Robert Redford

Legendary movie star Robert Redford was born during the depression on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California, to Charles Robert Redford, a Rhode Island native, who was a milkman-turned-accountant for Standard Oil, and his Texan wife, Martha W. (Hart). He was naturally gifted at athletics and competitive sport from the age of eight, particularly tennis. His mother died in 1955, the year he graduated high school, Charles Robert Redford Jr. was a scrappy kid who stole hubcaps in high school and lost his college baseball scholarship at the University of Colorado because of drunkenness. After high school, he drifted across America, landing in prison for speeding and fighting, and working at odd jobs to earn money to get to Europe and fulfill his ambition to be a painter. He saved enough to spend 13 months painting and studying in Paris, then returned home broke and enrolled as an art student in New York. After time at the Pratt Institute of Art, he was taught acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.By the end of 1960, he was on Broadway in a series of plays including Barefoot in the Park, which launched him to fame. TV and stage experience coupled with all-American good looks led to movies and a breakthrough role in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), when the actor was 33. The Way We Were (1973) and The Sting (1973), both in 1973, made Redford No. 1 at the box office for the next three years. Redford used his clout to advance environmental causes and his riches to acquire Utah property, which he transformed into a ranch and the Sundance ski resort. In 1980, he established the Sundance Institute for aspiring filmmakers. Its annual film festival has become one of the world’s most influential. Redford’s directorial debut, Ordinary People (1980), won him the Academy Award for Best Director in 1981. He waited eight years before getting behind the camera again, this time for the screen version of John Nichols’ acclaimed novel of the Southwest, The Milagro Beanfield War (1988). He scored with critics and fans in 1992 with the Brad Pitt film A River Runs Through It (1992), and again, in 1994, with Quiz Show (1994), which earned him yet another Best Director nomination.Lola Van Wagenen (consumer activist) dropped out of college to marry Redford on August 9, 1958; they divorced in 1985 after having four children, one of which died of sudden infant death syndrome. Daughter Shauna Redford, born November 15, 1960, is a painter who married Eric Schlosser on October 5, 1985, in Provo, Utah; her first child, born in January 1991, made Redford a grandfather. Son James Redford, a screenwriter, was born May 5, 1962. Daughter Amy Redford, an actress, was born October 22, 1970. Redford has a brother named William, who worked in medical research.