At 87, Robert Redford FINALLY Admits What We All Suspected

green Legend Robert Redford no stranger to The Newsroom well known for his role playing Bob Woodward in All the President's Men you know I can't do this forever I've been doing it since I was 21 As you move into your 80s you say hey that's enough that's enough oh [Music] [Applause] for almost 90 years Robert Redford's life had been a mosaic of loss and heartache hidden behind the silver screens glistening facade for over six decades Robert Redford graced the world with unparalleled entertainment but behind the curtain of Fame his life unfolded as a tragedy this is the complete life story of Robert Redford let's unveil what really goes on behind the scenes early life born on the 18th of August 1936 baby Robert was born to Martha and Charles Redford and his only sibling is his paternal half brother William Robert attended van noise High School where he was schoolmates with several Stars including baseball pitcher Don Dale and Natalie Woods although he may not seem like it Robert was a notorious student who hung out with a teenage boy gang and got his inspiration from art and sports not in the classroom he was also friends with poncho Gonzalez who he played with at the Los Angeles Tennis Club he then attended the University of Colorado in Boulder before he was kicked out after about a year there he was a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity he soon traveled around Europe before he went on to study painting in Brooklyn at the Pratt Institute and took classes at the American Academy of dramatic arts the setbacks at the beginning of his life were not enough to stop the strong willed actor he always found his way out of any negative situation but will he be able to swim through the Sea of hurt that he would steadily go through later in life keep watching to find out how it all ends Robert's acting and film career if you didn't know the beginning of Redford's career was as generic as that of the stars who emerged in the 1950s to be specific it began in New York where he worked as an actor both on stage and the big green his first Broadway debut was a small role in tall story in 1959 however not long after he got a large Broadway role in the 1963 Barefoot in the Park where he acted as Elizabeth Ashley's newlywed husband other Broadway plays he starred in are the highest tree and Sunday in New York following his role in Barefoot in the Park he soon appeared as a guest star on different television programs like Naked City The Untouchables Route 66 and so on moving away from Broadway he began casting larger rolles on the big screen he acted in Rescue 8 breaking point and so on in 1965 he played a bisexual movie star in inside Daisy Clover and this role won him a Golden Globe in 1966 he acted as Natalie Wood's lover in this property is condemned watching all of these films or any other made around this time you might notice that Redford mostly portrayed a blond male stereotype image just as anyone would have noticed he also did and it did not leave him unconcerned hence it was another noticeable change in the roles he rejected and accepted he rejected roles in who's Afraid of Virginia wolf and the graduate on the other hand he took up a role in Butch cassid and the Sundance Kid where he took on a different image as an intelligent sardonic good guy then came the 1970s and Robert experienced a chain of box office successes Jeremiah Johnson and The Sting were just some of the movies that cemented his place as a Hollywood icon and a versatile actor he started directing movies in the 1980s and his directorial debut was Ordinary People which gave him numerous Awards including Best Director between 1999 and 2012 featured in various films including the last Castle Spy game the clearing and many other movie hits he surprised his fans and Audience by portraying a totally different character from what we are used to he played the role of a villain in Captain America the Winter Soldier and what more he killed that role after all of his success on the big screen he sadly announced his retirement from acting however do not fret as he has also said that he might continue Contin to act in the future Robert Redford's love life as you might have noticed so far Robert Redford acted the role of a lover boy or lover man in his case in many of the movies he starred in well you should know that this isn't very far from who he is as Robert did fall in love in real life and got married to the mother of his children after courting Lola vanwagon in she said I do to him on August 9th 1958 in Las Vegas now while everything that happens in Vegas stays in Vegas and we cannot tell you much about their wedding reception there we can tell you that a second reception was held at Lola's grandmother's home on September 12th 1958 they both had four Children Together Scott Anthony Redford Shauna jeene Redford David James Redford and Amy Hart Redford now unfortunately Robert Redford's relationship with Lola did not last forever and they had had a divorce in 1982 they had not made this divorce public but Shirley eater an entertainment columnist reported that they had been separated for years following their divorce which was suspected to be finalized as of 1985 Robert on July 11th 2009 married his longtime lover seil Zagers in Germany and quite surprisingly they had reportedly been living together in the same home since 1991 Robert had Polio as a kid now that you have a wide insight into the background of who Robert Radford is and his achievements since he got into the Limelight in the 1950s we can now dive into the tragic life such a good and strong willed man had unfortunately had to face through his almost 90 years on Earth as earlier stated Robert Redford is a rather private man and not much is known about him so you can imagine why everyone was so surprised when in 2011 he decided to collaborate with author Michael feni Callen on a biography about his rather eventful life he shared the different intriguing events that had happened in his life and one of them was that he had Polio when he was a child for those who do not know how deathly polio was here's