Paul Newman won the Academy Award for Best Actor for Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money.
Newman played “Fast” Eddie Felson, the pool hustler he had first portrayed in the 1961 film The Hustler. In Scorsese’s film, the older Felson mentors and manages a talented but immature player played by Tom Cruise.
Released in 1986, The Color of Money was adapted from Walter Tevis’s 1984 novel. It explores competition, ambition, manipulation, and the uneasy relationship between an experienced player and his gifted protégé.
Newman’s Oscar was his first competitive Academy Award win for acting, although he had previously received an honorary Oscar. Scorsese’s film also won for its screenplay adaptation and became an important continuation of Newman’s best-known character.