2025, Media, Movies, News, Theatre

Robert Redford – RIP

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Robert Redford did so much during his career and it’s tempting to put up lists of his appearances and his time behind the camera as well as the microphone.  But the list would go on and on and on.

He was born in 1936 and began his career at the age of 23 on Broadway, starring in Tall Story.  His biggest early hit was Barefoot in the Park and went on to make a movie of that name with Jane Fonda.  Many small roles in television in the early years as well.  He worried about his “blond male” stereotype but eventually found not just his niche, but his first massive success in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in 1969.

I was 13 when I saw BCSK and was gutted. I’ve never been able to watch the entire movie since and I wore a poncho (in solidarity) until I wore it out.  I also cried for about an hour after seeing The Way We Were – have also never watched that one at all since.

However, I have watched Spy Game (with Brad Pitt) repeatedly and Sneakers (with Dan Akroyd, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell, Sidney Poitier, David Strathairn, River Phoenix) is one of my “watch-in-the-middle-of-the-night” movies.

In what I consider an amazing feat, his directorial debut was Ordinary People in 1980.  Four academy awards.  This is a searing film but so so so good.  Redford said in an interview once that he came across Mary Tyler Moore sitting on the beach looking out at the ocean and he just knew that she would be right for this part, even though she had never really done anything that serious before.  I’ve watched it repeatedly. 

A few years ago I tried to watch all of Redford’s movies. It was too big of a project but did result in my having seen A LOT of them.  Let’s see how many of the holes I can fill in.

It’s not a secret that he was a gifted actor, a gifted filmmaker, a gifted teacher and a gifted political activist.  Not too many of his ilk come along these days.  He will be missed.

Any favorite Robert Redford films?

23 thoughts on “Robert Redford – RIP”

        1. Made me curious so I checked. Ragtime is not considered jazz. But how wonderful is Scott Joplin’s music. I had an LP of it way back then.

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  5. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    I don’t know how to even choose given the very large body of work and various roles (actor, director, producer, etc) not to mention the many roles he acted. When I was thinking about his death yesterday, I realized that he was present at the beginning of my movie-going career. I think the first time I saw him was in Barefoot in the Park when I was 13 or 14 years old. Ordinary People is probably at the top of my favorites, but I loved The Sting, Butch and Sundance (which I think also became Thelma and Louise later, only with women), The River Runs Through it, The Great Waldo Pepper. The list is long.

    One of the funniest things I read yesterday was about his audition and interview with Mike Nichols for The Graduate, a role he did not get. In an interview about the movie, Mike Nichols said that in the interview with Redford, he asked him if he had ever “struck out” with a girl. Redford’s response was, “I don’t know what you mean.” The guy was so good looking that apparently that had never happened.

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  6. I know I’ve seen him in some movies but I can’t really come up with a favorite.
    I think I’ve only seen BCSK once, but I’ve always liked the song raindrops are falling on my head.
    And I would like to see The Sting again, I only saw that when it first came out with my parents and I don’t remember anything about it.
    I know I saw ordinary people, I feel like I saw it in school. I remember it was very impactful and I’ve never watched it again.

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  8. I think I have only seen about ten of Redford’s films. Butch Cassidy and The Sting were favorites. I think I also liked The Candidate, but I have only the vaguest recollection of that one. I don’t think I saw it more than once. It came out at a time when we were all rather jaded with politics.

    I saw the Natural, and I’ve written about that before. I think I was so indignant about that one that I didn’t see any of Redford’s later films, including A River Runs Through It. I loved that book, and I don’t want to see what Hollywood made of it.

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        1. I had seen the movie The Natural several times and then read the book. I have not watched the movie since. Suffice it to say they took the story and went completely Hollywood on it. The movie came out in 1984 and Malamud died in 1986. I’m pretty sure it was the movie that killed him.

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  9. OT: Had to laugh at Paul Huttner’s weather report on MPR during All Things Considered today. He said, when reporting about the weekend and the Farm Aid Concert in Mpls., something like: He wasn’t sure if a hard rain is going to fall, but it might be worth checking the weather beforehand.

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  11. Redford did the movie the horse whisperer out in Livingston, Montana, where my buddy has the Murray Hotel a classic Old 1900 vintage hotel where the cast stayed and my buddy was hired as a location manager to find spots to do shoots. He said that Redford was really a nice guy and he enjoyed working with him and that the group was wonderful at the hotel. I like the twilight zone episode and the sting what I really liked was his inclination to do things correctly, even though it would be easy and profitable for him to do things in the easy ways the film festival, the directorial choices, the choice of Brad Pitt in a river run through it is a memorable star on his bucket list. He had a fun career and he did very well with it.

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