Gaunt and frail, this is Paul Newman days after it emerged he is suffering from cancer.

The weight has fallen off him in recent months, ravaging an already slim figure.

But his blue eyes, hidden behind dark glasses, are as steely as ever.

Gaunt: Paul Newman outside his Fifth Avenue apartment just hours after leaving hospital

Friends insist he is fighting hard.

The 83-year-old Oscar-winner was spotted chatting to a security guard outside his New York apartment block.

A friend and business partner revealed earlier this month that Newman has cancer.

Shadow of himself: Newman is said to be fighting hard

A.E. Hotchner, who co-founded Newman’s Own salad dressing company with the actor in the 1980s, said he had been fighting the disease for at least 18 months.

Speculation had been rife that Newman, a former chain smoker, had lung cancer after he looked unwell in recent photographs.

In May he pulled out of directing a production of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice And Men.

Hollywood's finest: The actor in his heyday

In a subsequent statement, Newman said he was ‘doing nicely’.

He is said to be having treatment at the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York.