Robert Redford - Actor, Director, Creator of Sundance Film Festival 1937-

I decided that I’d only make movies that were a mirror of my own time.
—ROBERT REDFORD

though strikingly handsome, Robert Redford didn’t want to e just another pretty face. His blond hair, chiseled features, and magnetic charisma attracted attention to him that he was not always comfortable with. Though Redford longed for recognition of his talent, he was not prepared for the attention that came with fame and celebrity status.
Charles Robert Redford Jr. was born not far from the glamour of Hollywood in Santa Monica, California, on August 18, 1937. His father, Charles, was a milkman who worked long, tiring hours; his mother, Martha, was outgoing and dynamic. Young Charles hardly knew his father because he was so seldom home, but he adored his mother.
Redford was a sensitive but scrappy kid who began to rebel as a young teen. He stole car hubcaps, and once broke into Universal Studios. Yet he showed an artistic side, demonstrating a flair for writing and drawing. Redford also loved the outdoors. As a child, Redford fell in love with nature after
making a trip to Yosemite National Park. Preserving the power and beauty of the natural wilderness became one of his lifelong passions.
Redford channeled much of his restless energy into sports, winning a baseball scholarship to the University of Colorado. But he soon tired of the “win at any cost” attitude and started skipping practice. In 1 955 tragedy struck when his mother died from cancer. A year later Redford dropped out of college and went to Europe. He wandered around Italy and France for a while before returning to the States in 1957.
Settling in New York City, twenty-year-old Redford might have continued his aimlessness had he not met Lola Van Wagenen, a college student living in his apartment building. Lola became a stabilizing force in Redford’s life. Feeling rejuvenated, Redford enrolled at the Pratt Institute of Art. He and Lola married in September 1958 (they had four children before divorcing in 1 985).
At school Redford became intrigued by set design and was encouraged to experience performing onstage. He auditioned at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and found an inner connection. Acting allowed Redford to mask his own emotions while pretending to be someone else. It also gave him a way to release his bottled-up emotions.
Redford made his Broadway stage debut in 1959 in a small role in Tall Story. His performance got him an agent, and soon he was getting bigger and better parrs both onstage and in television. Redford made his first movie appearance in the 1962 film War Hunt, where he met costars Tom Skerritt and Sidney Pollack.
Redford launched into prominence after starring in the 1963 Broadway play Barefoot in the Park. The show was a hit, and Redford’s performance opened the way to Hollywood. He worked on several films, but they flopped at die box office. Needing a break, Redford took his family to Spain for a vacation. When he returned, he reprised his role in Barefoot in the Park for the big screen opposite Jane Fonda. Finally, Redford was in a film that was well received by critics and viewers alike. Still, Redford was considered an unprovcn star when director George Roy Hill cast him with actor Paul Newman in the 1969 smash hit Butch Camdy and the Sundance Kid. In h is seventh movie role, Redford became an overnight sensation.
Redford struggled to balance his celebrity with maintaining his privacy. He formed his own production company, Wildwood Films, and began to bring his intelligence and passion to his own projects. Intrigued by society’s increasing need to win at all costs, Redford wanted to produce a trilogy depicting that theme in the fields of sports, politics, and business. In his first attempt, Downhill Racer, Redford played a cocky skier more interested in individual triumph than being a team player. His next endeavor, The Candidate, was a dark film examining how people get elected to public office in America.
The 1970s was a prosperous decade for Redford. He agreed to star opposite Barbra Streisand in director Sydney Pollack’s 1973 political love story The Way We Were. The movie was a monster hit, and Redford overcame his hesitancy about playing a romantic lead. He reteamed with director George Roy Hill and Paul Newman to make The Sting and solidified his appeal as a strong leading man in The Great Gatsby and All the President’s Men.
In 1980 Redford moved behind the camera to direct the critically acclaimed, Oscar-winning drama Ordinary People. The film grabbed the top honor as Best Picture of the Year, and Redford won the Best Director Oscar. With his string of successes he began devoting less time to acting and more time to political causes, environmental ism, and founding his now-famous Sundance Institute. It is there that aspiring artists go to develop their own creative filmmaking skills. The institute is situated on 3,000 acres Redford purchased in his beloved Utah, not far from where he built a home for his family back in the 1960s. The institute’s reputation has grown over the years, and thousands flock there to participate in tbe annual Sundance Film Festival.
Redford returned to the big screen in 1984 as a baseball player in The Natural. Accepting another leading man role, Redford joined actress Meryl Streep in the moving story of author Isak Dinesen in Out of Africa. A few more films followed, as well as another turn in the director’s chair in the 1988 movie The Mibigro Beanfield War.
In the 1990s Redford again received critical acclaim for directing the aesthetically beautiful A River Runs Through It. The cast included Redford’s friend Tom Skerritt and a blond, young Redford-looking actor named Brad Pitt. The 1993 film Indecent Proposal was one of Redford’s biggest hits, which was followed by the third of his winning-at-any-cost trilogy, Quiz Show, which depicted die scandals of the TV quiz shows of the 1950s. Many critics felt it was Redford’s best directorial achievement, and he received an Oscar nomination for his efforts.
After appearing in the 1996 film Up Close and Personal, Redford set his sights on bringing Nicholas Evans’s novel The Horse Whisperer to the screen. Though panned by critics, it was a labor of love for Redford. In 2000 Redford directed stars Matt Damon and Will Smith in The Legend of Bagger Vance, the moving story of an aspiring golf pro who goes off to fight in World War I. Busy back on the movie set, Redford returned to the screen in two films in 2001 — The Last Castle and Spy Game.
In a career that has spanned five decades, Redford has demonstrated his passion for the arts. As an honored recipient of the National Medal of the Arts in 1996, Redford said, “Art, in all its forms, feeds and nurtures the soul of a society; provokes thought and debate; causes critical thinking; and fosters understanding of things foreign to our own immediate world.”
Chosen by the Board of Governors of the Motion Picture Academy to receive an honorary Oscar in 2002 for his contributions to the film industry, Robert Redford’s citation reads: “Actor, Director, Producer, Creator of Sundance, inspiration to independent and innovative filmmakers everywhere.”
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