For many, it was your team-ups with Paul Newman that granted you lifelong fans, for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting had that extraordinary means to layer on the charm.
Your additional movies only reinforced the allegiance: Captain America: The Winter Soldier; The Great Gatsby 1974; The Great Waldo Pepper; The Natural; Jeremiah Johnson; Little Fauss and Big Halsy; The Candidate; All the President's Men; All Is Lost; Brubaker; An Unfinished Life; The Clearing; The Hot Rock; A Walk in the Woods; The Discovery; Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here; The Iceman Cometh 1960; Charlotte's Web 2006; Pete's Dragon 2006; Our Souls at Night; The Way We Were; Legal Eagles; Tall Story; Barefoot in the Park; The Electric Horseman; Inside Daisy Clover; Up Close and Personal; The Horse Whisperer; The Old Man and the Gun; War Hunt; Out of Africa; Lions for Lambs; The Clearing; Truth; Havana; The Chase; Downhill Racer; 3 Days of the Condor; A Bridge Too Far; Spy Game; Sneakers; Indecent Proposal; The Last Castle; Situation Hopeless...But Not Serious; and Rod Serling's probing Playhouse 90 melodrama, "In the Presence of My Enemy."
Your directorial efforts were also impressive, in particular Quiz Show, Ordinary People, The Milagro Beanfield War, The Legend of Bagger Vance and The Conspirator, for which you justly received the highest praise. The same can be said of your Sundance endeavors, which opened the doors for other filmmakers.
On an earlier, more intimate level, your television appearances were a wise warmup for those achievements to come, especially your effectual (star-in-the-making) spots on Whispering Smith, Tate, The Virginian, The Deputy, Route 66, Dr. Kildare, Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.
For an impassioned group of us, however, it's your Twilight Zone episode that resonates far above the prestigious pack. In this regard, George Clayton Johnson's "Nothing in the Dark" has proven an inspiration to many in times of tremulation and uncertainty. (In light of your passing, the fable now holds double meaning, which those in the know will surely understand.)
You were, without argument, an important figure, Mr. Redford, one of the last, great Hollywood innovators. It'll be a long time coming (if ever) that another of your sort should cross our path, and for that, we're grateful to have experienced the advent and scope of your talent firsthand.
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