Editor's Picks
Paul Newman Daytona: Birth of a Legend
Whereas each of the men he is best known for playing is, to varying degrees, morally ambiguous; in his real life, Newman excelled — in all areas of morality. As a husband (he was married for over half a century to Joanne Woodward), he was unerringly faithful and loving. As a moralist and political activist, he was at one time placed 19th on Richard Nixon’s list of enemies for his outspoken opposition to America’s involvement in the Vietnam War.
But it was Newman’s philanthropic ventures that inspired us the most. The man who donated USD10 million in 2007 to his alma mater (Kenyon College, Ohio) and co-founded the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy led the way by turning his own saint-like benevolence up to 11 when Newman’s Own, the food brand he co-founded in 1982, unexpectedly became a success. To date, over USD300 million of its profits have gone to various charities.
Rolex’s philosophy, any keen observer would have noted, was to assert dominance over the sports-watch world in every field. So, it was particularly egregious that, following independent testing around this time, NASA selected Omega’s Speedmaster over a Rolex chronograph as its first official timepiece. But the major problem the brand faced was that Rolex’s previous chronographs — such as the ref. 3529 or the ref. 6234 — had failed to capture consumers’ collective imagination and ascend to the iconic chart-topping position that the brand’s other models had reached. Even the ref. 6238’s appearance as James Bond’s watch in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service did little to inspire sales for the Rolex chronograph, though the fact that it was donned by the least-popular Bond of all time, George Lazenby, might have something to do with its failure.
In an effort to channel some track-shredding character into the timepiece, Rolex and their dial maker Singer came up with unique ‘exotic dials’, which were three-color, three-dimensional dials with a raised central surface, contrasted by sunken subdials featuring square, amusingly sperm-like markers with tails and a stepped-down seconds track.
At first, these dials were catastrophic failures. Says watch historian Osvaldo Patrizzi: “In those days, dealers would receive extra dials so that if a customer didn’t like one dial, they could replace it on the spot with another. Many of these exotic dials were taken off watches because people found them too busy or just strange.”
Newman began wearing his steel exotic-dial, or ‘Paul Newman’, ref. 6239 during the publicity tour for the 1969 racing flick Winning. As he had become interested in racing, he had sought out a timepiece with a chronographic ability to measure elapsed time. The Rolex Daytona fit the bill perfectly in particular because it featured a 12-hour totalizer, which the Omega Speedmaster did not, and which was vital for endurance racing where races could last 12 or even 24 hours.
Though there was never a formal partnership between Rolex and Paul Newman, their identities have become so profoundly connected through the Daytona that, on two occasions, Rolex commissioned photographic retrospectives on the great actor. The marketing team in Switzerland must be thankful for the day, some time in the late ’60s, when a blue-eyed legend-to-be with petrol in his veins was presented a shiny Rolex Cosmograph Daytona with a vivacious three-color dial, by the woman he loved and who loved him, to wear on his illustrious wrist.