娱乐英语新闻：Paul Newman responds cryptically to cancer reports

BEIJING, June 12 -- Oscar-winning actor Paul Newman, responding to a flurry of unconfirmed reports he is gravely ill with cancer, issued a terse, cryptic statement on Tuesday that shed little light on his actual condition.

    "Newman says he's doing nicely," his spokesman, Jeff Sanderson was quoted as saying.

    Sanderson declined to elaborate or give further details.

    "This is what I got from him. He says he's doing nicely, and this is the statement I wanted to share with you, and that's what I have," Sanderson said. "I spoke to his office. ... this is the statement that came directly from him."

    According to numerous media accounts circulating on TV and the Internet since Monday, Newman, 83, has been diagnosed with lung cancer and was undergoing out-patient treatment at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

File photo of Paul Newman

    A spokeswoman for Sloan-Kettering said she had no information about whether Newman was a patient there.

    Newman announced just over a year ago he was essentially retiring from a half-century career in acting because of his age.

    Last month, he stepped down as director of a stage production of John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" at the Westport Country Playhouse in Connecticut, citing unspecified health issues.

    Newman's wife of more than 50 years, actress Joanne Woodward, is a co-artistic director of the playhouse.

    Newman, who appeared in some 60 movies, made his name portraying brooding characters in films like "Cat On a Hot Tin Roof," "The Hustler" and "Hud" -- roles that all won him Oscar nominations.

    The blue-eyed performer enhanced his superstar status later by playing winking rogues and anti-heroes -- such as the title character in "Cool Hand Luke," an outlaw in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and a suave con man in "The Sting."

    He earned nine Academy Award nominations in all, but his only Oscar win was for best actor in the 1986 film "The Color of Money," portraying the same pool shark, Fast Eddie Felson, he had played when he was nominated in 1961 for "The Hustler."

    Newman also enjoyed successful side endeavors as an auto racing driver and the creator of a line of food products, Newman's Own, that bore his name and face on their labels and donated all its earnings to charity.

    His last two Oscar nominations came late in his career for wizened elder roles in the 1994 film "Nobody's Fool" and in 2002 for "Road to Perdition."

    He won an Emmy Award as best actor in a television movie for his role as the meddling, elder father in the HBO's 2005 ensemble drama "Empire Falls," which also co-starred Woodward. His last big-screen acting role was as the voice of Doc Hudson, a talking antique automobile in the 2006 animated film "Cars."