How Robert Redford defied the odds to become an icon: “I was quite a ways down on the stardom ladder”
Robert Redford was an undisputed screen icon, a versatile star who could do gritty, serious roles just as well as he could play someone more charming, romantic, and lighthearted. This versatility also extended past his acting choices – he was just as good in front of the camera as he was behind it.
The actor-director sadly passed away at the age of 89 on September 16th, but he leaves behind a legacy as one of Hollywood’s most memorable stars. Not only did he deliver some incredible performances, but he also used his status to champion indie cinema, because without him, we’d have no Sundance Film Festival. Yet, the odds seemed stacked against Redford when he started out, who’d had a rather difficult upbringing.
By the time he was 18, Redford had experienced the kinds of things you dread – poor health, the death of his mother, and bullying, which led him to go a little off the rails. He was booted out of university and found some solace at the bottom of a bottle, but by the age of 21, he’d managed to get to a position where he was ready to start a family. However, just two months after the birth of his first son, the child died of SIDS.
These goddamn awful experiences taught him a lot, though, and as he grew stronger, he found a love for acting that would lead him to find a creative outlet in theatre. Like many young actors emerging during this era, his time on stage soon inspired him to get in front of the camera, and he made his debut in 1960’s Tall Story with Jane Fonda.
Yet, over the coming years, he couldn’t quite land a role that would cement him as the leading Hollywood star he wished to be – and would inevitably become. He collaborated with Fonda on two more projects that decade, The Chase and Barefoot in the Park, and while these did well, he still hadn’t found that one part that would finally make critics wake the fuck up and whisper under their breaths, “Holy shit, he’s the real deal.”
For all you aspiring thespians out there, it must be comforting to know the most successful actors have found themselves struggling at some point. You can do it too, champ! Redford’s career would soon take a sharp turn into a sudden world of success when he was offered the chance to play the outlaw Sundance Kid in the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It became somewhat of a Catch-22 situation, though, because Redford almost didn’t get the part due to his relatively unknown status.
“When I first met [director] George Roy Hill in a bar on Third Avenue in New York, I told him that I much more related to the outlaw character, the Sundance Kid, which was not the role he wanted me for,” Redford told Entertainment Weekly. “But George got excited and thought, ‘Hmm, I’m going to make this work.’ It was months and months of battle with the studio. The studio wanted a name as big as Paul Newman’s, and I was quite a ways down on the stardom ladder.”
Poor Redford just had to hope that he would get cast, even though his limited number of screen credits seemed to pose a problem to the studio. Yet, some of the greatest performances have emerged from actors at the beginning of their careers, and Hill could clearly recognise real talent in Redford that he knew was perfect for the part.
Hill wasn’t going to give up, and luckily, the star power harnessed by Newman was enough to get Redford’s role secured. “I’d never met Paul, but he insisted that the studio support George. And because it was Paul Newman, they agreed. The only thing they did was change the title. It was called The Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy — but they wanted Butch’s name first because that’s the part Paul was playing,” Redford continued.
Newman and Redford starred alongside each other, even though Newman was a way more established star, having appeared in movies like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Cool Hand Luke in the years prior. The pair made the perfect leading men for the film, and it became a New Hollywood classic, allowing Redford’s career to finally take off. While the actor continued to deliver impressive performances throughout his life in everything from The Great Gatsby to Out of Africa and The Sting (again with Newman), the Sundance Kid arguably remained his defining role.
He defied the odds to secure the part, and despite a challenging upbringing and a very near-miss when it came to actually landing the role, he proved just why he deserved it more than anyone else.
