Robert Redford and the Perils of Perfection

Gentleman, preferred, blond: such was the job description of Robert Redford, who died on Tuesday, at the age of eighty-nine. Onscreen, he and his buddy Paul Newman were partners in crime, in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969) and “The Sting” (1973), though the crimes were no more wicked than practical jokes. Offscreen, the two men were good sports—friendly, athletic, devoted to decent causes, and, like most major stars, a little hard to know, keeping something back in a bid to leave us hungering for more. Both were a byword, too, for male beauty, fully alive to the almost laughable impact of their handsomeness, yet ill at ease, now and then, with their perches on the pedestal. “You’re always dressed right, you always look right, you always say the right thing. You’re very nearly p