Robert Redford ruled the golden-boy category, whether he was twirling a Colt revolver or directing a camera’s glance. He sure looked like one of life’s winners. As others have pointed out in their remembrances of the actor and director, he was a “quintessential leading man” who possessed “near-iconographic physical beauty.” But the sheen was slippery, as he was well aware. His decades of work contain a theme so pronounced that once you notice it, you see it everywhere in his films: the hollowness of an easy victory.

In so many of his roles, Redford played an athlete or an outdoorsman. Start counting with The Natural and the list expands to include his collegiate romancer in The Way We Were, the opening credits of which include him credibly hurling a javelin, rowing crew, and breaking the

See Full Page