences that he was a small-time pool player or a conman, while at some other level remaining himself.

There was just enough softness about his lips to persuade women that he was a man with a sensitive side, but there was nothing feminine about the rugged good looks that only became more striking as he got older.

The images of the actor that appeared in yesterday's papers showed him at the height of his attractiveness. There was a tangible sense of relief that we can now remember him that way, instead of harking back to the shocking photographs published in June this year, which revealed the hollow cheeks of a man battling cancer.

Until his illness Newman appeared to have aged better than most of his contemporaries. For most of his life he radiated good health in a way so characteristic of middle-class Americans in the 20th century.

In that sense he was strikingly modern, and many of his early roles embodied the anxieties and aspirations of American men in the decades that followed the Second World War. Cool Hand Luke is a prison drama in which Newman's character becomes a hero to other prisoners, impressing them with his resilience and daring escapes until he is broken by the brutal regime.

In Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, based on the play by Tennessee Williams, he is an alcoholic former football player in a film that analyses the tortured relationship between fathers and sons. Newman also took on the title role in The Hustler, putting his masculinity to the test once again and losing the woman he loved, before indulging in a bit of jokey male bonding with Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

His reserved, yet expressive, face was ideal for these valiant-loser roles, which made him a star when contemporaries such as Clint Eastwood were still rounding up steers in the TV western Rawhide.

It is easy to forget that Eastwood's appeal was founded on a much less complex model of masculinity. He sprang to fame as the man with no name in Sergio Leone's brilliant, but sanguinary spaghetti westerns, riding impassively through carnage and repeatedly cheating death, almost without moving a facial muscle.

The two actors represented different traditions in other ways too, as Newman's East Coast liberal leanings contrasted with Eastwood's Republican convictions. I don't think a visitor from Mars would take long to work out which of these two great actors had given so much to charity, as Newman did by donating the profits from his range of salad dressings and pasta sauces.

There is another big difference. Despite his preference for modern acting roles, Newman's beauty was timeless. It is easy to imagine him in the background of a Quattrocento fresco, drawing the eye away from the saint who is supposed to be its focus. The reason is simple: many people who are hailed as beautiful are actually skilful followers of fashion, cashing in on what happens to be popular and not always aware of their own decline.

But Newman had the classic good looks that would appear remarkable in any age — a curious combination of an arresting presence and a slight blankness, which strangers find irresistible.

Marilyn Monroe once observed, with a degree of irritation, that her fans regarded her as a mirror, not as a real person, but the truth is that great stars have to be a screen.

They need the beauty and charisma necessary to hold our attention, but we also like to impose our own interpretations on what we see. Newman's handsome face offered exactly that — a sense that his physical attractiveness reflected a decent human being who also had hidden depths of emotion.

Few people possess all of these magical ingredients — beauty, intelligence, radiance and mystery — at the same time. Newman did, and that's why we can never quite get enough of him.

Joan Smith is a cultural commentator and novelist

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