The Real Reason You Don’t See Robert Redford On Screen Anymore

What a glorious record of success Redford has enjoyed. His career has seen him scoop a couple of Academy Awards and half-a-dozen Golden Globes. He’s even won the U.K.’s flagship award in the trade, a BAFTA. And hardly anyone on the planet has not seen him in one of the major films in which he’s played the lead: famous roles such as the Sundance Kid and Gatsby, for instance.

The star is not solely recognized for his acting. He’s also a director who has been showered with praise and awards, helming such stellar hits as Ordinary People and A River Runs Through It. On top of his mainstream success, he’s also a guiding light of the indie scene, responsible as he is for the Sundance Institute. So his recent absence is certainly being felt by fans all over the world!

A native of California, Redford was something of a delinquent in his formative years in the Los Angeles area. He wasn’t very interested in schooling, preferring sports and art to academic subjects. Nor could he stick with a job in his high-school days, and things didn’t get much better afterwards.

The superstar recalled on those early years in 1980 to Success magazine. He said, “Actually, I was a failure at everything I tried. I worked as a box boy at a supermarket and got fired. Then my dad got me a job at Standard Oil – fired again.” Alongside his inability to hold down a job came a bit of trouble with the police. Yes, Redford was a bad boy in his youth.

The young Redford also had a brush with polio, contracting the disease when he was still small. But of course, he survived, and when he was asked to film a documentary about a building, he chose San Diego’s Salk Institute. It was a way to show gratitude for the work of Dr. Jonas Salk, who’d discovered the polio vaccine.

Luckily, Redford did not need good grades to get into university, winning a scholarship in baseball. It didn’t go well, though, as he told People magazine in 1998. He said, “I became the campus drunk and blew out before I could ever get going.” Rumor has it that he was thrown out of university, but whatever the truth, he left early. Has he left his career early, too?

Back then, Redford took off for Europe, where he pursued art. He developed a great love of painting, but when he returned to New York, he indulged another of his passions. Yes, he began classes in acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and the course of his life was set.

Returning to the U.S. was also significant in Redford’s personal life. He’d fallen for a woman he met at college. And even though Redford had been away in Europe, Lola Van Wagenen’s heart must have grown fonder. When he popped the question, she said yes. Her parents weren’t so keen, though, so the pair eloped and married in Las Vegas in 1958.

To begin with, Redford landed parts in the theater, building on bits and pieces until he won the lead in Barefoot in the Park. He shifted from Broadway to Hollywood, although his face was more familiar to TV viewers than film buffs. Among the small-screen bit parts that he scored was a role in The Twilight Zone.

The first suggestion that Redford might be a real talent came with the Natalie Wood vehicle Inside Daisy Clover. He scooped a Golden Globe for Best New Star for the role. But success meant he could be choosy, so he said no to roles that would portray him as a pretty boy.

The opened up to Life magazine in 1969, “They throw that word ‘star’ at you loosely, and they take it away loosely if your pictures flop. You take responsibility for their crappy movie, that’s all it means. So what I said was, since you say I’m responsible if my name is above the title, then give me the responsibility. That’s all.”

The desire for more substance in his roles served Redford well, since it brought his breakout part. That was in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, where his turn as an outlaw made him a real player. The film topped the box-office charts for 1969, and for many it remains his signature role.

That wasn’t the only film Redford made in 1969. He was also seen as a lawman in Tell Them Willie Boy Was Here and as a skier in Downhill Racer. The latter tickled the fancy of famed critic Roger Ebert, who considered it “the best movie ever made about sports – without really being about sports at all.”

Not quite comfortable in Hollywood, the star looked for a bolthole. During the 1960s he’d acquired some land in Utah, and with money flooding in, he could buy more as time went on. Not surprisingly, outdoor living fueled his love of green causes, which saw him face death threats when he campaigned to halt developments in the state.

Redford went from strength to strength in the following decade. He showed great range as an actor, playing a political wannabe in 1972 dramedy The Candidate and Barbra Streisand’s love interest in soaring romantic drama The Way We Were in 1973. Despite its slightly soapy feel, Redford gained plenty of acclaim for his work alongside the diva.

The same year saw Redford appear with Paul Newman once more in The Sting. It was a smash, but the two wouldn’t be seen together again. A few years later, Redford played crusading journalist Bob Woodward in All the President’s Men, a compelling drama about Nixon’s downfall that was something of a labor of love for the actor.

As we noted, though, Redford is also known for his work behind the camera. He got his start with Ordinary People – and what a start! Apparently, the star had been looking for a suitable vehicle for his directorial bow, and when he read the novel the gloomy drama was based on, he knew he’d found it. He just had to get the studio to back it, which didn’t go to plan.

Redford told Hollywood magazine Entertainment Weekly in 2016, “They thought it was decidedly uncommercial. Also, the lead character was a woman who appeared dark and negative – they didn’t want to have anything to do with that. Especially because it was going to be Mary Tyler Moore. No studio wanted it.”

Eventually, Paramount picked it up, and the studio must have been glad it did. The film did extremely well, scoring several Oscars, including one for Redford as Best Director. Not bad for a novice! He’d go on to make nine more films, including Quiz Show and A River Runs Through It.

