The only time Paul Newman lost his cool with Robert Redford: “Tore him apart”
Even though they only starred in two movies together, Paul Newman and Robert Redford will always be remembered as one of Hollywood’s greatest-ever onscreen double-acts because what their collaborations lacked in quantity, they more than made up for in quality.
Between them, George Roy Hill’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting won 11 Academy Awards from 17 nominations, with the former also taking home a record-breaking haul of nine Baftas, without overlooking a cumulative box office tally north of $350 million on total production costs of less than $12 million.
It’s right there in the ticket sales and trophies that the combination of Redford and Newman was guaranteed to deliver critical, commercial, and awards-season success, even if The Sting would be the last time they made a film together despite Redford’s attempts to get A Walk in the Woods off the ground, which he did eventually, albeit with Nick Nolte after Newman passed away.
The A-listers and industry icons struck up a decades-long bond offscreen as well, becoming regular sounding boards for each other when new projects were under consideration. Based on how things turned out, they weren’t always right, but Redford could always rely on Newman to shoot from the hip and vice versa.
Still, it wasn’t always sunshine and roses, with Redford repeatedly breaking on-set etiquette to Newman’s chagrin. Tom Hanks has pointed to punctuality as the single most important thing required of everyone working on a picture, and Newman was evidently in the same boat when Redford kept turning up late.
“Redford was chronically late,” The Sting producer Michael Phillips told The Hollywood Reporter. “That was the thing, and it never ended, either. By his recollection, the actor could always be relied on to arrive at least 40 minutes after everyone else, something his colleague couldn’t abide.
“One day, Newman tore him apart for it,” Phillips explained. “Paul was the bigger star. And he said something like, ‘What are you, a movie star?’ Redford shrunk from it.” Having been put in his place by his older and more established scene partner, being called out in front of the cast and crew was exactly the kick up the arse Redford needed to mend his ways. For a while, at least.
The Sting screenwriter David S Ward also penned the script for Redford’s 1988 drama The Milagro Beanfield War, and even though he only directed and didn’t act in the film, the issue persisted. “He came to the set and didn’t say anything about being late,” the scribe recalled of the filmmaker finally deciding to appear two and a half hours after the scheduled call time.
Clearly, Redford felt confident enough to return to his tardy ways when Newman wasn’t around, with the latter having already chewed him out for disrespecting those who’d actually bothered to show up for work on time.
