After Paul Newman died of lung most cancers on the age of 83 in 2008, Robert Redford talked to ABC about their longstanding friendship.
Its inception, he defined, was their starring collectively in the hit 1969 movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”
“It was just that connection of playing those characters and the fun of it that really began the relationship,” Redford said at the time. “And then once the film started, once we went forward, we then discovered other similarities that just multiplied over time, a common ground that we both had between us, interests and so forth, and differences.”
“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” was a hybrid western-buddy comedy that featured the actor pair as affable outlaws concerned in a practice theft gone awry. The movie went on to win 4 Academy Awards, together with greatest unique screenplay.
Much like their bonded onscreen characters in the movie, what would comply with in actual life could be a long time of affection and admiration between the pair, who may have simply been rivals given their positions as Hollywood heartthrobs-turned-leading males.
Redford died Tuesday “at his home at Sundance in the mountains of Utah–the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved,” in line with a press release from his publicist Cindi Berger, chairman and chief government officer of Rogers and Cowan PMK. He was 89.
The two males had lots in frequent.
Like Newman, Redford started his profession on the stage earlier than transitioning to the silver display. Each took their craft very significantly and it was Redford’s expertise, he recalled, that led Newman to battle for the youthful star to play the Sundance Kid reverse his Butch Cassidy.
“He said, ‘I want to work with an actor,’” Redford mentioned. “And that was very complimentary to me, because that’s, I think, how we both saw our profession, that acting was about craft and we took it seriously.”
: This basic Western options Paul Newman and Robert Redford as a pair of outlaws who stay loyal till the tip.” class=”image_large__dam-img image_large__dam-img–loading” onload=’this.classList.remove(‘image_large__dam-img–loading’)’ onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”491″ width=”675″ loading=’lazy’/>Redford typically credited Newman with serving to to make him the multi-hyphenate star that he grew to become as a result of he had gone to bat for him on that movie.
Their buddy power carried them into one other film additionally now thought-about a basic, 1973’s “The Sting,” which additional cemented their friendship.
Both needed to be revered for his or her craft extra so than their appreciable attractiveness.
They had been devoted household males and at one level lived a few mile aside from one another in Connecticut. They additionally each leaned into philanthropy, with Redford specializing in the setting and unbiased filmmaking, and Newman founding the meals firm Newman’s Own whose income he donated to charity.
Redford as soon as mirrored on Newman’s dedication to The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, which Newman first based in 1988 to help chronically sick youngsters.
In a video supporting the camp, Redford mentioned that even earlier than he began working with Newman, he considered him as “not so much a hero, but a guy who stood up for what he believed was right.”
“Playing friends, we became friends,” Redford mentioned. “And I got to experience firsthand what that meant to Paul.”
The man who was an even bigger star than he was earlier than their first movie collectively, and who fought for Redford to get the position in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” confirmed Redford “what the craft of acting meant to him, what his family meant to him, which was everything,” he mentioned in the clip.
“So I couldn’t say enough good things about Paul, except that he had a terrible sense of humor,” Redford added. “And the worst of it was that he would laugh at his bad jokes.”
The love was mutual.
During an appearance on “Film 82,” Newman shared that casting Redford was initially the thought of Newman’s spouse, the actress Joanne Woodward, who he mentioned after studying the script and declaring it “marvelous” informed him that “the only guy who can play it is Bob Redford.”
“We have lot of fun together,” Newman mentioned of Redford. “We bounce off of each other very well.”
The two males had a behavior of taking part in “eccentric practical jokes” on one another, Newman added.
According to him, Redford as soon as despatched him a Porsche for his birthday, however one which had crashed right into a tree at 130 mph with out a transmission.
“It was just left in my driveway with a big bow around it,” Newman recalled. “So I had the whole thing compacted.”
But that wasn’t all. With the help of the true property agent who had rented Redford the home he was dwelling in on the time, Newman received into the house and left the massive compacted automotive inside his vestibule.
“It took five guys to carry this thing into his house,” Newman mentioned. “And of course he finally won that one because he never admitted that anything was in his house.”