Robert Redford, Oscar-Winning Actor and Director, Dies at 89

Robert Redford, the longtime Hollywood icon and star of classic films such as 1969's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and 1985's Out of Africa, has died. He was 89. "Robert Redford passed away on Sept. 16, 2025, at his home at Sundance in the mountains of Utah — the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved," Cindi Berger, chairman and CEO of Rogers & Cowan PMK, tells PEOPLE in a statement. "He will be missed greatly. The family requests privacy."

"Jeremiah Johnson" has been mentioned too often to not have a little synopsis on the man it was based on. Edited from Wikipedia:

John "Liver-Eating" Johnson, born John Jeremiah Garrison Johnston (July 1, 1824 – January 21, 1900), was a mountain man of the American Old West.

Johnson is said to have been born with the last name Garrison, in the area of the Hickory Tavern near Pattenburg, New Jersey. During the Mexican–American War he served aboard a fighting ship. After striking an officer, he deserted, changed his name to John Johnston and travelled West to try his hand at gold digging in Alder Gulch, Montana Territory. He also became a "woodhawk", supplying cord wood to steamboats.

Rumours and legends about Johnson are common. Perhaps chief among them is that in 1847, his wife, a member of the Flathead American Indian tribe, was killed by a young Crow man and his fellow hunters, which prompted Johnson to embark on a vendetta against the tribe. According to historian Andrew Mehane Southerland, "He supposedly killed and scalped more than 300 Crow Indians and then devoured their livers" to avenge the death of his wife, and "as his reputation and collection of scalps grew, Johnson became an object of fear."

Accounts say that he would cut out and eat the liver of each Crow killed. This led to his being known as "Liver-Eating Johnson". One tale is that while on a foray of over five hundred miles in the winter to sell whiskey to his Flathead kin, he was ambushed by a group of Blackfoot warriors. The Blackfoot planned to sell him to the Crow, his mortal enemies. He was stripped to the waist, tied with leather thongs and put in a teepee with one guard. Johnson managed to break through the straps. He then knocked out the guard with a kick, took his knife and scalped him. He escaped into the woods and fled to the cabin of Del Gue, his trapping partner, a journey of about two hundred miles.

Eventually, Johnson made peace with the Crow and his personal vendetta against them finally ended after 25 years and scores of slain Crow warriors.

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There's no mention of fava beans anywhere in the article.

A little "shout out" for "The Last Castle". That was something, holding his own against a young James Gandolfini. Second time playing a man taking on a prison system, the first being "Brubaker" 20 years before.

“I was about to say that for me [for greatest living actor] it's a tie between Gary Oldman and Daniel Day-Lewis”

My favorite performance from Gary Oldman was in “Leon” aka “The Professional”. He was a true monster.

Daniel Day-Lewis doesn't act. He just metamorphosizes into the character. ;-)

“A lot of popular actors play more or less the same character in every film. As far as I'm concerned, that's not acting, that's being a film personality.”

They call it “typecasting”. Some movie stars make a great living being themselves. Some actors do such a nuanced performance that most people can hardly tell they've adapted to the character. Jack Nicholson comes to mind. He's won more Academy awards for acting (as reviewed by his peers) than anyone. If you watch him do an emotion like anger, you'll discover that he does it differently in every performance. He really does have a lot of range even while remaining recognizable. But I do appreciate actors who vanish into their performances.

You may appreciate a famous scene on the topic from the movie “My Favorite Year” (a movie about the making of a TV show). The show brings on the swashbuckling actor Alan Swann (played by Peter O’Toole), who is accustomed to the retakes of filmmaking but is blindsided when he discovers his television appearance will be live. Overwhelmed by the pressure of performing live, he panics and declares, “I'm not an actor, I'm a movie star!”.

And, if you're into trivia, you might also appreciate that, in 1982, Ben Kingsley won the Academy award for best actor for his role in "Gandhi", beating out Dustin Hoffman in "Tootsie", Jack Lemmon in "Missing", Paul Newman in "The Verdict", and Peter O'Toole in "My Favorite Year".

“it takes real talent to make a one man show watchable. Another example of this is Locke with Tom Hardy in the title role”

I agree. As a (still) aspiring filmmaker, I’m always interested in performances like this because money has traditionally been the biggest obstacle to making movies. And a single character story drastically reduces the essential costs.

Of course, they can always find ways to spend more on any film if it is justified. “Gravity” is basically a one-person play that takes place in outer space. Sandra Bullock pulled that off pretty well. They spent over a hundred million dollars to make the weightlessness and other visual effects realistic.

If you have an interest in Christian movies (though I take it from your screen name that you might be a skeptic), Dean Jones, of Disney fame, did a one-man stage play in which he portrays John the Apostle. It is a magnificent performance. “St. John in Exile” is available for free on Amazon Prime:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B0C5KXM8VH/

If you like the trailer, you’ll almost certainly like the film. (I use the term “film” loosely because it is just a recording of the stage play.)

Thanks, I'll check it out.

There are of course several good one man plays out there, e.g. "Krapp's Last Tape" by Samuel Beckett, or two man plays which are basically one man because a single character does almost all of the talking, e.g. O'Neill's "Hughie", but they don't really work as movies, only as filmed stage plays.

"Locke" was more cinematic thanks to the protagonist driving, just like Robert Redford's "All is Lost" worked as a movie because you had the ocean itself as a second character.

Another successful (and disturbing) one man movie was "Nightingale" with David Oyalowo (sp?), I recommend it if you haven't seen it.

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