Together with his all-American attractiveness, Robert Redford, who died on Tuesday aged 89 was the everlasting “Sundance Child”, a US display screen legend each in entrance of and behind the digicam.
The tousled-haired heartthrob made his breakthrough alongside Paul Newman because the affable outlaw within the hippy Western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Child in 1969.
After 20 years as one in every of Hollywood’s hottest actors, he moved behind the digicam turning into an Oscar-winning director and co-founded the Sundance Movie Competition, which turned a springboard for a brand new technology of impartial filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino.
“Few careers have had such an impression on the historical past of cinema,” stated French producer Alain Terzian earlier than awarding him the French equal of an Oscar in 2019.
No a easy ascent
However the athletic younger Redford’s beginnings had been removed from a easy ascent to the highest. The son of an accountant from Santa Monica, California, his mom died in 1955, a yr after he completed highschool.
He gained a scholarship to the College of Colorado due to his baseball abilities, however misplaced it a yr later due to his heavy consuming.
Redford spent the following months travelling round Europe earlier than enrolling within the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1959.
(Left) Robert Redford, Elizabeth Ashley, and Kurt Kaznar seem backstage on opening evening of their comedy play ‘Barefoot within the Park’, directed by Mike Nichols, in New York on October 23, 1963.
| Photograph Credit score:
AP
After numerous tv roles, his first large display screen break was within the romantic comedy Barefoot In The Park (1967) reverse Jane Fonda.
Two years later his profession went stellar with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Child about two outlaw buddies who flee to Bolivia to flee US authorities.
The movie turned an instantaneous traditional, launching Redford and burnishing the profession of the older Newman, who turned a lifelong buddy.
The pair additionally teamed up as Thirties con artists in The Sting (1973), which gained Redford his solely nomination for an Oscar for greatest actor.
(left) Robert Redford, spouse Lola, and director Sydney Pollack seem on the presentation of the movie ‘Jeremiah Johnson’ in the course of the Cannes Movie Competition in Cannes, France on Might 7, 1972.
| Photograph Credit score:
AP
Behind the digicam
Now a family title, he starred in a succession of main movies akin to The Nice Gatsby (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975) and the critically acclaimed All of the President’s Males (1976), enjoying Bob Woodward, one of many Washington Put up journalists who broke the Watergate scandal.
The baseball traditional The Pure adopted in 1984 earlier than Redford had one other technology of ladies swooning within the epic romance Out of Africa (1985), through which he starred alongside Meryl Streep.
In one other profession excessive, he gained an Oscar for his directorial debut with Odd Individuals the next yr.
He went on to star with a younger Brad Pitt in A River Runs Via It (1992) and the Oscar-nominated Quiz Present (1994).
“Robert Redford’s work… at all times represents the person himself: the mental, the artist, the cowboy,” stated singer Barbra Streisand as she offered the avowed liberal and environmentalist with a Lifetime Achievement Oscar in 2002.
The actress, who performed his lover in The Manner We Have been (1973), stated: “He is at all times fascinating, he is at all times . He is very good, very non-public, he is confident, however shy.”
Director Robert Redford seems on set in the course of the filming of ‘A River Runs Via It’, close to Livingston, Mont., on June 17, 1991.
| Photograph Credit score:
AP
Indie guru
However Redford at all times noticed his half in launching the impartial Sundance Movie Competition in 1985 as one in every of his best achievements.
Created to assist aspiring filmmakers disaffected with Hollywood’s commercialism and lack of variety, it has fostered main impartial administrators akin to Jim Jarmusch, Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh.
In 2013 Redford stated that by pursuing the indie path, he had ensured his personal survival within the film enterprise.
“Had I given in to residing within the (Hollywood) system, I do not know that I’d be right here proper now.”
Aged 76, he was again on display screen for one in every of his meatiest starring roles in years, a solo efficiency as a lost-at-sea yachtsman in All Is Misplaced (2013).
He additionally had a job in Marvel Studios’ superhero blockbuster Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) and a cameo in its record-shattering Avengers: Endgame (2019).
In 2018 Redford stated that the best change in Hollywood over his 60-year profession had been the #MeToo motion, a “tipping level” he stated would change the business’s attitudes in the direction of ladies and sexual misconduct.
Redford had 4 youngsters along with his first spouse, Lola Van Wagenen, one in every of whom died as an toddler.
He married German artist and longtime girlfriend Sibylle Szaggars in 2009.
Printed – September 16, 2025 08:59 pm IST
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