Robert Redford was born August 18, 1936 in Santa Monica, California. He became a respected actor, director and producer.
Robert Redford attended Van Nuys High School, where he was a classmate of baseball pitcher Don Drysdale. Another student at the school was the actress Natalie Wood. He hit tennis balls with Pancho Gonzalez at the Los Angeles Tennis Club to help Gonzalez warm up for matches.
Robert Redford's acting career began in New York City, where he worked both on stage and in television. His Broadway debut was in a small role in Tall Story (1959).
His biggest success on Broadway was as the stuffy newlywed husband of Elizabeth Ashley in the original 1963 cast of Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park. One night, I was in the audience at the Biltmore Theatre watching the young Robert Redford perform.
In the play, a newly wed couple live on the top floor (no elevator) of a brownstone in Manhattan. When people arrive in their apartment, they are out of breath. It reminds me of the apartment my brother Paul once lived in west of Central Park.
I saw many of Robert Redford's movies such as: Barefoot in the Park, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Tell Them Willie Boy is Here, Downhill Racer, The Candidate, The Sting, The Way We Were, All The President's Men, The Natural, Out of Africa, Indecent Proposal and All is Lost.
Robert Redford won his only Academy Award as Best Director for the film Ordinary People.
Sadly, he died at his home in Sundance, Utah on September 16th this year.
