RIP Robert Redford

Yet another star has died.

I say 'Yet another,' because every time one of the bigs dies, it seems, at least temporarily, that the world is coming to an end.

   

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I have two major memories of Robert Redford: 

Memory the First... 

The family, or what was left of it (by the time of this story, my two older brothers weren't home a lot of the time) so the family was my parents, me, and my little brother were going to see Jeremiah Johnson.

That day there was a foot of snow on the ground.  

And we would be walking to the movie theater because our car was in the shop.

This would not be at all memorable if we'd gone to one of the nearby movie theaters, either the Merben or the Mayfair, which would have been a 20 minute walk.  Or maybe a little longer due to the snow.

But we were going to shlep in a foot of snow almost three miles to the Benner. 

I remember very little about the movie, except a scene where Jeremiah Johnson meets some crazy person, but instead of crazy, he refers to the person as ‘touched.’ 

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Memory the Second...

One of my older brothers had gone with his girlfriend to see The Great Gatsby, i.e. the one from 1974, which starred Redford as Jay Gatsby.  

On older brother's return home, he announced 'If I was a woman, I'd mail myself to Robert Redford.'    

 

He always looked extra pretty in 1920s/1930s attire.

BTW, Sam Waterston played Nick Carraway in the movie.  If you watch the movie today, Sam looks like he's age 14.

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All the other movies of his that I saw in the theatre: 

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: This was re-released a couple years after it first came out, so that's when I saw it.  I vividly remember the first scene, but hardly any of the rest of it.   

The Sting: This was the first movie I went to see by myself.

The Great Waldo Pepper: All I remember about this movie is nothing about this movie, but a day or two, or maybe three days before, the family had taken a trip to the Delaware Water Gap.  Where we'd had a meal at Howard Johnson's.  And where Howard Johnson's Coke or Pepsi (I forget which) tasted like mostly water. That's something I'll never forget. 

A Bridge Too Far: I remember I saw the movie, but I don't remember thing one about the movie.

The Natural: I recall that a) I really liked this movie, and b) he was at he very prettiest in this one. 

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Of the movies he directed, the one I best remember was Quiz Show, mainly because I snuck into see it.  

A friend and I had gone to this big multiplex to see Forrest Gump.  After Forrest Gump was over, we wandered the hall to see what else was playing, and decided to sneak into see Quiz Show.  I remember doing that another time.  That time we snuck in to see Ed Wood, but I forget the movie we saw before that which we actually paid for.