Photograph of Robert Redford.
Robert Redford

Early life

Redford was born Charles Robert Redford, Jr. in Santa Monica, California, the son of Martha W. (née Hart) and Charles Robert Redford, Sr., a milkman turned accountant. He has a half-brother, William, from his father's re-marriage. Redford is of Scotch-Irish ancestry. He graduated from Van Nuys High School in Los Angeles, California, in 1954 and received a baseball scholarship to the University of Colorado, where he was a pitcher and a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. He lost the scholarship due to adolescent drinking, fueled in part by the death of his mother when Redford was 18. Redford was later a painting student at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and took classes in theatrical set design at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. He attended the University of Colorado on a baseball scholarship but dropped out in 1957 to spend a year traveling and painting in Europe. Back in the United States, he studied theatrical design and acting in New York.

Career

Redford is known for his roles in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Jeremiah Johnson, All the President's Men, The Sting, The Natural, The Way We Were, Out of Africa, The Great Gatsby, and many others. Redford directed the films Ordinary People (for which he won the Academy Award), Quiz Show, The Legend of Bagger Vance, The Horse Whisperer, The Milagro Beanfield War, and A River Runs Through It. He was also a producer on all except Ordinary People.



In 1980, Redford's directorial debut, Ordinary People, won him the Academy Award for Directing; his 1994 film, Quiz Show, was nominated for best director, but lost to Forrest Gump. Along with Warren Beatty, Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson, Richard Attenborough, and Kevin Costner, Redford is one of the few major actors to win an Academy Award for Best Director. Despite a number of critically acclaimed roles, he has never won an Academy Award for acting (the closest he came was a nomination for The Sting). His only Oscar came for directing Ordinary People.
1950s-early 1960s
During this time, Redford appeared in numerous shows, including as a "stooge" on the quiz show Play Your Hunch. His other early appearances were as The Kid in the acclaimed stage and TV version of Eugene O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh" starring Jason Robards for which he received fine reviews, The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents (in 3 different episodes), Maverick, Naked City, Route 66, Dr. Kildare, Playhouse 90 (in which he won critical praise; CBS, 1960), and The Untouchables. He earned an Emmy nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Voice of Charlie Pont (ABC, 1962). Redford's 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 Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1963).
Mid 1960s-early 1970s
Redford made his screen debut in War Hunt (1962), co-starring with John Saxon in a film set during the last days of the Korean War. This film also marked the debuts of Sydney Pollack and Tom Skerritt. After his Broadway success, he was cast in larger feature roles in movies. He played a bisexual movie star who marries starlet Natalie Wood in Inside Daisy Clover (1965) and rejoined her for Pollack's This Property Is Condemned (1966)—again as her lover. The same year saw his first teaming with Jane Fonda (Arthur Penn's pallid The Chase, in which he was a fugitive on the run). Fonda and Redford were paired to better effect in the big screen version of Barefoot in the Park (1967), and were again co-stars in Pollack's The Electric Horseman (1979).

Redford was increasingly concerned about his blond male starlet image and turned down roles in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate, holding out for George Roy Hill's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) with Paul Newman. The film made him a bankable star and cemented his screen image as an intelligent, reliable, sometimes sardonic good guy. He became a huge matinee idol in the 1970s because of his blond pretty boy good looks (whether he liked it or not).

His next few films, while not artistic losses, were hardly hits at the box office. Downhill Racer (1969), for which he served as executive producer, was a look at the world of competitive skiing; Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969), Little Fauss and Big Halsey (1970), The Hot Rock (1972) did little to augment Redford's stardom. The wilderness drama Jeremiah Johnson (1972) was a critical and box office hit and was reportedly one of Redford's favorite roles. His next real success came with the incisive political satire The Candidate (1972), which traded on his Golden Boy image to skewer Watergate-era Washington.
1970s
The year 1973 was a huge one for Redford, who starred in the high-profile The Way We Were and The Sting. The former teamed him with a glowing Barbra Streisand in a romance that spanned the years; the latter rejoined him with Newman in a crime comedy. About the first film, Redford joked, "nice Jewish girl gets nice blond WASP", and about the second, "nice Jewish BOY gets nice blond WASP." Already, Redford was known for bringing out the best in his co-stars—his frequent pairings with Newman, Wood and Fonda worked superbly, and actresses such as Streisand, Faye Dunaway, Meryl Streep and Michelle Pfeiffer were rarely so relaxed or sensual as when playing opposite him.

