14 April 1970: Robert Redford, in London, talks to Derek Malcom about his new film Downhill Racer
Robert Redford, giant of American cinema, dies aged 89 – news
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hen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid first went the rounds, the credits read Paul Newman, Katharine Ross, Robert Redford. Now they read Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katharine Ross. Redford, the Sundance Kid, is probably the hottest new box office property in the male category since the emergence of Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman. The strange thing is that, though passably grateful, he couldn’t really care less.
“I am not,” he says determinedly, “a Hollywood man. Do you remember that guy who walks in and out of William Saroyan’s The Time of Your Life, saying ‘There’s no foundation, no foundation – all down the line’? Well, that’s what I feel about Hollywood. You can’t run an art form like a business any more, and they’re still trying to. Films to them are just like vacuum cleaners or refrigerators. The approach sickens me.”
