It’s quite a sight. The screen legend Paul Newman is marching around the forested grounds of his home in Westport, Connecticut, barking “Redford!” into the undergrowth as if he’s lost a troublesome dog. Robert Redford is scrambling through the same expansive wilderness, calling out: “Newman!” The two men are scheduled for an interview, they haven’t met in more than a year, and Redford is late, and lost. “I am painfully punctual,” says Newman later, after finding his friend. “That’s one of the things that separates me and Redford.”
It’s an inspired start to the Artsworld Iconoclasts interview (to be broadcast on August 6 by Sky) between the two men. For it illustrates the essence of this enduring double act — a certain sparky chemistry, a feigned irascibility, and a deep unspoken affection. “When we made the movies nobody used the word ‘chemistry’,” says Redford, later, ruminating on his relationship with Newman. “Nobody used the word ‘bonding’.
It was just: ‘Get up there and do your job!’ ” However, it’s a testament to the very real chemistry that exists between Redford and Newman that this professional partnership, which lasted only two movies (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting), became one of the greatest movie double acts and generated genuine friendship off screen.
Of course, they’re different now. Newman, at 81, is rake thin, polite and wily, with a hushed caramel-voiced delivery and delicate old-world charm. Redford, at 69, with lightly dyed hair and well-tended physique, is more the preserved movie specimen, the Sundance player. When they get together, too, they share that occasionally awkward diffidence common to men of their generation. Their greeting hug is certainly uncomfortable for both of them. And when, for optimum camera framing, they’re seated closely side by side, they turn ever so slightly away from each other.
And still, it’s in the flicker of a gesture, or a single word, that intimacy is revealed. Newman, for instance, while describing his own luckless movie debut in The Silver Chalice, starts to laugh. Then Redford, catching Newman’s infectious giggles, starts laughing too. The two men chuckle, and shake giddily in their seats. And then they recover. They still face in vaguely opposite directions, but they are beaming now, wildly, like friends, like brothers, and like men who bond to each other’s hearts. “There are certain friendships,” says Redford later, tellingly away from Newman, “that are sometimes too good and too strong to talk about.”
On Newman’s film debut, The Silver Chalice (1954)
Newman: Did I survive the first film? I did. (Laughs.) I had dogs chasing me down the street. I was wearing this tiny little Greek cocktail dress — with my legs! Good Lord, it was really bad. In fact, it was the worst filmmade in the 1950s. My first review said that “Mr Newman delivers his lines with the emotional fervour of a conductor announcing local stops.”
Redford: I got a review when I was starting in live television. This guy Jack O’Brian called me “hammy and overwrought”. Now I’m looking back on it, I’d like to hold on to those reviews.
Newman: No you wouldn’t.
Redford: It keeps you in perspective. It really does. Part of you says: “You know, I never ever really got over that.” And what I think you learn very early on is not to believe your own press clippings. One way or another, just do your work. ’Cos you’re your own tough critic. If you focus on doing the work, you’ll get to a place of refinement where those reviews which are often hyped up too much to the negative or the positive fall away.
On fame and George Roy Hill (director, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting)
Redford: Success — what do I think about success? The only thing I thought about it was that I wanted to do something. So I guess that was my own way of saying I want to be important. Then you just attach yourself to a trade. In my own case, it was acting. Once that was it, you’re gonna do something as an actor.
Newman: Both of us owe a great debt to George Roy Hill. It really isn’t a duet here, it’s a trio. George was the third part of the trio. He had such a good eye and such an ear and an instinct for truth. He always thought out of the box.
Redford: When George showed a rough cut of Butch Cassidy, I said: “What in the hell is that song doing in there? What is that about? Raindrops keep falling . . . there’s no rain!” I said: “Well, boy, that’s tanked!” I couldn’t figure it out, and boy was I wrong. I had to listen to the song in the Top Ten for six months after that. George was a craftsman. If you look at Butch Cassidy or The Sting, both those films were really George’s films. He managed the scene, and Paul and I could argue with him, try and trick him. But he would do that to us too, so it was a pretty great dynamic.
Newman: If you weren’t on time, he’d take you up in his airplane. Scare the bejesus out of us.
Redford: Or if we went out to eat, I’d for ever get stuck with the tab.
Newman: I miss him.
Redford: I miss him too.
On philanthropy. Newman founded Newman's Own, a line of food products, in 1982. Newman donates the proceeds, after taxes, to charity. As of early 2006, the franchise has given more than $200 million. One beneficiary of Newman’s Foods is the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, founded in 1986, a group of worldwide residential summer camps for seriously ill children
Newman: If I have a legacy of any kind, it’s not gonna be on film . . .
Redford: That’s a good point. Maybe it’s putting something back because you feel you’ve been blessed for whatever reasons. What really intrigues me is all this formula for business. I’m kind of an anti-formula guy, I think you are too. I mean, you go outta the box and do something different. And then you get all the analytical stuff: “No, no, it’s not gonna work ’cos it doesn’t fit that formula”, and then it does work because you made it personal, you made it your own thing. You say: “I’m just gonna do it the way I wanna do it”. I love that.
Newman: These things have a mind of their own. You think you’re in control of them, but somehow you’re not.
Redford: When you start something fun, and you do it on a kind of lark, you wanna keep the fun going. You know? Well, you have . . . That’s probably my best compliment to you.
Newman: We keep it lean, you know. For a company that’s a $160 million to $170 million a year company, we got 18 people working for us.
Redford: That’s good. (Laughs.) I’m making $18 and I have 160 million people working for me. I’ll tell you what I like, what I respond to, that the humour that started it has never flagged.
Newman: That’s the delight of it. For instance, would you put your face on a can of dog food?
Redford: (Laughs.) Dog s*** maybe, but not dog food.
On car racing. Newman became interesting in car racing while filming Winning in 1968. He co-founded Newman/ Haas Racing with Carl Haas in 1983. Now, at the age of 81, he still races — his team recently won its fifth championship
Redford: What is it that took you out of the pack and up to the front? What kind of discipline?
Newman: I guess I was hooked on something. And I’m just a terrier and I try to go after it until I lick it.
Redford: What were the tough spots as you were getting there?
Newman: Going fast!
On future plans
Redford: There are a couple of things that Paul and I have talked about doing, and in a lot of those cases it’s like this would be good, except is there the craftsman to make it really worthwhile? And we would say: “No”.
Newman: I can remember in my high-school days and I kept thinking to myself: “Now, why did those actors go out in public after a certain age?” I mean why would they wanna blow this image they’d worked so hard and allow themselves to be photographed? They shoulda just stayed at home and stayed young and youthful.
And now it’s there for everybody to look at — all our words, stuttering, and bad posture. All those things that should never happen, really. Well, times change. Yeah, it ain’t so bad!
Iconoclasts: Robert Redford and Paul Newman will be shown on August 6 at 9pm on Artsworld (Sky Channel 267)
