- 2 months ago
Few friendships in Hollywood have captured public imagination the way the bond between Robert Redford and Paul Newman did.
Their relationship was not built on gossip, publicity stunts, or convenient Hollywood branding.
Instead, it grew from mutual respect, sharp humor, professional admiration, and a shared understanding of what it meant to work in an industry that often rewards image over substance.
Before his later years, Redford spoke with striking honesty about what Newman truly meant to him.
That confession revealed far more than celebrity nostalgia; it offered a rare window into one of the most meaningful partnerships in film history.
The Enduring Appeal of the Robert Redford and Paul Newman Friendship
The story of Robert Redford and Paul Newman continues to fascinate film lovers because it combines star power with sincerity.
In an era when celebrity friendships are often filtered through public relations teams, theirs felt refreshingly real.
Their relationship was not built on gossip, publicity stunts, or convenient Hollywood branding.
Instead, it grew from mutual respect, sharp humor, professional admiration, and a shared understanding of what it meant to work in an industry that often rewards image over substance.
Before his later years, Redford spoke with striking honesty about what Newman truly meant to him.
That confession revealed far more than celebrity nostalgia; it offered a rare window into one of the most meaningful partnerships in film history.
The Enduring Appeal of the Robert Redford and Paul Newman Friendship
The story of Robert Redford and Paul Newman continues to fascinate film lovers because it combines star power with sincerity.
In an era when celebrity friendships are often filtered through public relations teams, theirs felt refreshingly real.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Before Paul Newman died, he sent Robert Redford a letter that remained private for years.
00:05But when the closing line finally became public, it revealed a side of their legendary friendship
00:10few people had ever seen. Keep watching to discover the message that meant everything
00:15to Redford. Before Paul Newman died of lung cancer in 2008, he sat down and wrote to his friend.
00:23Not a phone call, not a quick word on set, a letter. Shortly before Newman's death from lung
00:28cancer, Redford received a letter from his longtime friend and co-star, in which Newman addressed many
00:34of the things they'd left unsaid for so many years. Newman was dying, he knew it. And instead
00:40of leaving things unsaid, the way two guarded, private men might have done for decades, he put
00:45it on paper. He thanked him for his companionship and support. And then he closed the letter with
00:51a line that stuck with Redford. For the rest of his life, you were the Sundance to my Cassidy,
00:56always. Think about what that sentence is doing. It's not, you were my friend. It's not,
01:01I loved you like a brother. Though he probably could have written that too. Newman reached for
01:06the two characters that made them both famous. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid, outlaws who
01:12rode together. Watched each other's backs and went down together rather than split up. Newman was telling
01:17Redford that the bond wasn't just something they played. On a movie screen in 1969, it was real.
01:24It had been real the whole time. Redford didn't come out with this story right away. It surfaced
01:29years later, and it's the kind of detail that recontextualizes everything else people thought
01:35they knew about the two men. The pranks, the jokes, the two movies. Underneath all of it was a
01:40friendship serious enough that a dying man used his last written words to his co-star to tell him
01:46he'd always be tied to him. Newman passed away in September 2008 at his home in Connecticut.
01:52After a long fight with cancer, Redford hearing the news released a statement. That became almost
01:59as famous as the letter itself. He said there's a point where feelings go beyond words. And that
02:04he'd lost a real friend. That his own life and the country were better for Newman having been in it.
