Joe Neumaier, WOR Movie Minute host Interview

Joe Neumaier speaks with Mendte in the Morning about the passing of movie star Robert Redford.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
As we remember Robert Redford today, who has died at
the age of eighty nine. Since you didn't get to
hear the beginning of that, let me just play it
one more time.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
White House.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
He told me that Hunt was investigating Kennedy.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Who was it?

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Who was it?

Speaker 2 (00:15):
What the name you mean? I don't know how senor
how high are I don't know title.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
That's the great Robert Redford, who was in a string
of great movies. And no one would know that better
than the Movie Minute hosts Joe Neumeyer. Joe, what are
your thoughts today?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
You know? My thoughts are that Redford was very much
a bridgeary between between old fashioned Hollywood glamour and the
new Hollywood of the nineteen seventies. And I think when
that era is spoken of the nineteen seventies, a lot
of actors sort of come to mind, guys like Gene
Hackman or Dustin Hoffman, Robert de Niro, al Pacino, because
they represented something else. But Redford had something that was

(00:53):
released I think, really special, which is that he could
he could convey intelligence through what I think was in
a lot of ways a bit of a hindrance, which
was his amazing good looks he was an intelligent actor,
and I think that came through not only in the
films he started, but in the films he directed. And
when you look at that string of great films, you know,
we played all the presidents men. But there's also Three

(01:14):
Days of the Condor, which is amazing, obviously, Butch Casting,
The Sun Dance Kid, and The Sting, The Candidate, which
is an incredibly prescientt movie, really a smart film about
the goings on political candidacy, The Natural which was fantastic,
And then you talk about the movies that he directed.
Ordinary People, an extraordinary film that really holds up. And

(01:37):
I'm one of the few people who think that while
I love Raging Bull and I love de Niro in
Raging Bull, I think Ordinary People deserved that Best Picture
Oscar that it got in nineteen eighty beating Raging Bull
and got read for Best Director. And then you add
a film like Quiz Show, which I had the pleasure
of speaking to him about, you know, a couple of
years ago. I was lucky to speak to him three times,

(01:58):
and one of them was for a different story that
was nothing to do with Quiz Show, And at one
point I sort of said you know, you know, I
had to ask you this question about quiz show that
my friends and I are always sort of talking about,
and he was happy to go on about it. He
was really a great, you know, you know, conversationalist and
a really smart guy, and you see that in those
performances and I think are really iconic. I mean, when

(02:19):
you think of the seventies, he was the number one
box office star in a row from like seventy four
to seventy six and really typified I think that era
in a lot of ways. He was absolutely I think
indelible and important to that era and others subsequently.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
And it's amazing where his career went. He started. I
think his first big role was Barefoot in the Park
right with Jane Fonda, where everybody was just captivated by
the way he looked. And then he was typecast for
a while, like in the Way We Were, But he
broke out of that and made these important films and
then became a director. There are several lives of Robert Redford,

(02:54):
and he really showed a path for other actors to follow,
didn't he.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, that's very well said the actor director. You know, progression.
I absolutely think that you see it now. So many
actors after a couple of films, you know, kind of
go into try their hand at directing, and I think
Redford really was the one who sort of popularized that
in a lot of ways. You mentioned his good looks.
I do have to bring up this great anecdote that
you know, it kind of goes a couple of different ways,

(03:20):
but the one that I've always understood it is that
when Mike Nichols, who had directed him on Broadway in
Barefoot in the Park, was looking to make the Graduate
and he had auditioned Redford for it, and he said,
you know, well, I'm not sure if you're right for
Benjamin Braddock, the character that Dustin Hoffman eventually played. He said,
because you know, this is a guy who who doesn't
really doesn't he's not good with girls. And Redford said,

(03:41):
we'll go on a little bit. He goes, well, you know,
you know how it is when like you've struck out
with a girl. And Redford said, I don't know what
do you mean? What do you mean by that? Because
Redford had never experienced.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
That, of course not. Joe Neumayer, thanks for taking some
time to talk to us. We'll talk again on Friday,
Thanks a lot, Joe