Hanging with a killer. Sleeping in cow manure. Throwing himself off a
roof. These are just a few details about the notoriously private Robert Redford.
Robert Redford was born to a middle-class family in Santa Monica, California. His father
worked as a milkman and, later, an oil company accountant, while his mother was a homemaker.
She shared her love of films and books with her son, while also teaching him how to draw.
"She believed in me. And she was always very supportive. More than any family member."
Sadly, Redford's time with his mother was cut short. In 1954, a year after he graduated from
high school, she died from septicemia. Years later, during a chat with NPR,
the actor noted that his family didn't deal well with loss. He explained —
"[I] come from a dark family [that] emigrated from Ireland and Scotland.
Didn't talk much. You don't complain much. [...] You bear
the brunt of whatever comes your way, and you do it with grace."
This attitude toward death wasn't due to his mother's untimely passing. Years earlier,
Martha Redford gave birth to twin girls who died shortly thereafter. Robert remembered
it as yet another instance where tragedy simply wasn't discussed.
It's hard to imagine that a charming, confident movie star like Robert Redford
once struggled to fit in. But Redford's experience growing up was anything but easy.
According to Robert Redford: The Biography by Michael Feeney Callan,
a local gang called the Pachucks once harassed him, leading to a scary incident on a rooftop.
The gang dared him to jump from the roof to prove he was a man. Redford did so, and nearly died in
the process. The moment led to a revelation that Redford shared with his biographer:
"You have two choices, it seemed to me. You can be led by your fears, or you can overcome them."
Soon, the tables turned. Redford and some school friends started their own gang, the Barons,
which was essentially a front for various illegal activities
such as theft and breaking and entering.
Success didn't come easy for Robert Redford. Speaking to Success magazine in 1980,
Redford confessed that, in high school, he repeatedly got fired by his employers,
noting that he failed at everything. Thankfully, Redford was gifted with natural athletic ability.
After high school, he went to the University of Colorado on
a baseball scholarship. Not one to abide by the rules or hit the books, however,
Redford dropped out after a year. He decided to move to Europe in hopes of becoming an artist.
Redford first went to Paris, where he credits his time in the French capital
for sparking an interest in cultural and political affairs. After France,
Redford moved to Italy, where he hitchhiked around the country and
painted in the streets to make money. Clearly, Redford wasn't flourishing.
He confessed to his biographer that he once slept in cow manure as a means to stay warm.
In 1958, Redford sold all his artwork for $200,
enough to return home to America. He shared with Success magazine that,
"[The experience] gave me a kind of nervousness, which was good."
When Robert Redford returned home from Europe, a friend observed his affinity for the theater
and told him to get some acting experience by attending New York's American Academy of
Dramatic Arts. Redford did just that, but after leaving the conservatory,
making a living remained challenging. By this time, he'd married historian Lola Van Wagenen,
and the couple were living on his wife's bank job of $55 a week. When Van Wagenen got pregnant,
she had to stop working. Unfortunately, the pair had nothing in their savings account.
After being rejected for countless parts, Redford finally got lucky in 1959,
when he landed a role in a Broadway comedy called Tall Story. He had only one line,
but the budding star got paid $82 a week. Redford recalled his audition as a mess,
playing with a basketball and acting crazy until the director finally agreed to hire him
on the condition he stop acting immediately. And the rest, as they say, was history.
Robert Redford's love for the wilderness dates back to his youth,
when his mother took him to Navajo reservations in Arizona and Yosemite.
His love for the natural world has continued to inspire Redford throughout his life.
"If anybody ever asks me why you don't live in Beverly Hills, now I'll be able to tell 'em."
In the 1950s, while riding a motorcycle from California to Colorado, Redford discovered
Provo Canyon. Stunned by the beauty of Utah's Mount Timpanogos, the actor declared that he'd
soon return and build a home nearby. True to his word, Redford and his new wife returned to Utah
and bought two acres for $500. That land would become part of Redford's Sundance compound and,
later, the Sundance Mountain Resort. As his career began to take off, Redford bought more
land. In an interview with Architectural Digest, Redford described this time as,
"Do another TV show, buy another acre."
By the late '60s, developers had begun efforts to disrupt Utah's natural landscape,
so Redford and some friends bought thousands of acres, successfully preserving the area. By
the late '80s, he added 95 cottages to his resort, later building over 200. In 2020,
he finally sold the property, praising the buyers in an interview with Forbes by saying:
"Change is inevitable. [They'll] ensure that future generations
can continue to find solace and inspiration here."
The Sundance Institute, which houses the annual Sundance Film Festival,
was founded by Robert Redford at his resort. In 1978,
Redford attended the now-defunct United States Film Festival in Salt Lake City,
where he and a handful of other people watched an indie flick. The actor recalled to Time —
"[The director] has something special to say. I [wished] there was a way to help [them]."