a little insight polio is a devastating disease that leads to paralysis severe breathing issues and most times death and most people who had it bad before the invention of the polio vaccine had to be confined to an iron lung for the remainder of their life the vaccine for polio was created in the 1950s however Redford got sick with polio between the 1930s and 1940s where he could very well have been in danger of being confined to an iron lung however the actor explained that what he had was mild polio and wasn't an iron lung case regardless it was still enough to keep him in his bed for 2 weeks he had gotten polio after swimming in the ocean and he knew he had the disease when he couldn't open his eyes and move his body after waking up one morning he wasn't paralyzed but as he explained moving his body proved difficult he also said that the mid1 1940s was one of the scariest times to get sick with polio so you know he would have been terrified those two weeks when he was bedridden later on in 2014 Robert paid tribute to the inventor of the polio vaccine Jonah Suk through a short film cathedrals of culture the film was a 3D documentary about San Diego's Sal Institute for biological studies and it was directed by the Oscar winner a dare almost killed the actor remember when we described Robert Redford as a notorious teenage Tearaway yes we were not kidding you see not many people would picture the respectable Hollywood icon as a rebel but we reaffirm that he was he spent most of his years with a teenage gang causing trouble and being a handful seeing as he grew up in postor War II America which was characterized by heightened racism he got into a lot of race related gang wars he also explained how he was bullied for going to a good school and for being good at track eventually his dealing with the gang and one of his bullies dared him to jump off a high building to prove he was not a weakling the strong willed young man he was then was not willing to pass up on the chance to prove his manliness especially to his bully so he followed through with the Dare luckily for him it didn't cost him his life he broke only a few bones and he proved to them that he was not a complete wuss he was then allowed to keep wreaking havoc with the team and this might not have been the best path for him as he soon began experimenting with marijuana and hashish and also became involved in an illegal drag racing subculture in California following this another incident happened as he crashed his car on his way to one of these races it is obvious he survived and was considered lucky to be alive Robert Redford lost his mom Robert Redford lost his mom at age 18 being the notorious teenager that he was it is quite obvious that Redford did not make things easy for his parents however he attested to the fact that this did not stop his mother from standing by his side through it all he said she believed that all things considered she just had faith that I had something in me that was going to turn out okay while her faith and instincts were right Martha did not get to experience the days when her son would make the big screen and eventually make it big in 1955 she suffered from a hemorrhage which was linked to a blood disorder caused 8 years before by the still birth of her twin daughters sadly she died when she was just 40 and her son was just at the beginning of adulthood and just a few years after he had contracted polio to date Robert speaks of his mother with awe complimenting her smile and positive attitude he explains that like every child he took her for granted at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival which he helped create he paid an emotional tribute to his mother and left everyone at the Utah women's leadership celebration at the 2018 Robert Redford lost a father figure even before his mother's death young Robert had begun experiencing grief this means that he had to face the tragic feeling of losing a Lov one even before he turned 18 his mother's death wasn't the first time the universe would be dishing Robert Redford with loss and the hurtful feeling of grief he lost a father figure before he lost his mother Robert grew up with both his parents Martha and Charles however with Charles bringing a Milkman also known as a fortunate accountant working long and bad hours Robert did not get to see enough of his father he however wasn't left without a father figure in his early years but he found one that kept his heart golden and Cherry this Father Figure was his Uncle David the times he couldn't spend with his father he made up with his uncle they shared a father and son relationship spending time hanging out playing games and so on it would appear then that things were looking up for young Robert and life was going smoothly however as we all know the universe had other plans tragically Robert Lost David his second father figure after he was drafted into World War II as part of General Patton's thirdd Army David was crossing the Luxembourg bridge in a Jeep in 1945 when he was caught in a crossfire and eventually died David was somebody anybody would be proud to look up to he was an All-American allrounder who could play football and speak at least four different languages in his session with NPR in 2013 while talking about the death of his Uncle David Redford he said the way the family dealt with it it just wasn't talked about it just happened and you didn't ask a lot of questions he got expelled from college you probably have heard of the saying that the decisions you make now will eventually come back to meet you and so whether good or bad you get to reap the rewards of the decision you made while Robert might have been destined for greatness it definitely excludes him from this natural law of Life his decision to stick with the gang in his early teen years and then get involved in all the illegal things they did led to him being kicked out of college eventually according to the biography he had worked on with mik all Robert graduated from high school in 1954 with averagely good grades but an exclusive Athletics resume remember that we said he was so good at track he got bullied for it