The Best There Ever Was

Robert Redford is dead, and I don’t feel very good myself.

Actually, I don’t want to belittle the fact that he’s gone, his important and impactful life ended at the age of 89; that’s really not a bad number to reach, though. I don’t feel good because his passing represents so much about our generation’s lives that was good, and pure, and fun--that’s gone, too.

Robert Redford was a star for as long as I can remember. As we discussed on the show, he’s always been part of our lives (from a distance, of course), always been around, always been famous and handsome and a movie star that no one could ever really say a bad word about. Of course, we only really “knew” him through his films (so many great ones-too many to list-but The Natural, The Sting, Three Days of the Condor, All the President’s Men, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are all good places to start) his directing efforts (Ordinary People, Quiz Show, A River Runs Through It) and the Sundance Film Festival (an endless list of actors, directors, producers, etc., owe him a heavy debt for those).

His stardom, though, was different. He wasn’t the source of endless rumors or speculation (no matter how much attention was paid to his looks), his relationships were not the subject of fodder or gossip (I had to look up who he was married to and how many kids he had), and he was never sensationalized for a DUI, drug arrest, infidelity or domestic violence-for all intents and purposes, his life was pretty straightforward, pretty simple, and pretty quiet. The way it should have been.

My point is, we didn’t know a lot about Robert Redford for most of his stardom-of course, when he became a huge star, there was no internet, no social media, no TMZ, and Entertainment Tonight, People magazine, etc.,-those all came after he was well-established as a star and already well-known to us. He got to just be an actor, a director, a parent, a benefactor for the arts-he got be himself, and we got to watch it-from a distance. He was a massive success, an icon, regardless. There was a line in The Natural, referring to his character, Roy Hobbs, as "the best there ever was." You could say that about Robert Redford, and a lot of people would agree with you.

We were OK, too; we got to enjoy what he offered without being overwhelmed with details about his personal life, without pictures of him coming out of Starbucks, without seeing him get his bags at the airport, without knowing his every thought and move with no regards to his privacy.

I miss that.