Robert Redford RIP

RR was the actor of the 1970s for many people, including me. In the first part of that decade, he seemed (to me) to be in a triumvirate with Ryan O'Neal and Warren Beatty; whereas the latter two seemed to disappear after about 1976, Redford went on and on and became a megastar.

I have only two clear memories of RR: the first was in 1975, when I saw his film 'Three days of the condor' at the film club of my university. The second was probably in 1979: my then kibbutz had started several discussion groups and I decided to create a film club. No one came to the opening meeting but I ignored this and wrote a report as if several people attended. There was a line about choosing our favourite actor, and RR won that award.

I don't recall if I ever saw 'Butch Cassidy': if I did, it would have been on television many years after it was released. I'm not sure about 'The sting': I know that I saw it when it was released, with a group of friends, and Scott Joplin became the tune of the month, but I don't know when this was. Later on there was 'All the president's men' and 'A bridge too far'.

I read 'The natural' when I was still at secondary school and later read 'Ordinary people' in about 1976; in both cases, I had read the books several years before they were turned into films.

One of my favourite films with RR was 'Sneakers', a film that didn't receive the recognition that I felt it was due.

Redford's sparring partner in 'Butch Cassidy' and 'The sting' was Paul Newman, and I have a few words to say about him. When I emigrated to Israel, people frequently got my surname wrong, calling me 'Noiman' (as someone pointed out, it all depends on whether your paternal grandfather was born in Germany or Poland; mine was born in London in the 1880s). I used to correct them, saying that it was 'Newman, as in Paul Newman, my uncle'. In those days, people knew who Paul Newman was. Later on I had to replace Paul with Randy.

As it happens, yesterday I read a thread in the Cormoran Strike Reddit group about Paul Newman: When Matthew is talking with Robin outside the bar on Christmas Eve, he says “who’s the Paul Newman look alike?” and I just thought this was kind of odd for someone his age. Would he really reference an actor whose heyday/peak resemblance to Murphy was in the 1950s/60s? Why not a more contemporary actor? I actually had to google Paul Newman to see what he looked like when he was in his 30s, because I had no idea. The general concensus was that somone of character Matthew's age would not know who Paul Newman was.

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
199	17/09/2009	The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo	Literature, Steig Larsson
977	17/09/2016	Obligatory monthly grandfather picture	Grandfather
1072	17/09/2017	Interface for importing XML files into Priority	Priority tips
1168	17/09/2018	Maartin Allcock, 1957-2018	Obituary, Fairport Convention
1664	17/09/2023	The GI tract and the new guitar	Guitars, Musical group, Nutrition
1822	17/09/2024	Is this the government that we deserve?	Israel