02:10That was Redford in public. Composed, brief, giving away just enough. But the letter is what he was
02:16actually holding onto in private. Seventeen years later, Redford himself was gone. He died in his
02:23sleep in September 2025, at 89. At his home in the mountains of Utah. At his home at Sundance in
02:30the
02:30mountains of Utah, the place he loved. Surrounded by those he loved, according to the statement his
02:35team put out. Confirming his death, and when that news broke. It did what these things tend to do,
02:41it sent people straight back to Newman. Back to the Porsche prank. Back to two young stage actors
02:46turned movie stars, who found something in each other, that neither one of them found anywhere
02:51else in Hollywood. Newman's own daughter Nell, spoke publicly after Redford died. And her framing
02:57of the friendship, lines up with what that letter was really saying. She described it as something that
03:02started in the spotlight, but grew into something deeper. Pointing back to the two films that started
03:08it all. She called it, more specifically, a kind of buddy movie friendship. Built on pranks and mutual
03:14respect. Which sounds almost like a throwaway line, until you remember it's coming. From someone who
03:20watched these two men in her own living room. For 40 years not on a screen. So that's the shape
03:25of the
03:26story. Two guys who met making a western. In the late 60s, who spent more of their friendship off
03:31camera than on it. Who needled each other constantly, and rarely said a serious word. About what they meant to
03:37one another. Until one of them was dying, and decided the joking had to stop, at least for one
03:42letter. To understand why that line, Sundance to my Cassidy, landed the way it did. You have to go
03:48back to how these two men actually found each other. In the first place, because it almost didn't happen.
03:54The studio didn't want Redford in that movie at all. In the late 1960s, Paul Newman was already a major
04:01star. Robert Redford was not, not yet. He'd done stage work in New York, some television,
04:07a handful of films. But he wasn't the name a studio wanted opposite its biggest asset.
04:12When 20th Century Fox was casting Butch Cassidy, and the Sundance Kid, they wanted another established
04:18name, standing next to Newman. Redford wasn't it, as far as the studio was concerned. Newman disagreed.
04:25And Newman, at that point in his career, had the pull to do something about it. Their first
04:30collaboration came after Newman, insisted the then lesser-known Redford, be cast in the movie,
04:35and intervention Redford said changed everything. Redford would later describe exactly how outmatched
04:42he felt going in. The studio didn't want me, I wasn't as well-known as he was. Redford said shortly,
04:48after Newman's death. What tipped it in Redford's favor, wasn't chemistry read on a page,
04:53or a screen test that blew everyone away. It was Newman drawing a line about what kind of actor
04:59he wanted next to him. Newman said, I want to work with an actor. And Redford called that
05:04very complimentary. Because that's how they both saw their profession. That acting was about craft,
05:10and they took it seriously. Since they both came from the same background of theater, in New York.
05:16That's worth sitting with for a second. This wasn't two movie stars, bonding over fame or box office.
05:22It was two theater guys from New York, who happened to end up in Hollywood, recognizing something in
05:28each other's approach to the actual work. Newman saw a craftsman, not a face, not a rising heartthrob,
05:35the studio could sell tickets with. Though he was certainly that too. Newman saw someone serious
05:40about the job, and he fought to get him cast. The gamble paid off in a way nobody could have
05:45fully
05:46predicted. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid came out in 1969, and turned into a defining film for
05:52both of their careers. It was Newman who was by Redford's side, when the Future Academy Award winner
05:58launched to stardom. After the 1969 release of the Western classic, Redford didn't just get a great
06:05credit. He got launched. And the making of it was fun, genuinely fun, not manufactured press
06:11junket fun. Redford later said it was the most fun he ever had making a movie. And their co-stars
06:17Bond
06:17turned into a lifelong friendship. On set, Redford started to see the difference between the public
06:23image of Newman and the guy actually standing across from him between takes. He picked up on how
06:29much Newman fed off pure enjoyment. The thing that moved along is that Paul really likes to have fun.
06:35And he loves to laugh, and he really especially loves to laugh at his own jokes. And some of them
06:40are just really awful, Redford said, trailing into laughter himself, just describing it. He'd go on to
06:46explain that the jokes themselves almost didn't matter. It was so damn much fun that it became like
06:52a scenario unto itself. And Newman enjoyed his own jokes so much that you'd forget the joke. And start
06:58laughing with him, because you got caught up in how much he was enjoying it. That's the seed of
07:03everything that came after. Two actors who respected each other's craft. Discovered they made each other
07:08laugh, and discovered playing outlaws. Who trusted each other with their lives wasn't much of a stretch.
07:14Because off-camera, they were building the same kind of trust in real time. They didn't rush back into
07:20another movie together right after. It took four years. Redford and Newman reunited onscreen four years
07:26later, for another acclaimed movie. The Sting, but largely interacted away from cameras.
