The first clue something was wrong was the change in the label.

It was still playful and lighthearted, radiating a message of goodness and giving on the packages of food products sold by Newman’s Own Organics, the all-organic spin-off of Newman’s Own specialty foods. The old label had pictured movie star Paul Newman in an American Gothic pose beside his daughter Nell, who had co-founded and run Newman’s Own Organics alongside her father’s larger company. Blonde and beautiful, with her father’s famously striking blue eyes, Nell shared his love of food, philanthropy, and the outdoors. So it was strange when, earlier this year, her image went missing from the labels on the packaging of her company’s organic pretzels, Fig Newmans, and more than 100 other organic products. As it turned out, Nell herself had gone missing from the company that she had started in her home in 1993 in Santa Cruz, California, after convincing “Pop” (as she and her four sisters called their father) that organic foods were the wave of the future.

In reporting one of the first magazine profiles of Nell and her all-organic crusade, in 1995, I encountered a forceful, outspoken young woman, who told me how she planned, through pretzels (her company’s first product), to take the organic-food movement mainstream. Over the years I watched with wonder from afar as she made it happen: within its first year, Newman’s Own Organics pretzels became the No. 1 organic snack food in America, and soon after her Fig Newmans were the No. 1 organic cookie. Nell, now 56, and her business partner, Peter Meehan, created an ever expanding catalogue of products that filled the shelves not only of organic-food stores but also of supermarkets from coast to coast. In fact, the organic line eventually threatened to become as popular as the salad dressing, popcorn, pizza-and-spaghetti sauce, and nearly 100 other products sold by the non-organic Newman’s Own food empire, which had been founded in 1982 by Paul Newman and his friend the writer A. E. Hotchner.

What was behind this extraordinary vanishing act of Paul Newman’s daughter?

Before he was a food entrepreneur, Paul Newman was one of the great movie stars from the 1950s through the 1980s, not only a heartthrob with chiseled features and piercing blue eyes but also a seriously accomplished actor. Along with Montgomery Clift, James Dean, and Marlon Brando, he came out of Lee Strasberg’s legendary Actors Studio, and like the others he often portrayed rough-hewn, charismatic outsiders. Newman’s own version of this prototype was handily described by Shawn Levy in his 2009 biography, Paul Newman: A Life. “For fifty years, on-screen and off, Newman vividly embodied certain tendencies in the American male character: active and roguish and earnest and sly and determined and vulnerable and brave and humble and reliable and compassionate and fair.” Newman perfected this character in a string of popular movies that featured his icy masculine cool: The Hustler (1961), Hud (1963), Cool Hand Luke (1967), Butch Cassidyand theSundance Kid (1969), and The Sting (1973), among others.

Paul, Joanne, and daughters (clockwise from left) Clea, Nell, Melissa, and Stephanie, in 1973. Digital Colorization by Lorna Clark; By Milton H. Greene/© 2015 ArchiveImages.com.

Newman’s macho screen image was reinforced by his personal life, which he kept private. He neither preened for the paparazzi nor pursued the glamorous life lived by other Hollywood stars of his caliber. He preferred to putter around his spacious but hardly spectacular 12-room Colonial in Westport, Connecticut, on 10 acres, with his second wife, the actress Joanne Woodward, and their children. His hobby was auto racing, and he was no dabbler. He won four national amateur titles, two professional race victories, a second-place finish at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and a victory in his team’s class at Daytona.

In later years Newman also came to be much admired for his charitable activities. His Newman’s Own Foundation, which is entirely supported by the profits of the Newman’s Own food empire, has supported good works to the tune of $430 million since its creation, and it continues today to help fund programs in four main “focus areas”: children with life-limiting conditions, empowerment, nutrition, and encouraging philanthropy.

What About Bob?

After Newman’s death, in 2008, one person took charge of his legacy—both the food company and the related charitable foundation: Robert H. Forrester. He met me one morning in the then Westport offices of Newman’s Own, Inc., where images and reminders of Paul Newman are everywhere: on movie posters and in photographs on the office walls and on the memorabilia scattered about. Newman’s pool table and popcorn machine are still there, too. To begin my visit, Forrester played a promotional video, made in 2007, in which Newman is once again at his side. “He could have been interviewed [in the video] by anybody [else],” said Forrester proudly. “And Paul said [to me], ‘I want you.’ ”