Handwritten manuscript by Robert Redford, unsigned, seven total pages, 8.25 x 11.75, no date (circa mid-to-late 1960s), containing the actor’s thoughts and feelings on several intimate topics, including himself, friends, children, drugs, health and exercise, the news media, political causes, typecasting, acting, and philosophy. The manuscript concludes with a section containing Redford’s notes on the teachings of Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan. The manuscript, penned in blue and black ballpoint, begins with “Things about myself,” which contains several paragraphs of self-reflection, in part:
“Love the grit & grime & excitement & pace of a city — London, Paris, N.Y., — The mysteries — But the mysteries are complex and small — When all is said & done — I prefer the mountains of the West — I am truly at home there. The mystery is larger, more massive…
“There is great freedom and carefree simplicity in being on the slopes or in a Boat or on a horse — It’s a single purpose that has nothing to do with having to interpret the political and interior motives of the Business — It’s just plain fun — Speed gives me this.
“I distrust calculated charm and pose, consequently have always found it difficult to ingratiate…myself into a situation that could be to my advantage.
“People become successful for the wrong reasons. People praise what you throw away…Thus one reason why it is wise never to take oneself too seriously— i.e. Barefoot — I never thought much about it.” The next paragraph is in an unknown hand.
Redford offers quick thoughts on subjects like drugs (“I’m having a good time”), children (“I find playing with and listening to children one of the most exciting and instructive things I know of”), and friends (“I go with Frost — ‘good fences make good neighbors’…(Mending Wall)”) before writing in greater length on the following topics:
Health and exercise: “Don’t go the health foods cause they’re no fun — nothing better than a good leisurely 2 hour meal with 5 or 6 courses in a pleasant relaxing atmosphere (Americans don’t know how to eat) I believe in perpetual motion as the great therapy — too much relaxing breeds indolence and fatigue — I get nervous lacking too much. I’m like a battery that re-charges itself — the more I do, the more I’m able to do…the more I want to do.”
News media: “A few magazines and books — Don’t trust newspapers — and too much exposure to sensation-seeking situations involving injustices one after the other is bad for the spleen — especially if you care — and especially when you feel so much of it is a trumped up brew by some a-moral columnist or newspaper man trying get ahead. Books are more carefully edited and more factual as a rule and less hysterical.”
Causes, which Redford writes with a healthy dose of sardonicism: “I would love to see as much attention given to the inequalities of the Indian who was here first — But then fuck him, right? I mean we have succeeded in snuffing his fuse — There are just a few left groveling around the reservation and they’re no threat. They can’t riot and stomp and run naked through our streets — so we’ll just overlook that little historical injustice and concentrate on the negroes, who, can still kill us, and the jews who persist in asking us to repeat after them, ‘Dachau, Dachau, Dachau…’”
Redford follows this with sections related to ‘actor talk’ (“It is a sterile practice for the actor to talk of his art”) and the need to avoid being typecast: “My problem and ‘slot’ is that I physically look like someone people stereotype as a guy who just stepped out of the California surf…It is my own grind to dodge this and do it successfully.” The final two pages consist of “Some notes on McLuhan’s ‘Message,’” which Redford has penned neatly and concisely. In fine condition, with trivial paper loss to left edges (the result of being removed from its original notebook).
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