07:32The Sting came out in 1973, and became, if anything, even bigger than Butch Cassidy.
07:38Their partnership peaked in 1973. When they starred in The Sting, a film that won the Academy Award for
07:44Best Picture. Here's the part that surprises people. That was it, two films. Butch Cassidy in 1969,
07:51The Sting in 1973. After that, despite decades of remaining clothes, despite being asked about it
07:58constantly, they never appeared in a film together again. The two friends formed a dynamic on-screen
08:04duo. But they did not team up together, after The Sting, in 1973. Redford explained why plainly,
08:11years later, in an interview with the LA Times. All these years went by, and nobody came up with any
08:16ideas that were anything but corny, and kind of low-grade. So we just decided probably,
08:22that wasn't going to happen. So the screen partnership was short, two movies in four years.
08:27And then nothing, for the rest of both their careers. But that's exactly what makes what
08:32came next so interesting. Because if the friendship had been built on the movies,
08:36it should have faded once the movies stopped. It didn't, if anything, it got stronger once the
08:41cameras were gone. That's when the real relationship, the pranks, the neighbors, the phone calls,
08:47the ski trips, actually took over. Once the cameras stopped rolling on The Sting,
08:52Newman and Redford didn't drift into the usual Hollywood pattern, of two co-stars who stay politely
08:57friendly, and never actually talk again. They moved closer, literally, becoming like brothers.
09:03The actors lived in Connecticut, only one mile apart from each other. And their families were close,
09:09too. Living a mile apart meant this wasn't a friendship conducted through publicists
09:13and the occasional award show hug. These were two families who saw each other constantly,
09:18and two men who used that closeness the way brothers do, mostly to torment each other.
09:24It started, fittingly, with cars. Newman had gotten hooked on speed watching Redford's own rare Porsche
09:30during the Butch Cassidy shoot. The pair had bonded over their love of fast cars,
09:34while filming 1969's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. And Newman had become enamored of
09:40Redford's extremely rare Porsche 904. That fascination didn't stay a hobby. Newman started
09:46racing professionally soon after. And it consumed him. Redford, for his part, got tired of hearing
09:52about it. I started to get bored, because every time we got together, all he talked about was racing
09:57in cars. Recalled Redford, in an interview at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, in 2014.
10:04So when Newman turned 50, Redford didn't send flowers. In January 1975, when Paul Newman turned 50,
10:12his friend Robert Redford sent him an unusual gift. He decided to make Newman's obsession the punchline.
10:18So I decided to play a joke on him. I called a towing service and said,
10:22Do you have any crushed automobiles? As it turned out, they did a recently wrecked Porsche,
10:27sitting in a lot somewhere, going nowhere. As luck would have it, they did have a recently
10:32destroyed Porsche. So Redford had the whole thing gift-wrapped, tied up with a bow,
10:37and sent to Newman's home in Connecticut. Newman said nothing back. No thank you,
10:42no acknowledgement, nothing. Redford figured that was the end of it. It wasn't. Redford heard nothing
10:48back about his elaborate birthday gag. But a couple of weeks later, a big wooden box turned
10:54up in his lobby. And after crowbarring it open, he found the remains of the sports car inside.
10:59Now crushed into a cube, Newman hadn't just accepted the gag, he'd escalated it. Taken the
11:04wrecked Porsche Redford sent him, had it compacted into scrap metal, and shipped the block right back
11:10to sender, without a word of explanation. Redford described opening that crate himself,
11:15and the moment of confusion before it landed. It took me about an hour and a half to crowbar the
11:20box open, Redford explained. And inside was this big block of metal, just a big square block of
11:27metal. I said oh okay, I know what okay I get it. He wasn't going to let Newman have the
11:32last word
11:33though. Not someone to be one-upped, Redford called a sculptor he knew, to transform the warped metal
11:39into a garden ornament. And had it placed in Newman's garden, a monument to the joke. Permanently
11:44installed on Newman's own property, where he'd have to look at it for years. And here's the detail
11:50that tells you everything, about how these two actually operated. They never discussed it, not
11:55once. And to this day, neither Paul nor I ever spoke about it. Redford laughed, no debrief, no toast to
12:02the bit, no remember when. It just sat there, understood. The way an inside joke between brothers,
12:08doesn't need a caption. The Porsche wasn't a one-off. It was the flagship of a whole ongoing
12:13war of pranks that ran for decades. Paul Newman and Robert Redford, enjoyed several practical jokes
12:19during their friendship. Newman's daughter Nell later, confirmed the car story, specifically stuck
12:25with the family. As the crown jewel of it all, calling it, one of the best stories of their pranks.
