Robert Redford at (almost) 40.
This is the way time passes.
I had a shock glancing at the magazines at a store checkout back when I lived in New Orleans (OK, technically across the river in Algiers) when I was in junior high.
I saw a headline that said something like “PAUL NEWMAN TURNS 40!” I couldn’t believe it. This was 1965, and he had played Billy the Kid in 1958! He had been the young up-and-comer in “The Hustler” in 1961! So how could he be an old man now?
But sure enough, he was almost four years older than my Dad, so that’s getting on up there.
While I was still in high school, he portrayed Butch Cassidy alongside a guy young enough to pass as the Sundance Kid. Appropriately, Robert Redford was almost a dozen years younger. He’d been around for a bit, but playing Sundance was his big break, immediately making him a major star.
Which is interesting, looking back. Think of all the characters he played later in his huge career — Gatsby (which came out the year I got married, which is why I wore a three-piece white linen suit that day), Bob Woodward, Bill McKay (“The Candidate“), Jeremiah Johnson, Condor, Major Julian Cook (“A Bridge Too Far“), and Roy Hobbs.
He was always the straight man. So serious, hardly smiling. Kind of grim. I’m-just-hear-to-do-a-job- ma’am. When he reassures a source that he’s a Republican in “All the President’s Men,” Dustin Hoffman is suprised, but nobody else is — he looks the part. And would you ever call Jeremiah Johnson a fun guy?
By contrast the Kid was the coolest guy in the Hole-In-The-Wall Gang. Everybody was afraid of him, even Harvey. If it had been present-day, he’d have been the one in a leather jacket. He’s the one who got Katharine Ross!
Anyway, I’m sorry he’s gone, and shocked that he was 89. But I’ve noticed that a lot of people around me are getting old. Plenty of them are over 40 now.
It’s sobering.
As a senior in high school, I had this poster on my wall.
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