thankfully his athleticism got him accepted into the first University he got into the University of Colorado at Boulder he was attracted by the baseball program in the institution and also by the prospect of earning a sports scholarship if he performed well as a player however his interest in baseball was put on hold when classes began and he had to focus more on studying art making friends wasn't easy for Robert Redford who had sealed himself in a self-imposed isolation however this changed after he joined the Kappa Sigma fraternity and made friends with a senior member who helped him socialize more and improve his art however as much as this newfound friendship was good to some extent it would also lead to his undoing old habits die hard and it was even harder for Robert who made friends with a senior who wasn't very different from his friends in his gang after a runin with the police during his teenage years Robert decided to quit his criminal way but he wasn't turning a new leaf with the help of his new freins he soon reverted to old ways drinking regularly and irresponsibly pulling pranks and drag racing instead of studying he eventually lost his scholarship because of this and could not continue at the University of Colorado having to drop out after a year and a half this would definitely have been a disaster he managed to build a party boy reputation for himself but that was at the expense of his scholarship however Robert made one fine lemonade from the lemons life threw at him he traveled around Europe spent time learning how to paint in Florence and then Paris later on he studied at New York's American Academy of dramatic arts NADA Robert lost his first child after being kicked out of the University he learned how to paint for a long time and even up until he started acting in New York things appeared to be going well for the actor and nothing tragic happened during the late 1950s he was a married man already having exchanged vows with Lola van vaginan he also had his Broadway debut in tall story and had just welcomed his first son Scott into his life and Home in short everything was going great for the star and for anyone who was watching it would seem as though it was finally the time he could sit back and enjoy after years of grieving and hurting how ever this was not the case a few months after Scott Redford was born and he passed away from sudden infant death syndrome which is more commonly known as SIDS just as in every child with SIDS it was not known what caused the death of Scott however many factors could be attributed to it people grieved the loss of their children differently and for Robert he held himself responsible for not checking on his child earlier being the private man he was he dealt with this guilt and grief privately and it took him more than 50 years to speak publicly about the grief he felt due to the loss of his baby in an interview in 2011 Robert opened up about his child's death he talked about how especially difficult this was for him and his wife as they were very young and he didn't have a well-paying job we didn't know anything about sudden infant death syndrome so as a parent you blame yourself it creates a scar that never never completely heals he said this would have been very hard for Robert as among the series of losses he had experienced he also had lost his twin sisters over a decade before he almost lost his second son as if the death of his first son was not enough Redford got another scare imagine the Indescribable pain and fear he would have felt if he had lost another child so close to the time he lost his first well he almost did and this was just 3 years after the death of the first child he is almost his second son after the death of Scott Redford Robert and his wife went on to build a large family together having three other children James Shauna and Amy Redford James Redford like his brother also faced different health issues both as a child and throughout his life as soon as he was born doctors diagnosed James also known as Jamie with a deadly and severe case of holine membrane disease this infant respiratory condition has only a 40% chance of survival fortunately little jimie survived and his parents didn't have to grieve another child almost immediately after the death of their first born however he still lived with a lot of medical woes including chronic digestion conditions that could have led to the inflammation of his colon infections colitis and blood flow problems the colitis he suffered led to him having liver issues he was later diagnosed with sosis and had to get a liver transplant in 1993 he was 31 this new liver did not help his health issues and so he had to undergo another transplant what was worse than having to come to terms with the chances of losing another child it was the chance of losing your partner and this was the case because Lola also at the same time had her life hanging in the balance his daughter's boyfriend was murdered as if all of these losses and scares were not enough another tragedy hit Robert and his family this time the grief targeting especially his daughter and this was in 1983 Shauna had become an artist after studying at the University of Colorado luckily the university did not place a blanket ban on her Redford family soon she made headlines and it wasn't for a great reason she has been linked with a tragic story Shauna Redford lost her journalism student boyfriend at his University of Colorado apartment he had been mysteriously shot at the back of his head and his murder case Still Remains somewhat unsolved to date F smika who was Sid's roommate and was due to pay rent on the day Sid Wells Shauna's late boyfriend was shot was announced to be the number one suspect in the shocking and and mysterious murder now while he was arrested there was not enough evidence to charge or indict him so he was set free for many people who still believe that SMA had something to do with Sid's death their belief has been strengthened by the fact that he has not been seen since 1986 his car was abandoned at Beverly Hills with the motion that he had run away from America all together what more in 2020 