12:30There was another one Redford loved to tell, about the apartment reference letter. Applying for a place
12:36in New York, and needing someone to vouch for him. Redford turned to his famous friend, expecting a
12:41glowing character reference. What he got instead was a letter that opened with Newman, informing the
12:47building's board that Redford was a deadbeat. While honoring Newman at the Kennedy Center, in 1992,
12:53Redford recalled the time he had attempted to use him as a reference, while applying for an apartment
12:58in New York. And produced the letter Newman had written, reading aloud the line. To whom it may concern,
13:04Mr. Robert Redford has owed me 120 bucks for over three years. Redford himself tried to put a finger
13:11on why all of this worked between them. Why two grown men kept sabotaging each other's birthdays
13:16and rental applications, instead of just being friends the normal way. He landed on something
13:21about what kind of actors they both were, and by extension, what kind of men. Both of us were
13:27fundamentally American actors, with the qualities and virtues that characterize American actors.
13:32Irreverence playing on the other's flaws for fun, winupmanship, but always with an underlying
13:38affection. Redford once explained, those were also at the core of our relationship off the screen.
13:43That underlying affection is the key phrase, the pranks weren't a substitute for closeness.
13:49They were the delivery mechanism for it. Two men who, by most accounts, weren't naturally gushing
13:54or sentimental in person. Found a way to say, I care about you enough to spend two weeks getting a
14:00Porsche crushed, instead of just saying it outright. It's also, not coincidentally, exactly the dynamic
14:05Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid have on screen, needling each other right up, until the moment it
14:11actually matters. Redford put his finger on the flaws part of it too, years after Newman was gone,
14:17describing how well they'd each learned the other's soft spots, and used them as ammunition.
14:22We both got to know each other's flaws pretty well. Of course, I outweighed him on that front,
14:27but knowing each other's flaws, we just played them to the hilt, and we'd try to trick each other.
14:32That's a friendship operating at full trust. You don't hand someone a weapon, like your own
14:37insecurities. Unless you're confident they're only going to use it to make you laugh, not to actually
14:43hurt you. Newman and Redford had that confidence in each other for over 30 years. But the friendship
14:49wasn't only jokes and scrap metal. It also ran through something both men cared about seriously.
14:55Long before it was fashionable in Hollywood to care about it out loud. Somewhere underneath all the
15:01pranks. Newman and Redford were also quietly shaping each other's lives in ways that had nothing to do
15:07with jokes. One of the clearest threads, according to Newman's own daughter, ran through the environment,
15:13and specifically, through Redford's influence on her father. Nell Newman put it directly,
15:18her dad's passion for environmental causes had a catalyst, and that catalyst was his friend.
15:23Nell explained that Redford became a key influence on her father, especially when it came to his
15:28passion for the environment, saying, I think he was also a real catalyst in dad's interest in
15:33environmental issues because Bob was already ahead of the game. This tracks with everything Redford
15:39is publicly known for outside acting. He built Sundance, the resort in Utah, and eventually the film
15:45festival and institute that grew out of it. Around ideas of land conservation and independent art
15:51that didn't fit the studio system. It wasn't a branding exercise, it was where he actually lived.
15:57And it became something he opened up to the Newman family specifically, again and again, for decades.
16:02Nell remembered the invitations as a running thing, not a one-time gesture. Nell also recalls how
16:08Redford always invited Newman, or his family to Sundance, Utah, saying,
16:12Every single time I talked to him on the phone, come out and go skiing, come out and go to
16:18the
16:18festival. That generosity didn't stop with Newman himself, it extended to the next generation.
