LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Oscar-winning actor Paul Newman, responding to a flurry of unconfirmed reports he is gravely ill with cancer, issued a terse, cryptic statement on Tuesday that shed little light on his actual condition.
"Newman says he's doing nicely," his spokesman, Jeff Sanderson, said in a message e-mailed to Reuters and other media outlets in answer to queries about the cancer reports.
Reached by telephone in his Los Angeles office, Sanderson declined to elaborate or give further details.
"This is what I got from him. He says he's doing nicely, and this is the statement I wanted to share with you, and that's what I have," Sanderson said. "I spoke to his office. ... this is the statement that came directly from him."
According to numerous media accounts circulating on TV and the Internet since Monday, Newman, 83, has been diagnosed with lung cancer and was undergoing out-patient treatment at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
A spokeswoman for Sloan-Kettering said she had no information about whether Newman was a patient there.
Newman announced just over a year ago he was essentially retiring from a half-century career in acting because of his age.
Last month, he stepped down as director of a stage production of John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" at the Westport Country Playhouse in Connecticut, citing unspecified health issues.