During the years 1974-76, exhibitors voted Redford Hollywood's top box office name—his hits included the glossy but impressive-looking The Great Gatsby (1974), The Great Waldo Pepper (1975) and Three Days of the Condor (1975). The popular and acclaimed All the President's Men (1976), directed by Alan J. Pakula and scripted once again by Goldman, 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, also reflected the actor's offscreen concerns for political causes.
1980s - 2000s
In 1980, Redford's first outing as a director, Ordinary People, a drama about the slow disintegration of an upper-middle class family, won him an Oscar. Redford managed to get a powerful dramatic performance out of America's Sweetheart, Mary Tyler Moore, as well as superb work from Donald Sutherland and Timothy Hutton. He also starred in The Natural (1984), based on characters and situations from Bernard Malamud's 1952 novel by the same name, The Natural. The film won Redford new fans and further acclaim.

His second stint behind the camera would not be for another eight years with The Milagro Beanfield War (1988), a well-crafted—though not commercially successful screen version of John Nichols' acclaimed novel of the Southwest. Other directorial projects have included the successful period family drama A River Runs Through It (1992), based on Norman Maclean's novella, and the intelligent expose Quiz Show (1994), about the quiz show scandal of the late 1950’s. Working from a screenplay by Paul Attanasio with noted cinematographer Michael Ballhaus and a strong cast that featured John Turturro, Rob Morrow and Ralph Fiennes. Redford's skill behind the camera earned him well-deserved praise. Redford handpicked Morrow for his part in the film (his only high profile feature film role to date), because he liked his work on Northern Exposure.

Besides his directing and producing duties, Redford continued acting as he entered middle age. He made a fine romantic lead opposite Meryl Streep in Sydney Pollack's Oscar-winning Out of Africa (1985). Although many critics complained that his portrayal of Isak Dinesen's lover was unrealistic, Redford's characterization was more substantial than the ghostly figure of Dinesen's book. After the box-office disaster of Havana (1990), he turned in amiable performances in the high-tech caper Sneakers (1992), the sexy drama Indecent Proposal (1993), with Demi Moore, and opposite Michelle Pfeiffer in the newsroom romance Up Close & Personal (1996). Continuing in the romantic vein, Redford directed and starred opposite Kristin Scott Thomas in a strong adaptation of Nicholas Evans' novel The Horse Whisperer (1998). Like his other directorial efforts, the film featured a strong cast in a drama that centered around a troubled family. His follow-up behind the camera, The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000), portrayed star Will Smith as a black caddy with mystical powers. Redford next returned to acting playing an aging CIA operative whose protégé goes rogue and is imprisoned in China in Spy Game (2001).
Honors
In 1995, Redford received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Bard College. In December of 2005, he received honors at the Kennedy Center for his contributions to American culture. The Honors recipients are recognized for their lifetime contributions to American culture through the performing arts: whether in dance, music, theater, opera, motion pictures or television. Currently, he is the narrator for the Cosmic Collision movie at the Denver Nature and Science Plantetarium.
Filmography

Sundance

With the financial proceeds of his acting success, starting with his salaries from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Downhill Racer, Redford bought a modest ski area just northeast of Provo, Utah called "Timphaven," which was renamed "Sundance" (over his initial objections). 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, were shot near the ski area. He founded the Sundance Film Festival, Sundance Institute, Sundance Cinemas, Sundance Catalog, and the Sundance Channel, all in and around Park City, Utah, 30 miles (48 km) north of the Sundance 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. The name Sundance comes from his character, the Sundance Kid. In addition, Redford owns a celebrated restaurant called Zoom, located on Main Street in the former mining town of Park City.
Independent films
Since founding the nonprofit Sundance Institute in Park City, Utah, in 1981, Redford has been deeply involved with independent film. Through its various workshop programs and popular film festival, Sundance has provided much-needed support for independent filmmakers. In 1995, Redford signed a deal with Showtime to start a 24-hour cable TV channel devoted to airing independent films—the Sundance Channel premiered on February 29, 1996. Meanwhile, Redford continued his involvement in mainstream Hollywood movies, though projects became fewer and farther between. He appeared as a disgraced Army general sent to prison in the political thriller, The Last Castle (2001), directed by fellow political junkie Rod Lurie. Redford, a leading environmental activist, narrated the IMAX documentary Sacred Planet (2001), a sweeping journey across the globe to some of its most exotic and endangered places. In The Clearing (2004), an under-appreciated thriller co-starring Helen Mirren, Redford was a successful businessman whose kidnapping unearths the secrets and inadequacies that led to his achieving the American Dream. Redford stepped back into producing with The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), a coming-of-age road film about a young medical student, Ernesto Guevera—who later became celebrated revolutionary Che Guevera—and his friend Alberto Granado. Five years in the making, Redford was credited by director Walter Salles for being instrumental in getting the film made and released. Back in front of the camera, Redford received good notices for his turn in director Lasse Hallstrom's An Unfinished Life (2005) as a cantankerous rancher who is forced to take in his estranged daughter-in-law (Jennifer Lopez)—whom he blames for his son's death—and the granddaughter he never knew he had when they flee an abusive relationship. Despite solid acting, the film, which sat on the shelf for many months while its distributor Miramax was restructured, was generally dismissed as clichéd and overly sentimental. Meanwhile, Redford returned to familiar territory when he signed on to direct and star in an update of The Candidate.

