On Tuesday, September 16, Robert Redford, the legendary actor and Oscar-winning director of Ordinary People, died at the age of 89. Redford made his mark on Hollywood in films like All the President’s Men and by starting the iconic Sundance Film Festival. But Redford only got his big break when the late acting legend Paul Newman handpicked him to be his costar in the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Redford starred as Harry Longabaugh, a.k.a. the Sundance Kid, opposite Newman’s outlaw, Butch Cassidy. The film was a critical and commercial hit, winning four Oscars, including best screenplay and best song. The two actors would reunite four years later, starring opposite each other in The Sting, which won eight Oscars in 1974.
Newman reportedly fought for Redford when the studios were dreaming of a more established name. “The studio didn’t want me. I wasn’t as well-known as he was,” Redford said in an interview with ABC News in 2008, shortly after Newman’s death. “But he said, ‘I want to work with an actor,’ 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, because we both came from the same background of theater in New York.”
While Redford and Newman had similar backgrounds, that didn’t mean they were exactly alike. On the set of The Sting, as producer Michael Phillips told The Hollywood Reporter, Redford was “chronically late.” Eventually, Phillips said, Newman, 11 years older than Redford, took the youngster to task. “One day, Newman tore him apart for it,” Phillips said. “Paul was the bigger star. And he said something like, ‘What are you—a movie star?’ Redford shrunk from it.”
The dressing-down may have only bonded the two actors further. In January 1975, Redford gave Newman a Porsche as a gift for his 50th birthday—but with a mischievous twist. “I started to get bored, because every time we got together, all he talked about was racing and cars,” Redford said in an interview at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in 2014. “So I decided to play a joke on him. I called a towing service and said, ‘Do you have any crushed automobiles? Do you have a Porsche?’” Redford had the crushed Porsche delivered to Newman’s home in Connecticut, wrapped in a bow.
Redford didn’t immediately hear back from Newman after giving the gag gift. Weeks later, Redford found a big wooden box in his lobby, containing the remains of the sports car—now crushed into a cube. Redford called a sculptor he knew to transform the metal into a garden ornament and had it placed in Newman’s garden. The two actors reportedly never spoke about the prank.
Redford and Newman eventually became neighbors in Connecticut, and spent a long time looking for a third film to make together. “It was hard because we didn’t want to duplicate anything,” Redford said. “But we also wanted to try to find a project that would still have the relationship they had in the other two. The first film we did, because I was young, I played a more dour character and Paul was the lively one. And then the next time out, on The Sting, he was the cool guy and I was the lively one. So we were looking for a third piece that would be different in terms of story but would have the same kind of characters.” Redford developed his 2015 film A Walk in the Woods as a project to reunite the two actors, but unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be. Newman’s health declined before production could begin, and the role was eventually taken by Nick Nolte.
Although they never found a third project, the two actors remained close until the end. Shortly before his death from lung cancer, Newman sent Redford a letter that concluded: “You were the Sundance to my Cassidy—always.” “I’ve lost a true friend,” Redford said after Newman’s death. “My life, and this country, are better because of his presence.”
This story originally appeared in VF France.
