Ellie Levenson: We don't want 'great actors' today

I know it's a bit macabre but I subscribe to an American email service called celebritydeathbeeper.com. It sends email alerts whenever a celebrity dies, and means you can keep up to date with who is still around. This saves you the embarrassment of going on holiday and missing the news for a few weeks then later finding yourself musing to friends why so-and-so hasn't made any films lately only to be told they're dead.

Usually I've never heard of people in the death beeper emails – obscure musicians or American game show hosts. But I knew who Paul Newman was of course, when the email popped into my inbox. Everyone knows Paul Newman, even if for my generation it is as much for salad dressings as his film roles.

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But it's particularly interesting for someone of my age to read the obituaries of Paul Newman, all of which talk about how there was no one else like him – the acting skills, the stunning good looks, the philanthropy and the way in which he conducted his private life, choosing not to live in Los Angeles or New York, and remaining married (to his second wife) for 50 years. For what is striking is that no one seems to have a bad word to say about him.

It's not as if Newman's life was perfect by any means. His marriage, to Joanne Woodward was long, but it was his second. He was known to have had a fondness for "fast living" in his youth, by which they mean drink and girls. And he made some bad films, notably The Silver Chalice for which he took out a newspaper ad apologising for his poor performance. Yet still everybody loved him.

I can't think of any stars today who are talked about in such glowing terms. There's Brad Pitt who we're meant to all go wobbly at the knees for, but since he's been with Angelina Jolie he just seems, well, a bit weird. People heralded Heath Ledger as that kind of actor – good looking and one of the greatest of his generation, but people do that when you die young. For a while Leonardo DiCaprio was spoken about in those terms, then he lost his looks somewhat.

All of the tributes to Newman talk about him as the last of the "greats". But the truth is, we don't allow any of our current crop to become a "great". No, my generation wants complicated, not straightforward. We prefer to read the gossip about torrid affairs than interviews about their loving family. We like to see pictures of actors having a bad hair day or a bout of acne. We don't want them to give us salad dressings with proceeds donated to charity. Instead we want musky branded perfume sold with the promise of sex appeal.

In some respects this is a good thing. It means we don't put our film stars on a pedestal and then feel bad when we can't be like them. But, this weekend, reading about Newman I couldn't help but think it would be worth my generation giving up the type of journalism that tries to show celebrities in a bad light, because wouldn't it be rather wonderful for us to have a "great" of our own.