Dalton Delan: ‘The Last Movie Stars’ rekindles memories of basking in the starry light of Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward

In the reduced circumstances of these reductionist days, it is hard to recall a time when there was a degree of authenticity to fame and heroism on the silver screen.

Now, with mostly comic superheroes and an occasional Tom Cruise missile as exception to the rule, anyone with carved musculature can fit Marvelous costumes in videogame-bred battles. Last month, streamer HBO Max picked up the pieces of a documentary series left at the altar when its short-lived sister service CNN+ folded.

In a six-part journey to the past, “The Last Movie Stars,” actor and director Ethan Hawke conjures up a love letter to Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward — a dynamic duo who arguably “presided over the end of the movies as the universal art form,” as Gore Vidal would have it. Hawke himself is an understated star and fan just as they were; it was not unusual for me to find him in my row at the Beacon Theatre in New York when Bob Dylan was in the house. Hawke knows the vintage wines of the entertainment world.

My encounters with Newman and Woodward are examples of their classiness too tiny for the series, but which loomed large in my life. They were distant neighbors in Westport, Conn., where she was artistic director of the Westport Country Playhouse and he was a founder of both the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp and the charitable Newman’s Own. Living in Atlanta then, I developed a documentary in its Olympic year of 1996. Seeking a host, I remembered how Joanne Woodward had worn a sweatsuit to exercise classes with my wife — no yoga pants, folks. She didn’t reside in Tinseltown, and she didn’t need a Hollywood trainer. No highfalutin airs.

Woodward agreed to host the Atlanta documentary “Southern Star” on one condition: Rather than hog the limelight herself as a distinguished product of a Marietta, Ga., upbringing, she preferred to romp around town with her irrepressible aunt as they toured the Fox Theater and other landmarks. The two of them made a charm offensive, scarfing down grilled pimento-cheese sandwiches at the Varsity and giggling in the backseat like sorority sisters. Just a fun day in the life.

Closer to the bone for me, I was under fire in 1999 as the public television executive responsible for replacing Ken Bode as moderator of “Washington Week in Review.” Like all too much news reported by the circle-jerk of the capital press corps, then and now, it was a spurious slew of spin-doctoring. When Bode died recently, The New York Times compounded its poor reporting from a quarter-century ago by not only repeating his self-aggrandizing accusations, but in fact committing the cardinal sin of dropping the “he said” it had at least included at the time. Obit writer Sam Roberts delivered sloppy, second-hand reporting as fact.

Back then, Bode was a part-timer in Washington who dropped in for a day, and the ratings had dropped precipitously on his watch. PBS threatened to pull the plug. I brought back venerable moderator Paul Duke to stabilize the franchise, followed by Gwen Ifill, who gave it a new lease on life. Following her untimely death, I put Robert Costa in the seat. I would make the same choices again, and America showed us the Nielsen love for two decades more. But that wasn’t the way Bode wanted it to go down publicly. To salve his ego, he dialed his buddies at the Times and The Washington Post and alleged the ruination of journalism when his contract wasn’t renewed. He stood athwart the gates. The D.C. press corps bought it hook, line and stinker. Don Imus cursed me out on his syndicated radio show. This column is The Unspin Room, and l’affaire Bode is part of its origin myth. I was hanged in effigy, twisting in the breeze of news cronyism.

With manmade noise boding ill for the show, I needed a hero to present a public face and reassure our audience that “Washington Week in Review” wasn’t going to the dogs. Who to turn to? I knew that Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward invariably tuned in on Friday evenings with a glass of wine to complement their postprandial viewing. I reached out to Newman. Without hesitation, he sat down on camera and gave his low-key endorsement of “the most interesting conversation of the week.” You can still see it online.

I had to ask Newman to sit on his hands because his car-racing rings made a clicking sound. He was prouder of them than his Oscar. A star, one of the last, but a simple man built for speed. He and Woodward showed that you can attain great heights yet stay grounded.

This is my small story. The stars’ air is thinner now. Lost heroes are not found again.