Robert Redford
Robert Redford (actor, director, producer; born in Santa Monica, CA, August 18, 1937) Robert Redford has a career that could fill three normal lives. He is an actorpraised early on for his work on the stage and in television and then for fourdecades' worth of fine performances in films. He is a director and producer ofacclaimed motion pictures. He is also an intensely committed champion of independentfilm. Through his founding and unflagging support of the Sundance Institute,the Sundance Film Festival, the Sundance Channel, and a nationwide chain of Sundanc ovie theaters, Robert Redford has fostered a generation of independent Americanfilmmakers A screen actor at the top of his career in 1980, Robert Redford felt it was timeto give something back to the film business and so he founded the Sundance Institute,a multi-disciplinary arts organization dedicated to the development of artistsof independent vision and to the exhibition of their new work. His goal was tocreate a film community where directors, writers, actors and composers couldrealize their talent in an atmosphere of collaboration, where two basic freedomswere guaranteed: the freedom to have a singular vision and the freedom to experimentin putting that vision on film. "Sundance created an opportunity of educationthrough work that didn't exist before," says Redford. Since its inception, theInstitute has supported nearly 1,000 artists through its training programs andthousands more through the annual Sundance Film Festival. Some of the most compellingfilms of recent years have been developed and premiered at Sundance: HoopDreams, Smoke Signals, Central Station, Three Seasons, Boys Don't Cry, Love & Basketball.The movie that launched the whole modern independent film movement— Sex,Lies & Videotape —was first seen at the Sundance Festival. Still, Redford is first and for ost known the world over as one of the greatmovie stars. Because of his golden screen image and his well-known love of the great outdoors,it is not a surprise to learn he was born in Santa Monica, California, sun-kissedland of sand and surf, where for a kid with stars in his eyes, Hollywood is justa joyride away. What is surprising, though, is that in fact, he was the son ofa milkman, raised in a grim neighborhood where life during the depression andWorld War II was bleak. The young Redford spent what little free time he hadnot at the beach or going to the movies, but at the library. His favorite readingmaterial: comic strips. There he learned about storytelling through words andpictures. His first artistic ambition was to be an artist in Europe and in fact for a whilehe led the painter's life in Paris. He was also an oil worker, and he attendedschool on a baseball scholarship. Finally deciding he wanted to act, he movedto New York. Any serious young actor trying to make it in New York in the late'50s did TV drama, and Redford appeared in his fair share of televised plays.They were, in fact, his acting school and simultaneously he made his Broadwaydebut in 1959 in the comedy Tall Story. More romantic comedies followedleading up to his 1963 appearance in a classic of the genre—Neil Simon's Barefootin the Park, a huge success that made Hollywood take notice. He had alreadymade his film debut a year earlier in War Hunt, but now the offers camesteadily. By the mid-sixties he was working constantly— Inside DaisyClover and This Property is Condemned with Natalie Wood, The Chase withMarlon Brandon and Jane Fonda—none were safe choices. But then, reunitingwith Fonda, he made the screen version of his great stage success, Barefootin the Park, His film career took off in earnest when he starred opposite Paul Newman in thestunningly successful Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Expertly blendingcomedy and an ambiguous love triangle told the story of how "the man" hunts downand kills the two outlaws in a freeze-framed bloodbath. The revisionist WesternwaSemperfectly timed to ride the tail end of the anti-establishment cynical sixties,and gave Redford the anti-hero creed needed to become one of the biggest starsof the '70s. He made the character-driven Westerns, Tell Th Willie Boy IsHere and Jer iah Johnson ; the heist comedy The Hot Rock ; thesuper-production literary adaptation The Great Gatsby ; and the nostalgicadventure The Great Waldo Pepper. However, five iconic films from thatera stand out: Punctuated by awesome skiing sequences, 1969's Downhill Racer isan existentialist meditation on the conflict between the independent-minded sportshero and the big-business that controls his world. 1972's The Candidate isa razor-sharp dissection of the inner-workings of mid-century American politics.For many, 1973's The Way We Were, with Barbra Streisand, the classic romantic melodrama. Three Days of the Condor is a paranoid thriller thatemperfectlycaptures the mood of the Watergate era. Which brings us to All the President'sMen, which Redford produced and starred in as Bob Woodward opposite DustinHoffman as Carl Bernstein. The intelligent dramatization of the investigationin the Watergate burglary showcases one of Redford's finestemperformances. All the President's Men marks a major turning point in Redford's career.He continued making movies, including Brubaker, The Electric Hors an, TheNatural, Out of Africa, but his interests shifted to directing andto his beloved Sundance Institute. In 1980 he made his directorial debut with Ordinary People, which wonfour Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and best Supporting Actorfor the young star of the film, Timothy Hutton. He went on the direct Th ilagro Beanfield War, A River Runs Through It, The Legend of Bagger Vance, TheHorse Whisperer and the acclaimed Quiz Show. That was also the year he established the Sundance Institute, which under hisleadership continues to invigorate American and international film. The foundingvalues of independence and creative risk-taking define and guide the work ofthe Sundance Institute. They have always defined and continue to guide the work of its founder, RobertRedford: actor, director, producer and godfather to independent film. September 2005