Robert Redford still does it for me. He did it for me when I first saw him in Butch Cassidy, he did it for me when he was washing Meryl Streep’s hair in Out of Africa. He did it for me in uniform in The Way We Were and with full hippie beard in Jeremiah Johnson. He’s classically handsome — the type of handsome on which you, your mom, your grandmother, and your best gay friend can all agree — with a flatness of expression that morphs sardonic when you least expect it. He has a storytime voice, the perfect level of tan, and haphazardly spaced highlights that betray a life lived en plein air. I love him for his palpable Westernness, his ease with open spaces, the scent of high altitude that seems to waft from him. He looks as good in jean cut-offs as he does in a well-tailored suit. And for nearly 40 years, he’s been Hollywood’s golden boy: likable and bankable, if a bit self-serious.
Redford belongs to the class of actors I think of in my head as the silver foxes: indigenous to the ‘60s and ‘70s, they’ve ripened before our eyes. Most of them have semi- or totally retired, some have passed away; all live in my memory both as their original, gorgeous selves and their well-lined, refined later-in-life iterations. Newman and Beatty, of course, but also De Niro and Hackman, Dustin Hoffman and Jack Nicholson, Jane Fonda and Julie Christie.
They’re not classic Hollywood, per se. They never had to deal with studio contracts. They got to use their real names and marry whom they pleased. They shunned publicity, or at least pretended to shun publicity as they posed for the cover of Life. They were a different type of star, in terms of interaction with the industry at large, but stars nonetheless — embodiments of what mattered to Americans at various cultural moments. And Redford, I realize now, was proof positive that beautiful American men could still exist amidst the turmoil of the age. Turns out he was a bit of a true liberal, but at the time, he had the looks of a jock, the demeanor of a respectable man, and just enough zest to titillate. I can’t quite decide whether he’s a good actor or a perfect star — which, if you think about it, is true of the most memorable of our idols.
Throughout his career, Redford’s split critics: maybe he could act, but could he act other than himself? And isn’t that the very hallmark of a star? David Thomson called him a waste, while Pauline Kael understood that his golden diffidence was part of his allure, what drew us back to watch him over and over again. He never gave himself over fully the way that his co-stars did — not because he wasn’t acting, but because that was the point. He was, and remains, too cool. Which is part of why his enduring popularity is so surprising — is it his looks that bring us back, again and again? Or is the semi-masochistic desire to watch him maintain that aloofness?
Redford was born in Santa Monica, because of course he was. His father was a milkman but, in a page straight from the American Dream handbook, eventually became an accountant, moving his family to Van Nuys. There, Redford played on the high school baseball team and, if looks are to be believed, slayed the entire female population. A baseball scholarship to the University of Colorado followed, and I can just imagine him skamping all around Boulder, drinking beer and breaking hearts.
I mean, please. But he had better things to do than play beer pong, so he traveled Europe, took painting at Pratt, and eventually got caught up in acting, making his way into the live television scene in New York, which was thriving in the ‘50s. At some point between flipflopping his way through Europe and going to Pratt, he married Lola Van Wagenen, whose native Utah he would gradually make his own.
by Anne Helen Petersen, The Hairpin | Read more:
Redford belongs to the class of actors I think of in my head as the silver foxes: indigenous to the ‘60s and ‘70s, they’ve ripened before our eyes. Most of them have semi- or totally retired, some have passed away; all live in my memory both as their original, gorgeous selves and their well-lined, refined later-in-life iterations. Newman and Beatty, of course, but also De Niro and Hackman, Dustin Hoffman and Jack Nicholson, Jane Fonda and Julie Christie.They’re not classic Hollywood, per se. They never had to deal with studio contracts. They got to use their real names and marry whom they pleased. They shunned publicity, or at least pretended to shun publicity as they posed for the cover of Life. They were a different type of star, in terms of interaction with the industry at large, but stars nonetheless — embodiments of what mattered to Americans at various cultural moments. And Redford, I realize now, was proof positive that beautiful American men could still exist amidst the turmoil of the age. Turns out he was a bit of a true liberal, but at the time, he had the looks of a jock, the demeanor of a respectable man, and just enough zest to titillate. I can’t quite decide whether he’s a good actor or a perfect star — which, if you think about it, is true of the most memorable of our idols.
Throughout his career, Redford’s split critics: maybe he could act, but could he act other than himself? And isn’t that the very hallmark of a star? David Thomson called him a waste, while Pauline Kael understood that his golden diffidence was part of his allure, what drew us back to watch him over and over again. He never gave himself over fully the way that his co-stars did — not because he wasn’t acting, but because that was the point. He was, and remains, too cool. Which is part of why his enduring popularity is so surprising — is it his looks that bring us back, again and again? Or is the semi-masochistic desire to watch him maintain that aloofness?
Redford was born in Santa Monica, because of course he was. His father was a milkman but, in a page straight from the American Dream handbook, eventually became an accountant, moving his family to Van Nuys. There, Redford played on the high school baseball team and, if looks are to be believed, slayed the entire female population. A baseball scholarship to the University of Colorado followed, and I can just imagine him skamping all around Boulder, drinking beer and breaking hearts.
I mean, please. But he had better things to do than play beer pong, so he traveled Europe, took painting at Pratt, and eventually got caught up in acting, making his way into the live television scene in New York, which was thriving in the ‘50s. At some point between flipflopping his way through Europe and going to Pratt, he married Lola Van Wagenen, whose native Utah he would gradually make his own.
Image: uncredited
