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The tousled-haired heartthrob made his breakthrough alongside Paul Newman because the affable outlaw within the hippy Western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in 1969.
After 20 years as certainly one of Hollywood’s hottest actors, he moved behind the digicam changing into an Oscar-winning director and co-founded the Sundance Film Festival, which turned a springboard for a brand new era of impartial filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino.
“Few careers have had such an impact on the history of cinema,” mentioned French producer Alain Terzian earlier than awarding him the French equal of an Oscar in 2019.
No a clean ascent
But the athletic younger Redford’s beginnings have been removed from a clean ascent to the highest. The son of an accountant from Santa Monica, California, his mom died in 1955, a 12 months after he completed highschool.
He received a scholarship to the University of Colorado due to his baseball expertise, however misplaced it a 12 months later due to his heavy ingesting.
Redford spent the subsequent 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. | Photo Credit: AP
After numerous tv roles, his first massive 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 Kid about two outlaw buddies who flee to Bolivia to flee US authorities.
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The movie turned an immediate traditional, launching Redford and burnishing the profession of the older Newman, who turned a lifelong pal.
The pair additionally teamed up as Nineteen Thirties con artists in The Sting (1973), which received 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’ throughout the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France on May 7, 1972. | Photo Credit: AP
Behind the digicam
Now a family identify, he starred in a succession of main movies corresponding to The Great Gatsby (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975) and the critically acclaimed All the President’s Men (1976), taking part in Bob Woodward, one of many Washington Post journalists who broke the Watergate scandal.
The baseball traditional The Natural adopted in 1984 earlier than Redford had one other era of girls swooning within the epic romance Out of Africa (1985), by which he starred alongside Meryl Streep.
In one other profession excessive, he received an Oscar for his directorial debut with Ordinary People the next 12 months.
He went on to star with a younger Brad Pitt in A River Runs Through It (1992) and the Oscar-nominated Quiz Show (1994).
“Robert Redford’s work… always represents the man himself: the intellectual, the artist, the cowboy,” mentioned singer Barbra Streisand as she introduced the avowed liberal and environmentalist with a Lifetime Achievement Oscar in 2002.
The actress, who performed his lover in The Way We Were (1973), mentioned: “He’s always interesting, he’s always interested. He’s very smart, very private, he’s self-assured, but shy.”
Director Robert Redford seems on set throughout the filming of ‘A River Runs Through It’, close to Livingston, Mont., on June 17, 1991. | Photo Credit: AP
Indie guru
But Redford at all times noticed his half in launching the impartial Sundance Film Festival in 1985 as certainly one of his best achievements.
Created to assist aspiring filmmakers disaffected with Hollywood’s commercialism and lack of range, it has fostered main impartial administrators corresponding to Jim Jarmusch, Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh.
In 2013 Redford mentioned that by pursuing the indie path, he had ensured his personal survival within the film enterprise.
“Had I given in to living in the (Hollywood) system, I don’t know that I would be here right now.”
Aged 76, he was again on display screen for certainly one of his meatiest starring roles in years, a solo efficiency as a lost-at-sea yachtsman in All Is Lost (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 mentioned that the best change in Hollywood over his 60-year profession had been the #MeToo motion, a “tipping point” he mentioned would change the business’s attitudes in direction of girls and sexual misconduct.
Redford had 4 youngsters together with his first spouse, Lola Van Wagenen, certainly one of whom died as an toddler.
He married German artist and longtime girlfriend Sibylle Szaggars in 2009.
