Newman was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, one of three daughters of a Jewish immigrant couple. Her mother, Rachel Gottlieb, from Lithuania, was professionally known as Marvelle the Fortune Teller. Her father, Sigmund Newman, from Warsaw, billed himself as Gabel the Graphologist, working alongside his wife in boardwalk amusements. Newman had two sisters, Shirley Porte, and Elaine Sandaufer. She attended Lincoln High School where she was voted "Future Hollywood Star."
An early television role for Newman was in a 1959 episode of Beverly Garland's crime drama Decoy. The following year she was cast as Doris Hudson on the CBS summer replacement series , opposite Patrick O'Neal as pathologist Dr. Daniel Coffee. Newman became a major television celebrity of the 1960s and 1970s, a frequent panelist on the top-rated network game shows What's My Line?, Match Game and To Tell the Truth and a perennial guest of Johnny Carson on NBC's The Tonight Show. She also guested as Elaine, the mother of Melissa on the 1980s television series Thirtysomething. Newman created the role of Renée Buchanan on the ABCsoap operaOne Life to Live and was a regular on the primetime series 100 Centre Street and the NBC satirical series That Was The Week That Was. Other television credits include The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Burke's Law, ABC Stage 67, Murder, She Wrote, The Wild Wild West. Newman starred in the short-lived comedy about a couple living in an Arizonaretirement community, Coming of Age, opposite veteran actors Paul Dooley, Glynis Johns and Alan Young.
Film
On screen, Newman appeared in Picnic, Let's Rock, Bye Bye Braverman, To Find a Man, Mannequin, Only You, The Beautician and the Beast, A Price Above Rubies and The Human Stain.
In 1995 Newman founded The Phyllis Newman Women's Health Initiative of the Actors Fund of America. Since then she hosted the annual Nothing Like a Dame galas, which have raised more than US $3.5 million and served 2,500 women in the entertainment industry. In 2009 Newman received the first Isabelle Stevenson Award, a special Tony Award, for her work with the Health Initiative. This award recognizes "an individual from the theatre community for humanitarian work."
Memoir
Her memoir Just in TimeNotes from My Life, relates her career, life with her husband, lyricist and playwright Adolph Green, and her bout with cancer.
Newman was married to lyricist and playwright Adolph Green from 1960 until his death in 2002. She was the mother of journalist Adam Green and singer-songwriter Amanda Green. Newman died on September 15, 2019 at the age of 86 from complications of a lung disorder.