By 1984, Redford had founded The Sundance Institute, and he held its first film
festival a year later. The star explained in an interview with the Walker Art Center —
"The reason I started Sundance was because I felt that the mainstream was
completely controlling exhibition, and I just felt that there were a whole
lot of other people out there who were talented, who had stories to be told,
but they were undisciplined because they had not had a chance to develop themselves."
Sundance has given many major names their first big breaks,
including directors Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, and Wes Anderson.
By the early 1960s, Robert Redford was finding steady work in the film industry as his star
power rose. He and his wife were parents to two children, yet something was missing.
Redford was at a loss, so he decided to take a solo road trip to clear his head.
He parked his car in California's Big Sur and walked for 90 miles.
He finally came across Deetjen's Big Sur Inn and became fast friends with the hotel's owner,
a convicted murderer who spent time in Alcatraz before arriving in Big Sur.
The men spoke endlessly over the course of a few days.
In his authorized biography, Redford remembers thinking,
"Here's a man who'd come full circle in the journey of life.
He'd get plastered and cuss at the world. He was volatile, but he had great wisdom."
Those days spent with the innkeeper were just the
fix Redford needed to reignite his overall lust for life.
It's hard to imagine anyone other than Dustin Hoffman playing panicked,
clueless Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate,
but the 1967 classic almost had a completely different actor as its star.
The film's director, Mike Nichols, had directed Robert Redford on Broadway in Barefoot in the
Park, and they'd become friends. When Nichols began casting The Graduate, his buddy was
keen on the lead role. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Nichols recalled telling Redford,
"I said, 'You can't play it. You can never play a loser.'"
When Redford protested, Nichols asked him a simple question:
did he ever get rejected by a woman? Redford was confused. The answer was, obviously, no.
"Excuse me. Would you mind lending me your wife?"
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, released in 1969, is the movie that made Robert Redford
a household name. In an interview with The Salt Lake City Tribune, he recalled,
"When I read [the script], I thought, 'This is perfect for me.' It had a lot to do with
my own sensibility, which has always been kind of an outlaw sensibility since I was a kid."
Redford was still relatively unknown in Hollywood, and director George Roy Hill wanted someone else
for the role. But Paul Newman respected Redford as a fellow stage actor and pushed for him. On set,
the two men quickly discovered shared interests that only grew as time went on.
In fact, Redford had so much fun with Newman that he's been quoted as saying that he felt
guilty for taking money for his work due to how enjoyable the entire experience was.
"Think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?"
In addition to Redford's iconic portrayal of the Sundance Kid,
he's also responsible for the shooting location. Hill intended to film in Spain to save money,
but Redford took the director to his stomping grounds in Utah
and explained why it was historically and visually important for the film.
Being a Tinseltown icon for six decades means Robert Redford has
countless famous pals — but he was particularly close to fellow Hollywood legend Natalie Wood.
Redford first met the child star at Van Nuys High School, where he was in charge of moderating
the entrance of late students into assemblies. One day, when Wood was late, Redford wouldn't let her
into the auditorium. He didn't have a clue who she was, he explained in an interview with TCM —
"She begs, but I won't budge, so she storms off."
Years later, Redford ran into his former schoolmate again when they co-starred in
1965's Inside Daisy Clover. The two hit it off, in part thanks to a kind gesture
made by Redford. The stars had to shoot a scene on a boat off the Santa Monica pier
and, thanks to heavy winds, they got stranded at sea. Wood, who was famously afraid of the water,
was visibly upset, so Redford took it upon himself to ease the tension. From that moment,
they became lifelong friends until Wood's untimely passing in 1981. Redford shared with TCM that,
"I'll always be thankful to Natalie for the things that she taught me."
In 2016, Robert Redford announced that he'd be retiring from acting after two more films.
"I can't do this forever. I've been doing it since I was 21.
As you move into your 80s, you say, 'Hey, that's enough.'"
His final flick is the David Lowery directed The Old Man and the Gun. Brian Tallerico of
RogerEbert.com dubbed it, quote, "a love letter to a cinematic legend."
The Old Man and the Gun is based on a true story. Redford plays Forrest Tucker, who, at the age of
70, has escaped California's San Quentin State Prison. He immediately goes back to doing what
he does best: robbing banks. However, the main thing that separates Tucker from other criminals
is that he oozes a sort of gentlemanly charm that even his hostages can't help but fall for.
"He had a gun." "You saw it." "Well, he was also sort of a gentleman."
In an interview with the HFPA, the actor explained,
"Some of the other outlaws I've played have done what they've done because they were
against the law. [Tucker] isn't against anything. He's just having a good time."
He told Variety that he hopes the movie will simply make people smile.
You couldn't ask for a more perfect send-off for a Hollywood icon.