Robert Redford and the Perils of Perfection
Robert Redford on the set of “Quiz Show,” in 1994. Photograph courtesy Everett https://www.newyorker.com/culture/postscript/robert-redford-and-the-perils-of-perfection Postscript The most golden of golden boys, he was too burnished by Hollywood but kept a lonely chill that was all his own. By September 18, 2025 Gentleman, preferred, blond: such was the job description of Robert Redford , who died on Tuesday, at the age of eighty-nine. Onscreen, he and his buddy Paul Newman were partners in crime, in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969) and “The Sting” (1973), though the crimes were no more wicked than practical jokes. Offscreen, the two men were good sports—friendly, athletic, devoted to decent causes , and, like most major stars, a little hard to know, keeping something back in a bid to leave us hungering for more. Both were a byword, too, for male beauty, fully alive to the almost laughable impact of their handsomeness, yet ill at ease, now and then, with their perches ...