Robert Redford

Robert Redford (1936- ), American actor, director, and producer. He was born Charles Robert Redford, Jr. in Santa Monica, California, on August 18, 1936. Redford first acted on Broadway in Tall Story (1959), and went on to play his first starring role in Sunday in New York (1961-1962). During this period he also made guest appearances on American television.

Redford made his film debut in War Hunt (1962); his next four films, Situation Hopeless—But Not Serious (1965), Inside Daisy Clover (1965), The Chase (1966), and This Property Is Condemned (1966), were critical and financial failures. His fortunes changed, however, when he reprised a 1963 stage role in the hit film Barefoot in the Park (1967), which was followed by further film successes. Among these were Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), featuring Paul Newman and Redford (the Sundance Kid) as two bandits on the run from the law; Downhill Racer (1969), about a rebellious ski racer; The Candidate (1972), concerning a young lawyer running for political office in California; and Jeremiah Johnson (1972), with Redford playing a mountain man in the American West.

Redford continued to seek diverse roles in the mid-1970s, co-starring with Barbra Streisand in the love story The Way We Were (1973), and appearing again with Newman in The Sting (1973), about two 1930s Chicago con men. Three Days of the Condor (1975) saw Redford as an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), being pursued by unknown enemies. All the President's Men (1976) told the story of Bob Woodward (Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman), the two Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate story. Several Redford films were adaptations of famous novels: The Great Gatsby (1974; from the book by F. Scott Fitzgerald), The Natural (1984; Bernard Malamud), and Out of Africa (1985; Isak Dinesen). Other films include the espionage thrillers Sneakers (1992) and Spy Game (2001, Tony Scott), the romantic dramas Indecent Proposal (1993) and Up Close and Personal (1996), and the family melodrama An Unfinished Life (2005, Lasse Hallström).

Redford’s first directorial effort, Ordinary People (1980), a sensitive study of a middle-class family in crisis, won him an Academy Award (Oscar) for Best Director. He continued his career as a director with The Milagro Beanfield War (1988), A River Runs Through It (1992), Quiz Show (1994), The Horse Whisperer (1998), The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000), and the political drama Lions for Lambs (2007,) about the US military intervention in Afghanistan. Redford has also served as producer and executive producer on numerous films. He received an honorary Oscar in 2002.

In 1981 Redford established the Sundance Institute, a charitable organization that holds the annual Sundance Film Festival in support of independent filmmaking. It has been credited with the major turnaround that has taken place in that sector in recent years.