Robert Redford, forever remembered as the “Sundance Kid,” was a quintessential American screen icon and an Academy Award–winning director.
Blessed with all-American good looks, Robert Redford, who died Tuesday at 89, was eternally the “Sundance Kid,” a towering figure of American cinema as both actor and director.
After two decades as one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars, he turned to directing, earning an Academy Award and co-founding the Sundance Film Festival, which went on to launch the careers of a new wave of independent filmmakers, including Quentin Tarantino.
In 2019, French producer Alain Terzian declared, “Few careers have had such an impact on the history of cinema,” as he honored Redford with France’s version of the Oscar.
“The Ascent Wasn’t Smooth”
The athletic young Redford’s rise was anything but smooth. Born in Santa Monica, California, to an accountant father, he endured the loss of his mother in 1955, just a year after finishing high school. Though he earned a baseball scholarship to the University of Colorado, he lost it within a year due to heavy drinking.
After months of traveling in Europe, Redford entered the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1959.
Redford moved from television to the big screen with his breakthrough in Barefoot in the Park (1967), a romantic comedy opposite Jane Fonda. Two years later, he achieved superstardom with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the story of two outlaws fleeing U.S. justice in Bolivia.
The film instantly cemented Redford’s fame and boosted Newman’s career, forging a lifelong friendship between the two. They reunited in The Sting (1973), with Redford receiving his only Best Actor Oscar nomination.
Sanchit Saraswat