Redford was ready to use his name and kudos to boost independent filmmaking. He started holding film labs at the Sundance Institute in 1981. Here, filmmakers could work on concepts with help from industry pros of the caliber of legendary director Sydney Pollack. And of course the Sundance concept didn’t end there.

Not everyone loved what Redford was doing out in Utah. Chatting with his grandson Dylan in 2016 in an interview for the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, he said, “There was a misunderstanding in the beginning that by starting Sundance and having it be in Utah, not Hollywood or New York, that I was like an insurgent. I was like some guy aiming to take down Hollywood by starting something different and new.”

But by 1985 Sundance was running its own film festival, which featured new voices in cinema. Among them was Quentin Tarantino, who worked on Reservoir Dogs at the Sundance labs and showed the film at the festival in 1992. The festival has gone on to be a byword for quality in the indie film world.

Mind you, Redford hadn’t quite forgotten his roots in the theater, where he’d cut his teeth. He also founded a Sundance Theater Lab, which aimed to do the same thing for up-and-coming talent on stage as the film labs had for movies. The superstar explained his motivation for all this work to his grandson, saying, “I really just wanted to broaden the landscape.”

In his personal life, Redford had seen some ups and downs. First son Scott had fallen victim to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) in 1959 only a couple of months into his life. But he had three more children with Lola — Shauna, Amy, and Jamie — before they split in 1985. In the mid-1990s he got together with German artist Sibylle Szaggars, whom he married in 2009.

Oscars and Golden Globes are not the only awards that are available to an American filmmaker. No, that was proved in 2016 when the president recognized the cinema legend by awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The medal is the country’s peak honor for non-combatants, and Redford joined an exclusive club; there were only 21 given in that year.

So given his eminence, why don’t we see Redford in films anymore? The answer is simple: the star has retired. He announced in 2018 that the movie The Old Man & the Gun would be his last. He did slightly regret saying so, but not because he wanted to return to films. No, he wanted the focus to be on the movie, not him.

When asked by Entertainment Weekly about his plans in 2018, he was definitive about retiring. He said, “Never say never, but I pretty well concluded that this would be it for me in terms of acting, and [I’ll] move towards retirement after this ’cause I’ve been doing it since I was 21.”

Redford has, after all, been a leading member of the Hollywood pantheon for many years now. When he made the announcement, he was 82, and that made more than six decades of acting. He added, “I thought, ‘Well, that’s enough.’ And why not go out with something that’s very upbeat and positive?”

But would we see any more of the Ordinary People director’s work behind the camera? He was not quite so definitive on that score, telling Entertainment Weekly, “We’ll see about that.” In fact, even then he hadn’t directed a movie since 2012, so it’s not unreasonable to suspect that he won’t be doing it again.

Redford seemed very happy that his last role should be as Forrest Tucker in The Old Man & the Gun, where he played an ageing bank robber who had an insatiable love of crime. Redford told Entertainment Weekly, “To me, that was a wonderful character to play at this point in my life.”

The star continued, “The thing that really got me about him – which I hope the film shows – is he robbed 17 banks and he got caught 17 times and went to prison 17 times. But he also escaped 17 times. So it made me wonder: I wonder if he was not averse to getting caught so that he could enjoy the real thrill of his life, which is to escape?”

A couple of years earlier, Redford had hinted that he would be retiring, when he said he was “getting tired of acting.” In the Walker Art Center interview he told grandson Dylan, “Once they’re done I’m going to say, ‘Okay, that’s goodbye to all that.” And what’s more, he explained why, saying, “At this point in my life, age 80, it’d give me more satisfaction.”

Mind you, the legendary actor thought that he should maybe not have said anything since he could always change his mind. He told People magazine in September 2018, “I think it was a mistake to say that I was retiring because you never know.” Even so, he hasn’t made a film since, although he has been involved in some projects as a producer.

So how did the icon plan to fill his days? It seemed he would be turning back to art. When asked by culture website Collider in December 2019 if he still did sketches, he said, “More so now than ever since I’ve kind of retired from film. I said, ‘I’ve been there, done that, it’s 50 years of my life now.’ Not that I’m not proud of what I’ve done, but at this time in my life you feel like you want something fresh.”

The legend continued with the theme that he felt that he should have just quietly gone out. He added, “So I’ve gone back to where I started: sketching and drawing. The only trouble with retirement is you should never announce it. Then you have a lot of people saying, ‘Before you go, could you just do this? Could you just do that?’”

Redford’s retirement wasn’t destined to be all happiness and quiet contemplation of a life well-lived, though. Sadly, his son Jamie, himself a filmmaker, passed away in October 2020. He’d been suffering from liver cancer, and the disease ended his life. The Hollywood legend was left mourning in what his publicist characterized as “immeasurable” grief.

The tragedy of losing two sons will undoubtedly have left a mark on a man who can look back on a successful life. He was asked by Collider what he felt defined success. He said, “Success is tricky. For some people it’s one thing, for other people it’s something else. So it’s hard to define as just one thing.”

