Back in 1940 when the census taker came to call, “Bobby” Redford was the three-year-old son of a hard-working “dairy salesman.” The two of them were counted along with Bobby’s mother, Martha, living at 11729 Imperial Way in Los Angeles, California. Charles Redford told the census taker he had worked 60 hours in the past week, and his salary for the past year of about $1,800 was a little less than that of the automobile mechanic next door.
From these humble beginnings in a working class neighborhood, little Bobby would grow up to become a household name—a star of the big screen, both in front of and behind the camera.
In the 1980s he founded the Sundance Institute and since 1985, the Sundance Film Festival has drawn filmmakers and film lovers to the tiny town of Park City, Utah. Park City boasts a population of 7,822 for most of the year, but last January more than 46,000 film buffs attended the festival to see films like Beasts of the Southern Wild, which is now an Oscar contender.
His festival has grown in popularity and helped launch the careers of filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, and Kevin Smith, and given us classic movies like Napoleon Dynamite, Little Miss Sunshine, and Precious in recent years. Well done Bobby, well done.