Robert Redford, Academy Award–winning director, actor, producer, environmentalist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival and Institute, will be honored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center at the 42nd Annual Chaplin Award Gala held at Lincoln Center on Monday, April 27, 2015.
“The Board is thrilled to have Robert Redford as the next recipient of the Chaplin Award,” said Ann Tenenbaum, the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Board Chairman. “Not only is he an internationally known and loved actor, director, and producer, but perhaps no other single artist has done more to champion the work of independent filmmakers. This makes him a truly distinguished honoree—the Film Society, the New York Film Festival, and the film world in general are immensely richer because of his contributions.”
Born in 1936 in Santa Monica, Redford began his career in New York in 1959 appearing as a guest star on several TV shows, including The Twilight Zone, Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and that year also marked his Broadway debut in Tall Story (1959), followed by roles in The Highest Tree (1959), Sunday in New York (1961), and his biggest Broadway success as the newlywed husband in Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park (1963). He also earned an Emmy nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Voice of Charlie Pont in 1963, followed by one of his last television appearances on Breaking Point.
Redford made his screen debut in War Hunt (1962), which also marked the directorial debut of Sydney Pollack, and the first of several collaborations between the two. He won his first Golden Globe award for Inside Daisy Clover (1965), in which he played a bisexual movie star who weds Natalie Wood. He worked with the actress again in Pollack’s This Property Is Condemned(1966), and that same year, he starred in Arthur Penn’s The Chase opposite Jane Fonda, with whom he would later reteam with for the movie version of Barefoot in the Park (1967) and Pollack’s The Electric Horseman (1979).
Playing alongside Paul Newman in 1969’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Redford launched to superstardom, and throughout the following two decades he further cemented his role within film history playing iconic characters in such films asJeremiah Johnson (1972), The Candidate (1972), The Way We Were (1973), the Oscar-nominated The Sting (1973), The Great Gatsby (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975), All the President’s Men (1976), The Natural (1984) and Out of Africa (1985), winner of seven Academy Awards.
Redford’s impressive career also extends behind the camera. He made his directorial debut with the Academy Award–winningOrdinary People, followed by The Milagro Beanfield War (1987), A River Runs Through It (1992), Quiz Show (1994), The Horse Whisperer (1998), and The Company You Keep (2012), among others.
He was the recipient of the 1997 National Medal for the Arts by President Clinton. In 2001 he was honored with the Freedom in Film Award presented by the First Amendment Center, and in 2002 received the Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts: Lifetime Achievement Award. In December 2005, Redford accepted the Kennedy Center Honors for his “distinguished achievement in the performing arts and in recognition of his extraordinary contributions to the life of our country.” Most recently, Redford received the Legion d’Honneur medal, France’s highest recognition, from President Nicolas Sarkozy on October 14, 2010.
Redford starred in last year’s New York Film Festival selection All Is Lost, and just completed production on A Walk in the Woods, based on Bill Bryson’s memoir and co-starring Nick Nolte. It is scheduled for release in 2015. He is now shooting Truthwith Cate Blanchett. The film is based on the book Truth and Duty by Mary Mapes.
The Film Society’s Annual Gala began in 1972 and honored Charlie Chaplin, who returned to the U.S. from exile to accept the commendation. Since then, the award has been renamed for Chaplin, and has honored many of the film industry’s most notable talents, including Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Laurence Olivier, Federico Fellini, Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis, James Stewart, Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Michael Douglas, Sidney Poitier, Catherine Deneuve, Barbra Streisand and, last year, Rob Reiner.
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