Hud paved the way for movie audiences' acceptance of - and even a preference for - unsympathetic, brutal lead characters, a line stretching from Hud through Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull (1980) to the Oscar®-winning roles created by Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Denzel Washington in Training Day (2001).

Hud was promoted with the tagline" "Paul Newman is Hud," launching a trend in "is" promos for movies. At least two other Newman "H" pictures were promoted the same way: "Paul Newman is Harper [1966]" and "Paul Newman is Hombre [1967]."

Years later, when he developed his food products business, Newman created a tribute to his character with Newman's own recipe for "Hud's Molasses Grilled Pork with Port Wine Sauce."

In August 2003, Paul Newman wrote a humorous op-ed piece in the New York Times to satirize a lawsuit by Fox News against Al Franken for using their promotional tag line "Fair and Balanced" in the title of his book. Newman said he would sue the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for usurping his character's name and sullying it with the department's "decency and respectability." Claiming "piracy of personality and copycat infringement" based on the film's tagline "Paul Newman is HUD," the actor accused the federal agency of "diluting the rotten, self-important, free-trade, corrupt conservative image that Mr. Newman worked so hard to project in the film."

by Rob Nixon