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| Robert Redford |
Today, The Grandma is relaxing at home. She is watching some films interpreted by one of her favourite actors, Robert Redford, who was born on a day like today in 1936. She thinks the best way to homage Robert Redford is talking about his life and his incredible career.
Charles Robert Redford Jr. (born August 18, 1936) is an American actor, director and activist. Throughout his career, he has won several film awards, including an Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2002.
He is also the founder of the Sundance Film Festival. In April 2014, Time magazine included Redford in their annual Time 100 as one of the Most Influential People in the World, declaring him the Godfather of Indie Film. In 2016, he was honored with a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Redford began acting on television in the late 1950s, including an appearance on The Twilight Zone in 1962. He earned an Emmy nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Voice of Charlie Pont (1962). His greatest Broadway success was as the stuffy newlywed husband of co-star Elizabeth Ashley's character in Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1963).
Redford made his film debut in War Hunt (1962). His role in Inside Daisy Clover (1965) won him a Golden Globe for the best new star. He starred alongside Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), which was a huge success and made him a major star.
He had a critical and box office hit with Jeremiah Johnson (1972), and in 1973 he had the greatest hit of his career, the blockbuster crime caper The Sting, a re-union with Paul Newman, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award; that same year, he also starred opposite Barbra Streisand in The Way We Were. The popular and acclaimed All the President's Men (1976) was a landmark film for Redford.
More information: Roger Ebert
In the 1980s, Redford began his career as a director with Ordinary People (1980), which was one of the most critically and publicly acclaimed films of the decade, winning four Oscars including Best Picture and the Academy Award for Best Director for Redford.
He continued acting and starred in Brubaker (1980), as well as playing the male lead in Out of Africa (1985), which was an enormous box office success and won seven Oscars including Best Picture. He released his third film as a director, A River Runs Through It, in 1992.
He went on to receive Best Director and Best Picture nominations in 1995 for Quiz Show. He received a second Academy Award -for Lifetime Achievement- in 2002.
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| With Jane Fonda & Barbra Streisand (Then & now) |
In 2010, he was made a chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur. He has won BAFTA, Directors Guild of America, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild awards.
Redford was born on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California to Martha Hart (1914-1955) and Charles Robert Redford Sr. (1914-1991), an accountant. He has a stepbrother, William, from his father's first marriage.
Redford's career, like that of many major stars who emerged in the 1950s, began in New York City, where an actor could find work both on stage and in television.
His Broadway debut was in a small role in Tall Story (1959), followed by parts in The Highest Tree (1959) and Sunday in New York (1961). His biggest Broadway success was as the stuffy newlywed husband of Elizabeth Ashley in the original 1963 cast of Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park.
Starting in 1960, Redford appeared as a guest star on numerous television drama programs, including Naked City, Maverick, The Untouchables, The Americans, Whispering Smith, Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Route 66, Dr. Kildare, Playhouse 90, Tate, The Twilight Zone, The Virginian, and Captain Brassbound's Conversion with a young Christopher Plummer, among others.
Redford made his screen debut in Tall Story (1960) in a minor role. The film's stars were Anthony Perkins, Jane Fonda (her debut), and Ray Walston.
More information: Harvard Business Review
After this initial success, Redford became concerned about his blond male stereotype image and turned down roles in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate.
Redford found the niche he was looking for in George Roy Hill's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), scripted by William Goldman, in which he was paired for the first time with Paul Newman.
Starting in 1973, Redford experienced an almost unparalleled four-year run of box office success. The western Jeremiah Johnson's (1972) box office earnings from early 1973 until its second re-release in 1975 would have placed it as the No. 2 highest-grossing film of 1973.
The romantic period drama with Barbara Streisand, The Way We Were (1973), was the 11th highest-grossing film of 1973. The crime caper reunion with Paul Newman, The Sting (1973), became the top-grossing film of 1974 and one of the top 20 highest-grossing movies of all time when adjusted for inflation, plus landed Redford the lone nomination of his career for the Academy Award for Best Actor. The romantic drama The Great Gatsby (1974) was the No. 8 highest-grossing film of 1974.