Perhaps for Redford, success was mostly about escaping the image of a pretty young man and showing his creative talent. He said in a 2018 radio interview on show Fresh Air, “The notion is that you’re not so much of an actor, you’re just somebody that looks well. That was always hard for me because I always took pride in whatever role I was playing. I would be that character.”

And certainly, Redford did show immense ability. Still, it went almost entirely unrecognized by the Academy, at least as far as acting went. He only ever won one nomination for an acting Oscar, for his part in The Sting, and he missed out on the award. And with his retirement seemingly set in stone, he will likely never gain the famous gold statuette for his on-screen skills. Even without that, though, no one can deny how well he’s done. If only Redford’s dad was around to see him now. The pair didn’t really see eye to eye when it came to the movie star’s career choices, you see.

During a 2017 Esquire interview, journalist Michael Hainey made reference to that situation. He said, “It seems your father cast a shadow and didn’t encourage you to pursue the arts.” The star’s response was informed by the understanding he had gained of his father’s nature as he got older.

Redford answered, “It wasn’t [my father’s] fault. I needed to get out of there. I needed to get to a clean, empty space because that house was occupied by thoughts that I didn’t share.” The star went on, “My father grew up in semi-poverty in New England. He was shipped out to California as a teenager because they couldn’t afford to raise two sons.”

When it came to what drove Charles as a man and as a father, Redford explained, “He was scared to death of poverty. He would take a job that was safe. When I came out and looked like somebody who was gonna be freewheeling, it made him nervous. He thought, ‘He won’t survive that.’”

Redford went on, “That was the tension. [My father] wanted me to be secure, to go to Stanford. I was lucky to get to Boulder, Colorado.” With maturity, though, comes resolution. The star explained, “He was only doing what he thought was right. It took me a while to fully understand that. I thought the best thing was to go to Europe, where there’s nobody tracking me. I love that feeling.”

When Redford was asked if his father’s negativity still echoed in his head, he answered, “I still hear his voice. You don’t outrun those voices.” The star then opened up about the diametrically opposed outlooks of his parents. He said, “There was a division in my family that left me with a bit of an ache...My father was more concerned about not taking risks, because that could put you in a terrible spot.” But what did his mother think?

Clearly remembering Martha with great fondness, the star explained, “My mom was from Texas – totally outgoing, full of life, full of laughter, taking risks all the time, encouraging me to do it.” Sadly, the movie star lost his mother much too early. According to the star’s biographer, Michael Feeney Callan, Martha was a Christian Scientist who died when “She avoided medical attention after having a stillbirth with twins.”

The star said that Martha, “all things considered, she just had faith that I had something in me that was going to turn out okay.” Redford remembered his mother as an optimistic person, saying she was, “the strong member of the family. She was very outgoing. She always had a smile. She was very, very adventurous.”

Continuing to reminisce fondly about Martha, Redford said, “She came from Texas, and she carried that kind of robust, jocular goodwill. She saw things in a positive light.” Sadly, she wouldn’t live to see her son become a Hollywood icon, as her death occurred in 1955 when she was just 40 years old.

An emotional Redford then revealed, “[My mom] had a hemorrhage tied to a blood disorder she got after losing twin girls at birth, ten years after I was born.” Despite warnings from medical professionals, and even after her son’s challenging birth, Martha still wanted more children. The Oscar-winner said, “She wanted a family so badly, she got pregnant again.”

Redford believed his mother’s death was unfair, and admitted to feeling a deep regret surrounding it. As he got older and was able to reflect on his life, the star felt ill at ease about the value he placed on his relationship with her as a youngster. He admitted, “I took her for granted because that’s the way kids were at that age. My regret is that she passed away before I could thank her.”

The star spoke in more detail about his mother during the 2017 Esquire magazine interview, stating that he inherited Martha’s “Let’s go for it” attitude. Redford said, “My mom felt I could do anything. She was the only one who told me that, the one who really did believe that I was gonna do things.”

Redford went on, “[My mom] encouraged me to constantly be opened up.” Then, though, that deep remorse came to his mind again. “And I took it all for granted as a teenager. When she died – she died when she was very young, and I was 18 – the regret that I had was that I couldn’t thank her.”

The star explained, “When I grew up and I realized what had happened, what she had tried to do, I realized, ‘Oh my God, she really did encourage me to go out there and take chances.” And as time passed, that epiphany crystallized. Redford said, “As you go on in life, you think about regrets before you go to sleep at night. I realized too late that she had a very positive role in my life and I couldn’t thank her.”

Martha died during Redford’s first year of college, and he told Esquire magazine about the moment he found out she had passed. He said, “Sometimes you know things. There was no reason for me to think that she was going to die. I was in the dorm alone and they only had a phone at the end of the hall.”

Redford remembered, “[The phone] was ringing, and I was the only guy around, so I thought, ‘Well, I guess I should go answer it.’ As I was walking down the hall, I said, ‘This is going to be for me.’ And it was. It was my dad telling me that my mom had died. I had that vibe – it was so weird. I’ve thought about that periodically.”