Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward’s Las Vegas Wedding, 1958

Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward met in 1953, when both were cast in William Inge’s Picnic on Broadway, and married in Las Vegas on January 29, 1958. There was no cathedral, no couture gown and very little fuss. What there was, as it turned out, was a marriage of fifty years, one of the longest and most admired in Hollywood, and a wedding outfit so sensible and so pretty that it still reads as modern.

The couple

When they met on Picnic, Newman was married to his first wife, Jacqueline Witte, with whom he had three children; Woodward was a young actress at the start of her career. Both were members of Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio in New York. By the time they married, Newman’s divorce had been finalized and they had made their first film together, The Long, Hot Summer, released in 1958.

The timing of the wedding is part of its charm. That March, barely two months later, Woodward won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Three Faces of Eve. The newlyweds were suddenly one of the most celebrated couples in the business.

The ceremony

Las Vegas offered then what it offers now: a wedding with no waiting period, a long way from anyone’s studio. Photographs from the day show the couple at their wedding reception at the El Rancho hotel, looking entirely at ease. It was a small affair, and nothing about it was staged for the columns.

The dress

Woodward did not wear a wedding gown. Her dress, by the label Jax, was a champagne-colored silk crepe in a cocktail, or ballet, length, with a fitted bodice and a zip back, worn with a matching jacket with a rounded collar and covered buttons. Her shoes were satin heels by C.H. Baker with a frosted pattern. When Sotheby’s offered the ensemble in its 2023 sale of the couple’s collection, it was estimated at $1,000 to $1,500; the dress is tiny, roughly a modern size 0.

It is a reminder of how many brides of the period married in what we would now call a second look: a short, well-cut dress in a warm neutral, with a jacket for the ceremony that comes off for the party. For more wedding outfits that set their own rules, see our guide to celebrity wedding dresses.

The marriage

The couple settled in Westport, Connecticut, far from Hollywood, and raised three daughters: Nell, Melissa and Clea. They made films together across five decades, among them From the Terrace (1960), Paris Blues (1961), The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972), Mr. and Mrs. Bridge (1990) and the television miniseries Empire Falls (2005). Newman directed Woodward in Rachel, Rachel (1968), for which she was nominated for another Oscar.

In 1982 Newman and the writer A.E. Hotchner founded Newman’s Own, which gives all its after-tax profits to charity; in 1988 he co-founded the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp in Ashford, Connecticut, for seriously ill children. Asked about fidelity, he gave an answer that became famous: “I have steak at home. Why should I go out for hamburger?” Reflecting on their early years, he said that “the promise of everything was there from the beginning.”

Newman died at home in Westport on September 26, 2008, at 83. They had celebrated their fiftieth anniversary that January.

Why it mattered

Las Vegas had long been known for quick weddings, and for impulsive ones. The Newmans gave the quick Nevada wedding a different association: two serious actors, a thoughtful outfit, a small celebration and a marriage that outlasted almost every grand wedding of its era. Later Las Vegas couples, from Elvis and Priscilla Presley in 1967 to Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck in 2022, followed in their footsteps.

Borrow the idea

Marry in a cocktail dress. A knee- or tea-length dress in champagne, oyster or ivory silk crepe, with a cropped jacket, is elegant for a small daytime ceremony and immediately useful afterward. Our guide to the wedding dress explains lengths and fabrics.

Choose a warm neutral. Champagne and pale gold are kind to most skin tones and look lovely in candlelit or evening photographs.

Keep the celebration proportionate. A dinner for the people who traveled, a small cake and a toast will do more than a hired ballroom. Our guides to the wedding cake and toasts scale down well.

Plan the anniversary instead. If the wedding is small, make the anniversaries count. Our list of anniversary gifts by year is a good place to start; the fiftieth is gold.