First published 2011
Robert Redford stands among Hollywood's most celebrated actors and directors of his generation. He earned Academy Awards, Golden Globe recognition, and countless other honors for his work in front of and behind the camera. Audiences know him as the Sundance Kid, Bob Woodward, Jay Gatsby, and Roy Hobbs. His Sundance Film Festival changed independent cinema forever. Yet the man himself remained largely hidden beneath his public persona. Michael Feeney Callan draws from Redford's personal journals, script annotations, private letters, and extensive recorded conversations to construct this comprehensive portrait. The biography traces his fragmented family history, unsettled youth, and difficult early acting career. It examines the loss of his son, his creative partnership with Sydney Pollack, the founding of Sundance, and his political engagement. Callan explores both Redford's artistic triumphs and disappointments, his personal relationships and romantic entanglements. The book reveals how his memorable screen performances in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President's Men, and The Natural, along with his directorial achievements in Ordinary People and Quiz Show, both established and concealed the complexity of this iconic figure.
Genres: biography, history, 20th-century, american, 21st-century, film
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family
Setting: Hollywood
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
496 pages · Hardcover · Knopf