16:24When Nell finished college, Redford didn't just send congratulations. He used his own connections
16:29to open doors for her. She remembered how Redford helped her when she graduated from college
16:34by connecting her with leaders at major environmental organizations, like the NRDC and Environmental Defense
16:41Fund. That's not the behavior of a guy maintaining a friendship for old times' sake. That's a guy who
16:47considered his best friend's daughter close enough to invest in her future, the way you would with
16:53your own family. Nell said as much herself, describing how it felt from her side of it.
16:58He was so warm and helpful at that particular time in my life, she said. Their bond ran through work
17:03too, even after the acting partnership ended. Newman described Redford in ways that had nothing to do
17:10with charm or star power, and everything to do with character, describing him, before they'd even work
17:15together, as someone who stood for something. Redford recalled that Newman thought of him, going in, not as a
17:21typical leading man, but as not so much a hero, but a guy who stood up for what he believed
17:26was right. And then the
17:28reverse happened too, the way it does with real friendships. The roles they played started bleeding, into who they
17:34actually were to each other. Playing friends we became friends, Redford said. Given all this, decades of
17:40closeness, and obsession with each other's company. An entire garden sculpture dedicated to it. The obvious
17:47question is why they only ever made two movies together. They tried at least once to fix that. In the
17:53mid-2000s, there
17:54was a real plan to reunite them on screen. For the first time in over 30 years, in a film
18:00called A Walk in the Woods.
18:01Based on Bill Bryson's memoir about hiking the Appalachian Trail, it would have put them back
18:06together as two aging friends walking through the woods. Which, given who they actually were to each
18:12other by that point, wasn't much of a stretch for either of them to play. They were looking for a
18:17third
18:18piece that would be different in terms of story, but would have the same kind of characters. It never
18:23happened. Newman's age and declining health got in the way before filming could start. The two almost
18:29reconnected for the film in the late 2000s. But Paul Newman, who was 80 years old at the time,
18:35stepped down. The role sat empty for years, until the film eventually got made without either of
18:40them. With Nick Knoll stepping into the part instead. In the end, Newman's health declined
18:46before production could begin. And his role was eventually taken by Nick Knoll. Redford didn't
18:51pretend that didn't sting. He talked about it plainly, years later. Describing how he'd taken the news.
18:58That made me sad but I had to accept what he said. But we still maintained our friendship,
19:03Redford said during a Time Stocks Q&A. That's a small, quiet admission, buried in a lot of
19:08upbeat prank stories. The one moment where Redford let the disappointment show, instead of turning it
19:14into a bit. He wanted one more movie with his friend, he didn't get it. And instead of letting
19:19that disappointment curdle into anything bitter, he just kept the friendship running exactly as it had
19:25been. That's the emotional backdrop for what happened next. Newman's health kept declining
19:30after a walk in the woods fell through. The lung cancer that would eventually kill him was already
19:36working against the clock. And somewhere in that final stretch, no more movie plans left to make.
19:41No more pranks left to pull. Nothing left to prove to each other after 30 plus years.
19:46Newman sat down and wrote that letter. By the time Paul Newman was dying in 2008,
19:52he and Redford had spent nearly 40 years communicating almost entirely through jokes.
19:57A crushed Porsche, a fake reference letter accusing him of owing money. Decades of, in Redford's own
20:03words, playing on each other's flaws for fun. That was the language these two men spoke fluently.
