Paul Newman gives NHS a £10k thank-you

Mar 10 2008 Western Mail

HOLLYWOOD legend Paul Newman yesterday gave £10,000 to the NHS as thanks for treating a relative.

Oscar-winner Newman, 82, wrote the generous cheque after Michelle Irving, was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Ms Irving’s brother Gary, 39, is married to Newman’s daughter Elinor, 45.

When the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid star heard the 40-year-old had been diagnosed with cancer he wanted to help out through his charitable trust the Newman’s Own Foundation.

Newman gave Ms Irving, of Swansea, £20,000 to pass on to the medical teams who are treating her. She decided to share the money between the breast cancer centre at Swansea’s NHS Singleton Hospital and a local cancer support charity.

It’s not the first time Newman has helped out his UK relatives. He donated £20,000 when Ms Irving’s mother Sue, 62, was diagnosed with the same illness.

Ms Irving said, “He helped my mum by giving money to the breast cancer centre at Singleton Hospital in Swansea and now he wants to help me.

“By doing this he is helping women he has never met.”

Ms Irving discovered she had breast cancer in December, exactly four years after her mum was diagnosed with the illness.

She is undergoing chemotherapy and Newman is regularly calling to ask about her progress.

Ms Irving visited New York last month and Newman laid on a chauffeur-driven limo to take her shopping.

She said, “It was a big black Cadillac with blacked-out windows. It was like being royalty – we even went to Tiffany’s in it.”