Word: redford
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...fact that Woodward and Bernstein interested him most when they looked most as if they were going to be losers is an expression of Redford's truest?or at least oldest?self. Approaching 40, he may currently be the world's ranking movie star. He, his wife Lola and their three children jet back and forth between their Fifth Avenue apartment and their retreat outside Provo, Utah, near the ski resort he owns and where he revels in his role as conservationist and spokesman for various good causes...
...always that way. Los Angeles-born and middle-class bred, Redford was a college dropout and, for a time, a quick takeoff artist, bombing the interstates and bumming his way around Europe, vaguely thinking of becoming an artist. Some of his friends were convinced that he would never find himself, would wind up a loser, and Redford remains fascinated by the type. Since Woodward and Bernstein could possibly be seen as anti-Establishment goads, that also probably drew him to them. In short, he may have become a Goliath in his trade, but his heart belongs to the Davids...
...Redford bought the movie rights for $450,000. He began work by affixing himself to the Post city room, particularly to Woodward and Bernstein. "I fell in love with the Post," he says. "I felt these people really did lead a different life. I saw all the leads that Bob and Carl couldn't go with. It was such fat, juicy stuff." He won the confidence of Bradlee and most of the paper's other executives, with the exception of Publisher Katharine Graham, who remained wary of the whole project...
...write the script he hired William Goldman, a longtime crony and writer of the film that made Redford a superstar, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. His work was apparently both very good and very bad. He licked the narration problems posed by the book, carving a straight, simple dramatic line. But he also put heavy emphasis on crude news room humor. Bernstein was quoted as saying that the script read like a Henny Youngman jokebook. Another reporter retitled it Butch and Sundance Bring Down the Government, while Bradlee recalls it as "a caricature of us?tough-guy reporters...
...Post nearly backed out of the project then, and Bradlee was blunt with Redford. "Just remember, pal," he said, "that you go off and ride a horse or jump in the sack with some good-looking woman in your next film?but I am forever an asshole." Redford was impressed: "I've met few people who were as conscious of their position?and how to keep it." He did his best to make amends with the Post people. "Redford kept talking about trust," Bradlee recalls. "He kept saying, 'You've got to trust us.' We didn't understand that...