Robert Redford turned down The Graduate to escape his golden-boy image
Worried that audiences saw him as just another handsome blond, Robert Redford refused roles in The Graduate and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Instead he waited for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, became a major star, and later used his clout to build the Sundance Institute for independent film.
Charles Robert Redford Jr. was born in Santa Monica on August 18, 1936, the son of an accountant. At Van Nuys High School he called himself a bad student who found his energy in art and sport; he warmed up the tennis great Pancho Gonzalez before matches and had a mild bout of polio at 11. A half-scholarship took him to the University of Colorado, but heavy drinking cost him the award and his place. He drifted through France, Spain and Italy, then studied painting at the Pratt Institute and acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
New York made him. He appeared on Broadway in Tall Story in 1959 and had his biggest stage success in 1963 as the stuffy young husband in Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park. Television kept him busy from 1960, including The Twilight Zone, and a 1962 role brought an Emmy nomination. His film career began without credit in the screen version of Tall Story, and Inside Daisy Clover (1965) won him a Golden Globe as best new star.
Butch Cassidy (1969), written by William Goldman, first paired him with Paul Newman and fixed his screen persona as the clever, dependable, slightly sardonic good guy. It earned no Oscar nomination, though a BAFTA covered that part and two others. The Sting brought a Best Actor nomination, and his long partnership with Jane Fonda stretched from Barefoot in the Park (1967) to a Netflix film 38 years after The Electric Horseman.
Behind the camera he was just as formidable. His first film as director, Ordinary People (1980), won four Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director. In 1978 he co-founded the Sundance Institute and festival, nurturing a new generation of independent filmmakers, and he campaigned on the environment and Indigenous rights. His last screen role came in Avengers: Endgame (2019), and he died on September 16, 2025.
Source: Robert Redford