20:09Sincerity wasn't really part of the dialect. So the letter mattered precisely because it broke the
20:15pattern. Newman didn't crush a car or write a joke insult. He sat down and said the thing directly,
20:21thanking Redford, and then handing him that one line to carry forward. He'd always been the
20:26sundance to Newman's Cassidy. Two outlaws tied together till the end. Newman died in September
20:322008 at his Connecticut home. After a long battle with cancer, according to a statement from publicist
20:39Jeff Sanderson at the time, Redford's public response was carefully composed. The same restraint
20:45he'd shown his whole career, but the emotion under it was unmistakable. There is a point where feelings
20:50go beyond words, Redford said in a statement. I have lost a real friend. My life in this country
20:56is better for his being in it. Notice what that statement is actually doing. It opens by admitting
21:02words aren't enough. Practically pointing at the private letter he'd just received. The one where
21:08Newman had already tried to do the same thing, say what couldn't quite be said. Redford wasn't just
21:13mourning a co-star. He acknowledging that some things between two people don't fit into sentences,
21:19and that he and Newman had spent decades finding other ways to say them. Through pranks, through
21:24invitations to sundance, through helping raise each other's kids. And finally once, through a letter
21:30neither one of them would have written 20 years earlier. Asked afterward whether Newman had left
21:35him with any lasting lessons. Redford didn't reach for anything about acting or fame, he went straight
21:41to character. Well he was a pretty big deal and he was always humble, Redford said. Friendship was very
21:47important to him, and being able to be a real person was very important to him, the actor added.
21:53That's the whole friendship in two sentences. Not two Oscar winners admiring each other's work,
21:58but two men who valued being real with each other over being impressive to anyone watching.
22:03Years passed, Redford kept working, kept building Sundance. Kept the festival running, as the institution
22:10it had become. And then, 17 years after Newman's death, Redford's own story ended the same way.
22:16Quietly at home, surrounded by the people who loved him, at the place in Utah he'd spent his life
22:22building. He was a day nine. When that news broke, it was Newman's family that spoke first and loudest.
22:28Which tells you something about how the two families had stayed woven together, long after both men were
22:33done making movies with each other. Nell Newman gave the tribute, that circled back to where it all began.
22:39Calling their bond, a movie friendship, that blossomed into a more serious friendship.
22:44She wasn't speaking as a film historian. She was speaking as someone, who'd grown up watching this
22:49man show up, at her family's door. Invite them skiing, help her get her first job in the field
22:54she cared about, and crush her father's birthday present into a block of steel. Here's the thing
23:00about that letter, and about the whole friendship it capped off. Neither man ever needed the public to
23:05know how deep it ran, while they were both alive. They let the pranks do the talking for 30 years.
23:10It took one of them dying, and the other one finally repeating the story afterward. For the
23:15rest of the world to understand what had actually been going on underneath all that scrap metal,
23:20and all those bad jokes. Two guys from the New York stage, thrown together on a western,
23:26the studio didn't even want to cast one of them in. Who turned into neighbors, then family friends,
23:30than something close to brothers. And who spent so much of that friendship refusing to say it
23:35outright that the one time it finally got said, in ink near the end, it landed like a confession.
23:41Not because it revealed anything new. Everyone who knew them already, understood exactly what they
23:47meant to each other. But because for once, someone actually put it in words. Sundance to his Cassidy,
23:53always, that's the line Newman left him with. And it's the line Redford carried for the rest of his
23:58own life, all the way to the end of it. Sources, Robert Redford and Paul Newman's
24:03Lifelong Friendship, Biography.com. Inside Paul Newman and Robert Redford's legendary bond,
24:09as family speaks out after his death, Yahoo People. Redford on Newman, I have lost a real friend,
24:15today.com. The truth about Robert Redford and Paul Newman's friendship, Nikki Swift.
24:20Robert Redford and Paul Newman found something rare in Hollywood, a true and lasting friendship,
24:25CNN. Robert Redford and Paul Newman found something rare in Hollywood, a true and lasting friendship,
24:31AOL. Exclusive, Inside Robert Redford's Lifelong Bromance with Paul Newman,
24:36Radar Online via AOL. Paul Newman's family pays tribute to Robert Redford,
24:41People via AOL. Robert Redford once pranked Paul Newman with a crushed Porsche, AOL.
24:46Classic films, pranks and a crushed Porsche. Robert Redford and Paul Newman's rare friendship,
24:51The Independent via AOL. Paul Newman's brutally honest words,
24:56Newsner. Paul Newman and Robert Redford, a look back at the dynamic duo's bromance,
25:01media feed via AOL.