Paul Newman may have appeared in only five Broadway shows in his lifetime but he will receive the ultimate tribute from the theater community Friday night when the lights along the Great White Way are dimmed to honor his passing last week at the age of 83.

After some success in early television, Paul Newman made his Broadway debut in the original 1953 production of William Inge's scorching drama "Picnic." As the best friend of the wandering hero, he won a Theater World award. Newman went off to Hollywood to make the ill-fated "The Silver Chalice" the following year but returned to the rialto in 1955 with a starring role as a desperado in "The Desperate Hours." While Humphrey Bogart would play that part on film, Newman would get another chance for a starring screen role as a boxer in 1956's "Somebody Up There Likes Me." He followed this with a series of film successes capped off by his Oscar-nominated performance in Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" in 1958 (he lost to David Niven for "Separate Tables").

Though his star was shining bright in Hollywood, Newman returned to Broadway the following year to star as a smooth-talking gigolo in Williams' "Sweet Bird of Youth" opposite Geraldine Page, who earned a Tony nod for her work as a fading Hollywood beauty (she would also pick up an Oscar nod for the 1962 film version with Newman).

After two more Oscar-nominated performances –- "The Hustler" (1961) and "Hud" (1963) — Newman was back on the boards once again in 1964 starring in the comedy "Baby Want a Kiss" with wife Joanne Woodward. That was the last Broadway was to see of him until 2002 when he played the stage manager in a production of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town."

That show had started out at the historic Westport Playhouse, a theater company run by Woodward in their Connecticut hometown. Newman was nominated for a 2003 Tony Award as best actor in a play but lost to Brian Dennehy for "Long Day's Journey into Night." (He would also lose the Emmy race that year for the TV version of the production to William H. Macy ("Door to Door.")

(Booth Theatre)