Personal life

Redford currently resides in Sundance, Utah. He is politically liberal, and has supported environmentalism and Native American rights. Most of his federal political contributions have been to Democrats (61.0%) or special interest groups (34.6%) like the DGA-PAC, the Political Action Committee of the Directors Guild of America ($8,100). He did break ranks and contributed to one Republican, Brent Cornell Morris in 1990 with Morris running for Utah's 3rd congressional district (Morris lost his congressional bid in the Utah primary). and Gary R. Herbert, a friend of Mr. Redford declined to run for the U.S. House, and instead ran and was elected as a Utah County Commissioner, later as Utah's Lieutenant Governor.

Redford married Lola Van Wagenen on September 12, 1958. The couple had four children: Scott (born 1959 and died shortly after from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), Shauna (born November 15, 1960), David James (born May 15, 1962), and Amy (born October 22, 1970). They divorced in 1985. His companions since have included actress Sonia Braga (during 1988), Kathy O'Rear (from the late 1980s to 1995) and German painter Sibylle Szaggars (1996-current). Redford has four grandchildren.

His daughter Amy is set to direct her first feature film, an independent drama entitled The Guitar. His other daughter Shauna is married to Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser, with whom she has two children.

References

Who is Robert Redford connected to?
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This biography says:

...Redford managed to get a powerful dramatic performance out of America's Sweetheart, Mary Tyler Moore, as well as superb work from Donald Sutherland and Timothy Hutton. He also starred in The Natural (1984), based on characters and situations from Bernard Malamud's 1952 novel by the same name, The Natural...

This biography says:

...Working from a screenplay by Paul Attanasio with noted cinematographer Michael Ballhaus and a strong cast that featured John Turturro, Rob Morrow and Ralph Fiennes. Redford's skill behind the camera earned him well-deserved praise. Redford handpicked Morrow for his part in the film (his only high profile feature film role to date), because he liked his work on Northern Exposure...

This biography says:

...After his Broadway success, he was cast in larger feature roles in movies. He played a bisexual movie star who marries starlet Natalie Wood in Inside Daisy Clover (1965) and rejoined her for Pollack's This Property Is Condemned (1966)—again as her lover...

That biography says:

...The film's billing is unusual in that Stewart was given top billing over Wayne in the trailers and on the posters but Wayne had top billing in the film itself, a system later repeated by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in All the President's Men. The film garnered so-so reviews and faired poorly at the box office, but is now considered a late Ford classic...

This biography says:

...About the first film, Redford joked, "nice Jewish girl gets nice blond WASP", and about the second, "nice Jewish BOY gets nice blond WASP." Already, Redford was known for bringing out the best in his co-stars—his frequent pairings with Newman, Wood and Fonda worked superbly, and actresses such as Streisand, Faye Dunaway, Meryl Streep and Michelle Pfeiffer were rarely so relaxed or sensual as when playing opposite him....

This biography says:

...Redford's 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 Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1963).

