With Robert Redford's passing, I'm reminded of the story of how one time in the late 1970s, my dear sweet grandmother yelled at him.
My grandparents lived in Lake Forest, Illinois at this point in time, and my dad was still in high school. My grandmother was a painter and she had a studio in town, and one day needed to move paintings, but emerged from her space to find that filming trucks from some movie a film crew was making at the time were blocking her in.
She stormed up to some guy with a polyester blazer and a gold chain necklace who was smoking and ordering laborers around, and demanded to know who was in charge so they could move the trucks and she could get her paintings out. He kind of blew her off but told her, "that'll be Mr. Redfern."
(At least, that's what she heard.)
So she followed the direction he pointed, demanding to speak to Mr. Redfern, and was somehow passed up the chain until she was face to face with "A very nice, handsome gentleman. Very classy. Very pleasant" --
-- To whom she promptly gave a piece of her mind. Because Grandma might have been a genteel southern belle a lot of the time, but you did not get between this woman and her painting or there would be hell to pay.
"Mr. Redfern" not only apologized for blocking her in, but insisted on having some of the PA's drop what they were doing and help her move her paintings down so she could make up for lost time while he got the film crew out of her way.
She got on with her day and came home that night and described the incident at the dinner table. My father, at the time a high schooler, was familiar with the movie being filmed because he was in drama club and some of his friends had appeared as extras and some scenes had been shot at his school. In mortification, he explained to his mother that it wasn't Mr. Redfern.
It was Mr. Redford.
Robert Redford.
Who was in Lake Forest, Illinois, filming the movie Ordinary People, which cleaned out at the Academy Awards the following year with the Best Picture and Best Director awards, among others.
To her dying day, Grandma would always comment on how nice "Mr. Redfern" was any time she saw Robert Redford in a movie.
And I will also remember him thusly.
