Paul Newman: I have steak at home, why go out for hamburger?

Hollywood is a place famous for affairs, divorces, and marriages that last one season. But one man stayed there for fifty years and was married to the same woman the whole time.

His name was Paul Newman. Blue eyes, square jaw, one of the most famous leading men of the 1960s and 70s. Walking down the streets of Beverly Hills, female fans chased him for autographs. Backstage at award shows, actresses raised their glasses to him.

And the line he repeated most often was: "I have steak at home. Why go out for hamburger?"

In 1953, Newman met Joanne Woodward at an audition. She was an actress; he was a married man. They worked together on a film, and something grew between them. In 1958 he divorced and married her. The wedding was quiet — no cameras, no spectacle.

For the next fifty years they had five children, moved out of Hollywood to the Connecticut countryside, and stayed away from the party circuit. Newman disliked galas and small talk; when a film wrapped, he went home. Reporters asked him: you are this handsome, in Hollywood, how do you go fifty years without a scandal?

He nodded toward home and said the line that would be quoted for decades: "I have steak at home. Why go out for hamburger?"

Lasting love is not the absence of temptation. It is knowing, clearly, what you already hold in your hand.

Their marriage was not perfect. Newman wrote in his memoir that he had been a heavy drinker early on, had neglected his children, and had hurt people close to him. He and Joanne argued. They went through low points. But he made a decision: he would not move out, would not look elsewhere, would stay and build the days with her.

In 1986, Joanne sat in the audience when he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. On stage he thanked no director, no judge. He looked at her and said: "I have been more blessed than a poor kid from Ohio had any right to be. The best thing I ever did in my whole life was marry you."

Joanne covered her face and cried.

In 1998, when Newman was in his sixties, someone asked him the secret. He said: in this industry, every day you meet people younger, prettier, more admiring. But marriage is not a beauty pageant. Marriage is — you have survived the messy years together, raised the children together, and stayed when the other person looked their worst.

Later he founded Newman's Own food company and gave away every cent of the profits — more than 250 million dollars — to children's charities. People said it was because he was successful. He said it was because Joanne had taught him that money you do not share with family and with the world is just paper.

Newman died of cancer in 2008. He and Joanne had been married for fifty years. He left behind a line about how he wanted to be remembered: "He went home to the people he loved."

True romance is not ninety-nine roses. It is, over fifty years, choosing to stay, in all the moments you could have left.