That biography says:

...Cobb) *1966 - After the Fox - Director: Vittorio DeSica (with Peter Sellers and Victor Mature) *1967 - Barefoot in the Park - Director: Gene Saks (with Robert Redford and Jane Fonda) *1968 - The Odd Couple - Director: Gene Saks (with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau) *1969 - Sweet Charity - Director: Bob Fosse (with Shirley MacLaine, Chita Rivera and Sammy Davis Jr.) *1970 - The Out-of-Towners - Director: Arthur Hiller (with Jack Lemmon) *1971 - Plaza Suite - Director: Arthur Hiller (with Walter Matthau) *1972 - The Last of the Red Hot Lovers - Director: Gene Saks (with Alan Arkin) *1972 - The Heartbreak Kid - Director: Elaine May (with Cybill Shepard and Charles Grodin) *1975 - The Prisoner of Second Avenue - Director: Melvin Frank (with Jack Lemmon and Anne Bancroft) *1975 - The Sunshine Boys - Director: Herbert Ross (with Walter Matthau and George Burns) *1976 - Murder by Death - Director: Robert Moore (with Truman Capote, Peter Falk, Alec Guinness, David Niven and Peter Sellers) *1977 - The Goodbye Girl - Director: Herbert Ross (with Richard Dreyfuss and Marsha Mason) *1978 - The Cheap Detective - Director: Robert Moore (with Peter Falk, Louise Fletcher, Stockard Channing, Madeline Kahn, John Houseman, Nicol Williamson and Eileen Brennan) *1978 - California Suite - Director: Herbert Ross (with Jane Fonda, Alan Alda, Maggie Smith, Michael Caine, Walter Matthau, Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby) *1980 - Seems Like Old Times - Director: Jay Sandrich (with Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase) *1982 - I Ought To Be In Pictures - Director: Herbert Ross (with Walter Matthau) *1982 - Sonny Boys - Director: Rolf von Sydow (with Carl-Heinz Schroth and Johannes Heesters) *1983 - Max Dugan Returns - Director: Herbert Ross (with Matthew Broderick, Marsha Mason, Jason Robards, Kiefer Sutherland and Donald Sutherland) *1984 - The Lonely Guy - Director: Arthur Hiller (with Steve Martin) *1985 - The Slugger's Wife - Director: Hal Ashby (with Michael O'Keefe and Rebecca De Mornay) *1988 - Biloxi Blues - Director: Mike Nichols (with Matthew Broderick and Christopher Walken) *1991 - The Marrying Man - Director: Jerry Rees (with Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin) *1993 - Lost in Yonkers - Director: Martha Coolidge (with Richard Dreyfuss) *1995 - The Sunshine Boys - Director: John Erman (with Woody Allen and Peter Falk) *1998 - The Odd Couple II - Director: Howard Deutch (with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau) *2001 - Sonny Boys - Director: Jörg Hube (with Werner Schneyder and Dieter Hildebrandt) *2004 - The Goodbye Girl (with Patricia Heaton and Jeff Daniels for Turner Network Television) *2007 - The Heartbreak Kid

That biography says:

...In 1988, Fender played the mayor of a small New Mexico town in the Robert Redford-directed film, The Milagro Beanfield War....

This biography says:

...Redford managed to get a powerful dramatic performance out of America's Sweetheart, Mary Tyler Moore, as well as superb work from Donald Sutherland and Timothy Hutton. He also starred in The Natural (1984), based on characters and situations from Bernard Malamud's 1952 novel by the same name, The Natural...

That biography says:

...Hutton received the award for his performance as Conrad Jarrett in Ordinary People (1980), the Oscar-winning directorial debut of Robert Redford.
How is Robert Redford connected to Lauren Bacall? Tell the world.

That biography says:

...It received eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Robert De Niro, and Scorsese's first for Best Director. De Niro won, as did Thelma Schoonmaker for editing, but best director went to Robert Redford for Ordinary People....

This biography says:

In 1980, Redford's first outing as a director, Ordinary People, a drama about the slow disintegration of an upper-middle class family, won him an Oscar. Redford managed to get a powerful dramatic performance out of America's Sweetheart, Mary Tyler Moore, as well as superb work from Donald Sutherland and Timothy Hutton. He also starred in The Natural (1984), based on characters and situations from Bernard Malamud's 1952 novel by the same name, The Natural...

This biography says:

...In 1980, Redford's directorial debut, Ordinary People, won him the Academy Award for Directing; his 1994 film, Quiz Show, was nominated for best director, but lost to Forrest Gump. Along with Warren Beatty, Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson, Richard Attenborough, and Kevin Costner, Redford is one of the few major actors to win an Academy Award for Best Director...

This biography says:

...Redford was increasingly concerned about his blond male starlet image and turned down roles in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate, holding out for George Roy Hill's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) with Paul Newman. The film made him a bankable star and cemented his screen image as an intelligent, reliable, sometimes sardonic good guy...

