New York, March 14 (ANI): Legendary Hollywood star Paul Newman added fuel to speculations that he is suffering from cancer or serious blood diseases by absenting himself from a City Center event for his Hole in the Wall Gang Camps for kids on Monday.

Concerns about the 83-year-old actors health were first raised in January, when a report said that he had undergone surgery for an unnamed cancer at a New York hospital.

That report was slammed by Newmans representative Warren Cowan, who suggested that the actor was being treated for athlete’s foot and hair loss at that time.

This time again, Cowan said that Newman was having a different trouble.

“He’s having back problems. He has to stay off his feet for a couple of weeks,” the New York Daily News quoted him as saying.

Newman, however, sent a taped message to the Hole in the Wall fund-raiser, where recovering children shared the stage with the likes of Julia Roberts, Renee Zellweger, Carole King, Bernadette Peters, Nathan Lane and James Naughton.

The report also says that the Oscar-winning actors back problems also forced him to bow out of an appearance on “Late Show With David Letterman”. (ANI)