Robert Redford: The Enthralling Performer With an Charisma Illuminated The Film Industry
The celebrated actor, who passed away in his late 80s, starred in over 50 movies, won an Academy Award for his work behind the camera, and was known as a dedicated advocate of indie creators through founding the annual Sundance Film Festival.
His success empowered him to choose roles that reflected his progressive values, and he was also a campaigner for environmental causes and Native American rights.
His timeless heartland appearance were unforgettable: One writer once said he looked like “a piece of a national monument clad in blue jeans.”
One commentator noted he had “an effortless physical grace and a radiant quality that gave the impression as if he shone internally.”
But the actor believed his appearance proved more of a barrier than a help in Hollywood, and mentioned that destiny had brought tragedy in his personal life as punishment for his good fortune.
The future star entered the world in California during the Depression era, the offspring of a milkman who subsequently transitioned to an accountant for a major corporation.
During school, he was part of a rough crowd and got into trouble for “borrowing a car that contained pilfered goods within.”
He was awarded a baseball scholarship to the University of Colorado, but was expelled after 18 months for drunkenness. Simultaneously, his parent died at 40.
Struck by sorrow, he traveled for a time, laboring in the oil industry then visiting Paris and Florence, where he pursued painting.
His time abroad gave him fresh insight about the United States: “It allowed me to look at the US from another angle,” he commented.
Coming back, he enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Art originally intending to work as a stage designer—though soon switched to performance.
Like many artists at the time, he gained small roles on Broadway and on television, including appearances in popular dramas like The Untouchables.
His cinematic debut came in the sixties through a minor role in Tall Story, in which he worked with Jane Fonda.
It was not an auspicious beginning for his movie path. The feature failed—and one magazine writing that “no one can rescue this picture.”
However, it signaled the beginning of a long-lasting friendship between them, Fonda confessed that she fell in love every time they teamed up.
“There was always an enigma because he didn’t reveal everything,” she said. “He has an aura to him.”
His first significant Broadway achievement was as self-important lawyer a role in Neil Simon’s love story the production. Subsequently reprised the part in the movie version, once more with Fonda.
In 1965, he won a honor for most promising newcomer for his performance in the movie with Natalie Wood.
Yet he was rejected for the part of the graduate in The Graduate as the director thought he appeared excessively handsome—which made Redford cautious of pigeonholing because of his looks.
Global fame came in 1969 with the western classic.
The 33-year-old’s interpretation of the easygoing Sundance Kid, alongside his partner’s charismatic Butch Cassidy, was among the best partnerships.
Amusingly, Redford nearly not getting the role because one studio executive commented: “He’s merely one more fair-haired actor. Hurl something from an opening there, and you’ll strike six like him.”
The production company did everything not to selecting Redford, till Newman—an enormous figure—stepped in and required he be hired.
The two actors discovered they had in common an interest of acting, and remained good pals up until Newman’s demise in the late 2000s.
