WHEN ROBERT REDFORD came to Dublin in the 1990s to stay with the man who was writing his biography, all he wanted was to go to a pub in town.  

“I could tell you some stories about that,” Michael Feeney Callan said. 

The author hosted the Hollywood star in his Sutton home while he worked on the book. He spoke to The Journal following the news yesterday that the Hollywood legend had died at the age of 89. 

“I knew Bob for years and years. He would come and stay with us in Dublin and we’d go and stay with in Utah where he died. It felt like family,” he said. 

Feeney Callan first met Redford in New York in 1995. He already had several biographies under his belt, but it was the one he wrote on Anthony Hopkins that the actor liked. 

“We spent an afternoon quoting poetry to each other. Me quoting Yeats to him, he’d quote poetry to me. So we found that we had this lingua franca that we could talk.”

What was initially a book deal then turned into a near 30-year friendship. “We were buddies,” the author said.

“He was a hero of mine in many ways and the nature of biography is adversarial as well, because you’re challenging the person, you’re like a psychotherapist talking with them.

He had a great sense of humour and we were both interested in poetry, the history of cinema, so there was a lot in common. It was a real personal bang when I heard he passed.

Redford’s attachment to Ireland was very deep, according to Feeney Callan. Not only did his great-great-grandmother hail from Co Down, but he was also “immersed” in Irish mythology. 

In the 1960s, he appeared on Broadway in Little Moon of Alban, a play set in Dublin after the Irish War of Independence. When he found himself in the capital some years later, it evidently brought back memories. 

“He wanted to walk on the Ha’penny Bridge and recite a speech from the play Little Moon of Alban,” Feeney Callan said. 

‘Closet intellectual’

One thing that surprised the author about Redford was how intellectual he was. 

“He’s perceived as being this kind of glamorous jock who’s interested in all kinds of sports. This is a little bit of that, but really, Bob was more like a Stephen Fry, more like a closet intellectual.” 

At the same time, he was one of the biggest film stars of the 20th century, appearing in over 50 Hollywood movies and going on to direct eight feature films, picking up the Best Director Oscar in 1980 for Ordinary People. 

“He spanned an enormous arc of the history of cinema, from when the golden age of TV was fading in America, appearing in The Twilight Zone, through to the dying days of westerns, Butch Cassidy and Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here,” Feeney Callan said. 

He describes Redford as being somewhat responsible for the rise of political thrillers through his work in All The President’s Men and Three Days of the Condor, adding that it was his acceptance of his pin-up image that allowed him to put his money into young filmmakers and go on to found the Sundance Film Festival. 

“Even from the point of view of someone who is disinterested, the arc is actually stunning.”

Redford was also an activist and environmentalist with a keen interest in politics. Feeney Callan said he championed the kind of investigative journalism that Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein did, which was showcased in All The President’s Men. 

“He thought that that was a great direction that journalism was going in,” he said.

“And then, there was the Rupert Murdoch era of journalism and reality TV and people wanting to buy into the rhinestone success of reality TV, and he thought that moment when journalism was actually holding up a challenging mirror to society was dead.”

‘Fantastic spirit of Ireland’

Feeney Callan said their conversations during his time in Ireland often centred around why America was so divided, and if the wounds of the US civil war had ever healed.

He said Redford’s activism was about “giving voice to new filmmakers and ethnic voices to fill the void between the left and the right in America”.

The kind of politics that Trump espouses, he despised. He felt there was a real wrongness there in America, where only unity and unifiers could ever repair the thing.

“Of course, he was interested in Native American Rights and the reparations that were due to the Native Americans for the country being stolen from them 300 odd years ago.”

This was one of the things that connected him with Ireland, the author said. 

“He was just so deeply involved in what he saw was the fantastic spirit of Ireland, fighting against colonials and retaining tribal integrity. It echoed for him his interest in Native Americans,” he said.

“He loved being in Ireland, talking to the Irish, and I’m hoping the Irish media picks up on a little bit of the private Robert Redford, not just the movie star.”