Callan, Michael  Feeny (2011) Robert Redford, The Biography New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 613 pages

Bobby knew the line. With his bike, he could look across the street to the homes of the stars of Hollywood. They were household names. Redford’s dad was a milkman and that meant, the street was the line between two Americas. He would be the last of the folks to see the orange trees reflected in Brian Wilson’s Orange Crate Art. Then it came, smoggy LA covered the land with tract houses, super highways, cars, and people.

Born Charles Robert Redford,  Bobby was a checkerboard of white ethnicities from North  America and surrounding environs. Relatives also covered the 2 Americas on both the west coast and east coast. Dad worked 6 to 7 days a week. Later, after Mom died Redford’s father re-married money and again jumped another line. He became the well dressed business man.

After high school and a year or so at college, the wanderlust drove him to Europe where all kinds historic literary events occurred years before. Robert was cold, hungry, and penniless and made it back to the states. He did early stage work and finally made the movies. Most Americans start with Barefoot In the Park with Jane Fonda, however along the way, there are other films that received critical success, but lost out at the box office.

He married and years later had a friendly divorce, partnered a couple more times and then re-married. The husband that they got was a hypo-manic workaholic that got up early every day and exercised and made continuous rushes at multi-tasking. The best the kids could do was slow him down. Thus, there may be 20 deals and commitments and perhaps, two or three were accomplished. He wore out personal assistants but kept charging forward.  He was generally late.

You don’t need to believe this, but nearly all of the kids and wives still like him. Redford is constantly reading scripts, on the phone, making deals, and working on the next two movies. As this is being written, All is Lost  received acclaim from nearly all the critics. Rotten Tomatoes, a rating agency has 95% ranking the movie with 5 stars. And yet, it may not get an Academy Award next year, but the draw has been 20 million gross. Time ranked the very worst movie recently by Adam Sandler and it has hauled in a quarter of a billion worldwide. So…

Redford has done that to without sacrificing quality. However, the ones you remember The Way We Were,  Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, All the President’s Men. He also did The Candidate,  The Natural, The Horse Whisper and The Electric Horseman directed Ordinary People is just the ice tip of a treasure of film and acting credits. He is worth about 170 million, but twice that has gone into Sundance, the film festival, catalogue, studios,  movie channel and related. This man has worked so hard for his money.

The author spent ten years on this book, interviewing tons of people, and describing the acting and technological skills created by Redford. It is that baseball player rounding third base when cascading bits and chunks of light surround and back him. Where a tiny gesture or tear, nearly overwhelms the scene.

So he is making movies, theoretically running a business, and then comes politics where Woodward and Redford quietly meet to discuss the book’s relations to the movie when all the details of the cover up had yet to conflate into a perfect storm. He also heads and speaks for numerous environmental causes along with conservation.

The last movie, that my wife and I saw, the theater had 2 couples. We were one half the crowd.  In  The Company  that Your Keep, there was a moving ending to a radical couple that had been in hiding for 30 or more years since the Vietnam War. I saw a guy from my neighborhood (Nick Nolte) back Redford’s run from the Feds. It was 3 stars and 20 million gross. Someday, after Redford is gone, you will see all of the everything that he has created. You will see the political angling intermixed with a movie coming to terms.  When he does pass, he will  probably be working or writing another movie or reading a script. Thank you Mr. Redford and the overwhelming and demanding work that you did, Mr. Callan. This reviewer is honored to have bought the book.

At the end of the 20th century, Life featured him as the man with the most contribution to the arts, a  symbol  of grace and glamour  and his movies generated 1 billion gross.

Prof. Joel Snell

Emeritus

Kirkwood College

Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Residence

 Apple Wood Mesa

3105 Alleghany Dr. NE

Cedar Rapids, Iowa

52402-3315