Robert Redford: A Unique Movie Star and So Much More
Robert Redford (born Aug. 18, 1936, died Sept. 16, 2025) won the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 51st Golden Globes and earned multiple Globes nominations as an actor and director. He also was the top box-office attraction several years during the 1970s and was widely admired and respected by the public and within the industry. But his standing in the Hollywood Pantheon extended beyond that. He was also an outspoken environmentalist and a champion of independent films, with his Sundance Institute and Festival responsible for putting a lot of films and filmmakers on the map. He also worked for rights of Native Americans and LGBT+ people long before it was fashionable.
He waited two years for a followup and it was a smart decision: His next project was starring with Paul Newman in the 1969 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. From then on he was a major Hollywood star and it gave him clout, which he used smartly to produce films and to set up projects like Sundance.
He earned high praise for The Candidate (1972) and The Way We Were (1973) with Barbra Streisand and The Sting, again with Newman. The last two films were both 1973 and both massive hits, which made him the biggest star in the world. Even films like The Great Gatsby and The Great Waldo Pepper, because of his star power, found admirers. Three Days of the Condor was another Pollack project that questioned the status quo and was a thinking-person’s thriller.
The same is true with the 1976 All the President’s Men, which defied the odds by being a current-events movie, a suspense film in which the audience knew the outcome but was still on the edge of their seats. Redford was so handsome and successful that his acting talents were sometimes overlooked, but President’s Men includes a tour-de-force scene, done in one long take, in which reporter Bob Woodward (Redford) handles two simultaneous phone calls from key sources while dealing with office interruptions. You never catch him “acting” in the scene, nor in his other movies. He was under-appreciated because he made everything seem natural, as if the character was behaving rather than acting. But it was actually highly skilled acting.
The Electric Horseman with Pollack was thoughtful and entertaining, as was Barry Levinson’s The Natural. He had another box-office home-run with Out of Africa, starring Meryl Streep. The film won the Golden Globe for Best Picture.
Some actors become stars despite a string of mostly ho-hum movies, while others have two or three memorable titles. But Redford’s track record includes several clear classics — Butch Cassidy, The Way We Were, The Sting, President’s Men, Out of Africa and his final film, Avengers: Endgame (2019), one of the highest earning films of all time. He also toplined numerous cult favorites including Jeremiah Johnson, Downhill Racer, Sneakers (1992), Spy Game and Truth (2015). Some films worked better than others, but after he became a star, Redford never appeared in a project that looked like he was just doing it for the paycheck.
And that’s not even talking about his directing of Ordinary People, Quiz Show, A River Runs Through It which gave Brad Pitt has first starring role, and The Horse Whisperer introducing a very young Scarlett Johansson.
As an actor, he appeared in seven movies directed by Sydney Pollack: This Property Is Condemned (1966), Jeremiah Johnson (1972), The Way We Were (1973), Three Days of the Condor (1975), The Electric Horseman (1979), Out of Africa (1985) and Havana (1990).
Among his many honors, Redford was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, by President Barack Obama, in a live televised ceremony held in the East Room of the White House, on November 22, 2016.
Asked at a Golden Globes press conference to assess his career, Redford responded that he doesn’t like to think that way: “I am living in the moment, and not thinking too far ahead.” He admitted finding it kind of hard to choose some of his favorite movies, simply “because I really enjoyed most all of them.”
Any regrets? “Probably, but I think you have to be careful of that. If you put too much emphasis on regrets, it’s a heavy load to carry. I’m sure we all have regrets if we look back. But I don’t believe that regrets should play too big a role otherwise it could stop you from moving forward.”
Years after they first worked together on A River Runs Through It, Brad Pitt spoke with Globes journalists about Redford’s qualities as a director and as a person: “I love the guy. He’s this absolute man, the man that men want to be, the man that women want to be with, and people expect too much of him, because of the roles he has played and his principles, but he’s just a man. For me as an actor it took a while, a few weeks, because I didn’t know him, to trust his vision and see his strength as a director, because he had to build this world, and he was very quiet, to keep his sanity; but I was most impressed with his directing. Redford knew exactly what he wanted to say, he had it completely mapped out, so he was very direct and straightforward, ‘This is what we need here’ there were no other alternatives. And he made a very powerful movie.”
In 2001, Brad Pitt met again with Golden Globes journalists, and spoke about past work, including A River Runs Through It: “Back then, I was green and I was working with one of the icons of cinema, so there was more of an intimidation factor, but it’s such a different relationship when now you can meet somewhat like peers. I just saw a ‘Biography’ on Redford on the cable channel A&E, and this guy has done amazing stuff; if you look at the collection of his films together, it’s just amazing.”