new evidence arose for a case review that put smah as the prime suspect however even after issuing different age progressed mug shots of the suspect smica Still Remains unfound during sidwell's funeral Robert contemplated staying away from the venue due to the fear of the paparazzi and press however he was too deep into grief to stay away so he honored Sid's memory he explains that for a while he was still haunted by the death of wells and he Likens the unsolved case to a partially open door with a very dark room behind it he lost his close friend Natalie Woods earlier in this video we told you that van n was home to not only Robert Redford but also other Legends and Natalie Wood a screen Legend was one of them when they both went to Van ny's high school they did not know each other as they LED separate lives at that point even Natalie was already a big screen name and a child star after acting in I'm Miracle on 34th Street and on her way to an Oscar nomination on the other hand Robert Redford was both an athlete and busy causing trouble they became very close friends after co-starring as lovers in two movies and acted in the 1960s they acted as lovers in the movies inside Daisy Clover and this property is condemned they became so close that he was the best man at one of our weddings Robert also had Natalie Wood to thank for his Golden Globe winning role as Wade Lewis from inside Daisy Clover she was already a bigger star at that time and had been the one to recommend him to Warner Bros they had such a wonderful friendship as he described it however the already short friendship was cut short after the death of Natalie Redwood also affirms that he wished he had known her sooner so they could share more memories of friendship Natalie feared water and had been partying on a yacht with her husband Robert Wagner and actor friend Christopher Walkin in 1981 they had been on a boating trip around Catalina Island when she drowned her death and the circumstances surrounding it remain murky even after over 40 years of her being dead the tragic event took her life when she was just 43 years old the loss of his friend left him devastated and he is quite outspoken about their relationship and connection even though he is known for being private he divorced his wife after almost 30 years there's often this belief that celebrities never have longlasting relationships however it was not the same for Robert Redford and Lola van wagan during the mid 1980s they both seemingly had one of the most stable marriages in Hollywood even after the death of their firstborn child they remained stronger together to have three more children Shauna James and Amy in 2001 16 years after they went their separate ways Robert finally came open about their relationship and split up they had chosen to end their relationship amicably it was a mutual decision and they both believed it was right to move on at that time even after their split up they remained great friends sharing affection for each other seeing as they split up in such a mature and applaudable manner it is no wonder why even after having divorced parents their children turned out great and they came through the divorce okay he married Lola even before he became famous and considering the not so smooth Foundation it was commendable that they lasted so long one of the reasons he had married her was to prove to his family that he could easily pull off marrying her his family believed that he would not amount to anything or be great so marrying Lola and eloping with her was one way to prove them wrong left for Redford he would have had the marriage stay longer as he wanted to make it work so badly he didn't want his relationship to be one of those celebrities showing business casualties however he couldn't his relationship was one of the longest enduring Hollywood marriages a few years after divorcing Lola Robert started seeing a German artist and they moved in together however it took a while before he met her at the altar with them only getting married in 2009 the life and sad ending of Robert Redford when Robert Redford had just begun to enjoy the dawn of his life life wasn't done with him and for him pain might just be the prevailing way he would end his life in the latter part of 2020 Robert Redford lost his son Robert Redford losing a child is painful and losing two we'd consider that an Indescribable pain and that was definitely what Robert Redford felt after the loss of his second son when James Redford survived the medical woes thrown at him during his childhood it appeared that the future wasn't so Bleak and that everything would turn out great especially after his second liver transplant however this was not the case for the Redford family no parent wishes to outlive their children let alone to but in October 20 to20 James passed away from liver cancer at the age of 58 James was born just 3 years after Scott's death and he gave his parents quite a scare with them thinking he would also pass away like his brother however he survived much to the Delight of family members he was awaiting another transplant in 2019 when he was diagnosed with vile duct cancer and a year later he succumbed to his disease James had founded an Institute that aimed to create awareness about the procedure involved in liver transplantation he was married to Kyle and they had two children together Kyle Redford had been the one to confirm the sad passing of her husband through a tweet this is the tragic life that Robert Redford endured through his years however he remained strong willed and positive as he pours out his positivity on the world thanks for watching to enjoy more thrilling stories that uncover the reality of your favorites click now on the next video that pops up on your screen

Channel: Prime Discovery

Views: 424,504

Keywords: The Tragic Death, tragic, death, glits and glamour, Hollywood, tragedy, sorrowful twist, challenges, untimely, agonizing, journey, discovery, prime discovery, legendary, comedian, Robert Redford, Robert, Redford, Robert Redford life, prime

Id: vaj2hYfIPQs

Length: 28min 10sec (1690 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 05 2024