Charles Robert Redford, Jr. (born August 18, 1936),
better known as
Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the
Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing
Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime Achievement in 2002. In 2010 he was awarded French Knighthood in the
Legion d'Honneur.
At the height of Redford's fame in the 1970s and 1980s, he was often
described as one of the world's most attractive men and remains one of
the most popular movie stars.
While still largely an unknown, Redford made his screen debut in
War Hunt (1962), co-starring with
John Saxon in a film set during the last days of the Korean War. This film also marked the debuts of director
Sydney Pollack, with whom Redford would often collaborate in the near future, and actor
Tom Skerritt. After his Broadway success, he was cast in larger feature roles in movies. He was cast alongside screen legend
Alec Guinness in the war comedy
Situation Hopeless ... But Not Serious, in which he played a soldier who has to spend years of his life hiding behind enemy lines. In
Inside Daisy Clover (1965), which won him a
Golden Globe for best new star, he played a
bisexual movie star who marries starlet
Natalie Wood, and rejoined her along with
Charles Bronson for Pollack's
This Property Is Condemned
(1966) — again as her lover, though this time in a film which achieved
even greater success. The same year saw his first teaming with
Jane Fonda, in
Arthur Penn's
The Chase. This film marked the only time Redford would star with
Marlon Brando. Fonda and Redford were paired again in the popular big screen version of
Barefoot in the Park (1967) and were again co-stars much later in Pollack's
The Electric Horseman (1979).
After this initial success, Redford became concerned about his blond male stereotype image
[citation needed] and turned down roles in
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and
The Graduate. Redford found the property he was looking for in
George Roy Hill's
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), scripted by
William Goldman, in which he was paired for the first time with
Paul Newman. The film was a huge success and made him a major bankable star, cementing his screen image as an intelligent, reliable, sometimes sardonic good guy.
Redford suffered through a few films that did not achieve box office success during this time, including
Downhill Racer (1969);
Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969);
Little Fauss and Big Halsy (1970), and
The Hot Rock (1972). But his overall career was flourishing with the critical and box office hit
Jeremiah Johnson (1972);
the political satire
The Candidate (1972); the hugely popular period drama
The Way We Were (1973); and the biggest hit of his career; the blockbuster crime caper
The Sting
(1973), which became one of the top 20 highest grossing movies of all
time when adjusted for inflation and for which he was also nominated for
an
Oscar.
Between 1974 and 1976, exhibitors voted Redford Hollywood's top box-office name.
His hits included
The Great Gatsby (1974),
The Great Waldo Pepper (1975), and
Three Days of the Condor (1975). The popular and acclaimed
All the President's Men (1976), directed by
Alan J. Pakula
and scripted once again by Goldman, was a landmark film for Redford.
Not only was he the executive producer and co-star, but the film's
serious subject matter — the
Watergate scandal —
and its attempt to create a realistic portrayal of journalism also
reflected the actor's offscreen concerns for political causes.
He also starred in a segment of the war film
A Bridge Too Far (1977), the prison drama
Brubaker (1980), playing a prison warden attempting to reform the system, and the fantasy baseball drama
The Natural (1984).
Redford continued his involvement in mainstream Hollywood movies,
though with a newfound focus on directing. The first film he directed,
Ordinary People,
which followed the disintegration of an upper class American family
after the death of a son, was one of the most critically and publicly
acclaimed films of the decade, winning a number of Oscars, including the
Academy Award for best director for Redford himself. His followup
directorial project,
The Milagro Beanfield War (1987), failed to generate the same level of attention. Sydney Pollack's
Out of Africa (1985), with Redford in the male lead role opposite
Meryl Streep, became an enormous critical and box office success and won seven
Oscars
including Best Picture, proving to be Redford's biggest success of the
decade and Redford and Pollack's most successful of their six movies
together.
His next film,
Legal Eagles (1986), was only a minor success at the box office.
Redford continued as a major star throughout the 1990s and 2000s. He released his third film as a director,
A River Runs Through It, in 1992, which was a return to mainstream success for Redford as a director and brought a young
Brad Pitt
to greater prominence. 1993 brought Redford one of his most popular and
recognised roles when he starred as a millionaire businessman who tests
people's morals through bribery in
Indecent Proposal, which became one of the year's biggest hits. He co-starred with
Michelle Pfeiffer in the newsroom romance
Up Close & Personal (1996), and with
Kristin Scott Thomas in
The Horse Whisperer (1998), which he also directed.
Redford also continued work in films with political context, such as
Havana (1990), playing Jack Weil, a professional gambler in 1959 Cuba during the Revolution, as well as
Sneakers (1992), in which he co starred with the late
River Phoenix among others.
He appeared as a disgraced Army general sent to prison in the political thriller
The Last Castle (2001), directed by Rod Lurie, someone else with a strong interest in politics. In the same year, Redford reteamed with
Brad Pitt for
Spy Game,
another success for the pair but with Redford switching this time from
director to actor. Redford, a leading environmental activist, narrated
the IMAX documentary
Sacred Planet (2004), a sweeping journey across the globe to some of its most exotic and endangered places. In
The Clearing
(2004), a thriller co-starring Helen Mirren, Redford was a successful
businessman whose kidnapping unearths the secrets and inadequacies that
led to his achieving the American Dream.
Redford stepped back into producing with
The Motorcycle Diaries
(2004), a coming-of-age road film about a young medical student,
Ernesto "Che" Guevera, and his friend Alberto Granado. It also explored
political and social issues of South America that influenced Guevara and
shaped his future. With five years spent in the film's making, Redford
was credited by director Walter Salles for being instrumental in getting
it made and released.
Back in front of the camera, Redford received good notices for his role in director Lasse Hallstrom's
An Unfinished Life
(2005) as a cantankerous rancher who is forced to take in his estranged
daughter-in-law (Jennifer Lopez) — whom he blames for his son's death —
and the granddaughter he never knew he had when they fled an abusive
relationship. The film, which sat on the shelf for many months while its
distributor Miramax was restructured, was generally dismissed as
clichéd and overly sentimental. Meanwhile, Redford returned to familiar
territory when he reteamed with
Meryl Streep 22 years after they starred in Out of Africa, for his personal project
Lions for Lambs (2007), which also starred fellow superstar
Tom Cruise.
After a great deal of hype, the film opened to mixed reviews and
disappointing box office. Redford more recently signed on to direct and
star in an update of
The Candidate.
[citation needed]
Redford appears in the 2011 documentary
Buck, where he discusses his experiences with title subject
Buck Brannaman during the production of
The Horse Whisperer in 1998.
Rob Feenie was the founder, co-owner and executive chef of Lumière and Feenie's in VancouverThose restaurants garnered critical and public success, including being
awarded the prestigious Relais Gourmand designation, four stars from
the Mobil Travel Guide and the AAA Diamond Award.
In late 2007, Feenie was involved in a dispute with his then business
partners. Ultimately, Feenie severed ties with them and left Lumière and
Feenie's. On February 5, 2008, Feenie joined casual dining chain Cactus Club Cafe as a "Food Concept Architect".
Feenie is also a chef-consultant, who restructured Le Regence in the Hotel Plaza Athene.In July 2004, Chef Feenie was invited to New York by the Canadian
Consulate to create an extravagant lunch and dinner at the famous James Beard House in celebration of Canada Day.[citation needed] In February 2009, Feenie became the first "Hokanson Chef in Residence" at NAIT.
TV appearances
