we were both wrong, its steve McQueen. I allways got him and Paul Newman mixed up. They do look quite simillar, and of the same era, and did the same type of films, same type of mega star status for their generation.
Main article: Papillon (film)
A film based on the book was made in 1973, starring Steve McQueen as Henri Charrière and Dustin Hoffman as Louis Dega.
It is an iconic scene, as because when he first arrives the cellmate in the next cell pops his ravished ghostltly half insane malnourishned head out and asks Steve McQueen how he looks. And then a year later McQueen asks the next new inmate how he, McQueen looks. Must have been about the only passed down bits of banter they could have had.