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| Robert Redford & Paul Newman |
In 1975, Redford's hit movies included 1920s aviation drama, The Great Waldo Pepper (1975), and the spy thriller Three Days of the Condor (1975), alongside Faye Dunaway.
In 1976 he co-starred with Dustin Hoffman in the critically acclaimed All the President's Men.
All the President's Men (1976), in which Redford and Hoffman play Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, was a landmark film for Redford.
Not only was he the executive producer and co-star, but the film's serious subject matter -the Watergate scandal- and its attempt to create a realistic portrayal of journalism also reflected the actor's offscreen concerns for political causes.
In 1977 Redford appeared in a segment of the war film A Bridge Too Far (1977). Then he took a two-year hiatus from movies, before starring as past-his-prime rodeo star in the adventure-romance The Electric Horseman (1979). This film reunited him with Jane Fonda and which finished at No. 9 in the box office for 1980.
Later that year he appeared in the prison drama Brubaker (1980), playing a prison warden attempting to reform the system. As well, his directoral debut, Ordinary People, which followed the disintegration of an upper-class American family after the death of a son, was one of the most critically and publicly acclaimed films of the decade, winning four Oscars, including Best Director for Redford himself, and Best Picture.
More information: AARP
He starred in the baseball drama The Natural (1984) and in Sydney Pollack's Out of Africa (1985).
Redford's next film, Legal Eagles (1986) alongside Debra Winger, was only a minor success at the box office.
Redford continued as a major star throughout the 1990s and 2000s. He released his third film as a director, A River Runs Through It, in 1992, which was a return to mainstream success for Redford as a director and brought a young Brad Pitt to greater prominence.
In 1993, Redford played what became one of his most popular and recognized roles, starring in Indecent Proposal as a millionaire businessman who tests a couple's morals; the film became one of the year's biggest hits.
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| Robert Redford's Roles |
He co-starred with Michelle Pfeiffer in the newsroom romance Up Close & Personal (1996), and with Kristin Scott Thomas and a young Scarlett Johansson in The Horse Whisperer (1998), which he also directed.
Redford also continued work in films with political contexts, such as Havana (1990), playing Jack Weil, a professional gambler in 1959 Cuba during the Revolution, as well as Sneakers (1992), in which he co-starred with River Phoenix and Sidney Poitier, his first teaming with the star who had experienced film success several years before Redford. He appeared as a disgraced Army general sent to prison in the prison drama The Last Castle (2001), directed by Rod Lurie. In the same year, Redford reteamed with Brad Pitt for Spy Game, another success for the pair but with Redford switching this time from director to actor.
Redford returned to familiar territory when he reteamed with Meryl Streep 22 years after they starred in Out of Africa, for his personal project Lions for Lambs (2007), which also starred Tom Cruise.
Redford starred in The Discovery and Our Souls at Night, both released on Netflix streaming in 2017. The latter film, which was also produced by Redford, reunited him with co-star Jane Fonda for the fourth time and garnered positive reviews.
More information: Time
In August 2018, Redford announced his retirement from acting after completion of the film.
With the financial proceeds of his acting success, starting with his salaries from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Downhill Racer, Redford bought an entire ski area on the east side of Mount Timpanogos northeast of Provo, Utah, called Timp Haven, which was renamed Sundance. Redford's wife Lola was from Utah and they had built a home in the area in 1963. Portions of the movie Jeremiah Johnson (1972), a film which is both one of Redford's favorites and one that has heavily influenced him, was shot near the ski area.
The Sundance Film Festival caters to independent filmmakers in the United States and has received recognition from the industry as a place to open films.
In 2008, Sundance exhibited 125 feature-length films from 34 countries, with more than 50,000 attendees. The name Sundance comes from his Sundance Kid character. Redford also owned a restaurant called Zoom, located on Main Street in the former mining town of Park City, until its closure in May 2017.
Robert Redford founded the Sundance Institute, Sundance Cinemas, Sundance Catalog, and the Sundance Channel, all in and around Park City, Utah, 48 km north of the Sundance ski area.
More information: Collider
Sundance was started as a mechanism
for the discovery of new voices and new talent.
Robert Redford
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