That biography says:

...Newman starred in </i>Exodus (1960), The Hustler (1961), Hud (1963), Harper (1966), Cool Hand Luke (1967), The Towering Inferno (1974), Slap Shot (1977) and The Verdict (1982). He teamed with fellow actor Robert Redford and director George Roy Hill for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973)...

This biography says:

...About the first film, Redford joked, "nice Jewish girl gets nice blond WASP", and about the second, "nice Jewish BOY gets nice blond WASP." Already, Redford was known for bringing out the best in his co-stars—his frequent pairings with Newman, Wood and Fonda worked superbly, and actresses such as Streisand, Faye Dunaway, Meryl Streep and Michelle Pfeiffer were rarely so relaxed or sensual as when playing opposite him....

That biography says:

In the 1980s, Streep appeared in the acclaimed films The French Lieutenant's Woman, Silkwood with Kurt Russell and Cher, Out of Africa with Robert Redford, and Ironweed, with Jack Nicholson. In A Cry in the Dark Streep portrayed Lindy Chamberlain, the Australian mother who was accused of being responsible for the death of her infant after claiming that a dingo took her baby...

That biography says:

...Although several established actors, including Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, and a little-known Robert De Niro were vying to portray Michael Corleone, director Coppola selected the relatively unknown Pacino, much to the dismay of studio executives...

That biography says:

...In 1972 he was cast in a short-lived Broadway revival of Captain Brassbound's Conversion. Star Ingrid Bergman described him as "having the same kind and as much charisma as Robert Redford." He then landed a small role in the 1973 Lincoln Center production of The Merchant of Venice, which was praised as having "vivid appeal." Donovan had a successful national tour in the play Tubstrip, written and directed by Jerry Douglas...

That biography says:

In 1966, Mike Nichols, began casting The Graduate. Negotiations with Warren Beatty and Robert Redford fell through, Hoffman auditioned for the role. Hoffman had been set to play the role of Nazi playwright Franz Liebkind in Mel Brooks' 1968 movie The Producers, but dropped out when he landed the role of Benjamin Braddock, opposite Anne Bancroft...

That biography says:

...Welles in his later years was unable to get funding for his many film scripts, but came close with The Big Brass Ring and The Cradle Will Rock: Arnon Milchan had agreed to produce The Big Brass Ring if any one of six actors - Warren Beatty, Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman, Jack Nicholson, Robert Redford, or Burt Reynolds - would sign on to star. All six declined for various reasons. Independent funding for The Cradle Will Rock had been obtained and actors had signed on, including Rupert Everett to play the young Orson Welles, location filming was to be done in New York City with studio work in Italy...

This biography says:

...His follow-up behind the camera, The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000), portrayed star Will Smith as a black caddy with mystical powers. Redford next returned to acting playing an aging CIA operative whose protégé goes rogue and is imprisoned in China in Spy Game (2001).

This biography says:

...He played a bisexual movie star who marries starlet Natalie Wood in Inside Daisy Clover (1965) and rejoined her for Pollack's This Property Is Condemned (1966)—again as her lover. The same year saw his first teaming with Jane Fonda (Arthur Penn's pallid The Chase, in which he was a fugitive on the run). Fonda and Redford were paired to better effect in the big screen version of Barefoot in the Park (1967), and were again co-stars in Pollack's The Electric Horseman (1979)...

That biography says:

...After this came the comedies Any Wednesday (1966) and Barefoot in the Park (1967), the latter co-starring Robert Redford....

This biography says:

The year 1973 was a huge one for Redford, who starred in the high-profile The Way We Were and The Sting. The former teamed him with a glowing Barbra Streisand in a romance that spanned the years; the latter rejoined him with Newman in a crime comedy. About the first film, Redford joked, "nice Jewish girl gets nice blond WASP", and about the second, "nice Jewish BOY gets nice blond WASP." Already, Redford was known for bringing out the best in his co-stars—his frequent pairings with Newman, Wood and Fonda worked superbly, and actresses such as Streisand, Faye Dunaway, Meryl Streep and Michelle Pfeiffer were rarely so relaxed or sensual as when playing opposite him...

That biography says:

...She also starred in the original screwball comedies, including What's Up, Doc? (1972), with Ryan O'Neal, and For Pete's Sake (1974), and the drama The Way We Were (1973) with Robert Redford. Her second Academy Award was for Best Original Song as composer of the song "Evergreen", from A Star Is Born (1976); this was the first time a woman had received this award...
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How is Robert Redford connected to Stockard Channing? Tell the world.
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