Having passed away at the age of 89, the American film legend, successful actor-director, and early activist for the Democratic Party and environmentalism, is now being honored by everyone. Including Donald Trump. This is quite an achievement in an America that is more divided than ever.
Along with Paul Newman, who passed away before him, they were among Hollywood’s male icons.
He will be missed not only by his fans, whether they were admirers of his charismatic acting or his exceptional beauty, both virile and romantic, but also by the Democratic and environmentalist causes—of which he was a fierce defender long before it became a must—by independent cinema, for which he created a festival, and finally by… horses, to whose ears he would whisper.
Passed away in his sleep
Robert Redford left this planet at the age of 89, in his sleep, on Tuesday, September 16, at his home in the mountains of Utah.
But the giant of American cinema will live on forever, shining through the many masterpieces in which he starred or directed.
Born on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California, to a dairy farmer turned accountant father and a stay-at-home mother, he inherited his artistic side from the latter.
A rebellious child and teenager, he managed to channel his energy into sports and dreamed of becoming a baseball player.
But he was also searching for something else. An avid reader, jazz lover, and traveler (after college, he spent time in Europe, notably in Florence and then Paris, where he studied fine arts), he finally found his calling in an art form that allowed him to live several lives and fulfill several desires at once: cinema.
Noticed by Broadway and then Hollywood
A graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, he began his professional theater career in the late 1950s on Broadway before being noticed by Hollywood.
After his first major film role in 1966 in The Chase, his career as an international star took off in 1969 with George Roy Hill’s cult western film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, in which he starred alongside another future icon of American cinema, Paul Newman.
This was only the beginning of a dazzling career, with 70 roles to his credit, often alongside other Hollywood legends such as Meryl Streep, Mia Farrow, Barbra Streisand, Faye Dunaway, and Dustin Hoffman, and under the direction of the greatest filmmakers.
Among his most memorable films are The Sting (again) by George Roy Hill (1973), The Way We Were (1973) and Three Days of the Condor (1975), both by Sydney Pollack, The Great Gatsby by Jack Clayton (1974), Three Days of the Condor, by (once again) Sydney Pollack (1975), All the President’s Men by Alan J. Pakula (1976), Out of Africa by (once again) Sydney Pollack (1985), and more.
He starred in his last film, The Old Man and the Gun, directed by David Lowery, in 2018, in which he played a gentleman bank robber.
Equally successful behind the camera
But Robert Redford also made a successful transition to the other side of the camera, directing 1980’s Ordinary People, which won both the Oscar (and Golden Globe in the same category) for Best Picture and Best Director. Other films, such as A River Runs Through It (1992) and The Horse Whisperer (1998), also made an impression on moviegoers with their sensitivity and their subtle advocacy for nature.
Robert Redford has thus managed to maintain his popularity throughout his career, whether playing an honest journalist in search of the truth, who manages to expose the Watergate scandal and bring about the downfall of Robert Nixon in All the President’s Men, or a likeable con man in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid or The Sting.
His talent also made him popular with his peers, who awarded him several prizes, including an honorary Oscar in 2002 and an honorary César in 2019.
After becoming a producer, he founded the Sundance Film Festival in Utah in 1981, where he owns property. The festival has become an international benchmark for independent film, a place where talents such as Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, and Darren Aronofsky have been discovered.
Two marriages
In his real life, Robert Redford was married twice, first to producer Lola Van Wagenen from 1958 to 1985, with whom he had four children: Scott Anthony, Shauna, Amy, and James. He suffered the tragedy of losing two of his sons: Scott, who died at five months old from sudden infant death syndrome, and James, who died at the age of 58 from liver cancer.
In 2009, the actor married German painter and photographer Sibylle Szaggars, who is also a committed environmentalist.
She was 21 years his junior and lived with him until his last breath.
Final achievement
By passing away from a world that is currently more divided than ever, Robert Redford achieved one last feat.
Despite his well-known commitment to the Democratic Party—in 2016, Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States—he was praised by Donald Trump in an unambiguous tribute. “There were years when there was no one better,” commented the US president.
For actress Jane Fonda, the actor’s comrade-in-arms, whose ideas are light years away from Donald Trump’s, Robert Redford “embodied an America for which we must continue to fight.”
Getting Jane Fonda and Donald Trump to agree on something today is rare enough to be worth mentioning…
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Featured photo: Robert Redford in The Three Days of the Condor © Paramount/Dino de Laurentiis
