Hollywood icon Jane Fonda just dropped a jaw-dropping behind-the-scenes story about her longtime co-star and close friend Robert Redford—and it’s not what you’d expect from one of the most handsome leading men in movie history.
Speaking at the TCM Classic Film Festival, Fonda revealed that while Redford had women practically throwing themselves at him, the attention didn’t flatter him—it made him deeply uncomfortable.
“He was the most gorgeous human being I had ever been with,” Fonda said, recalling their early days filming Barefoot in the Park. Even before he became a full-blown superstar, she noticed something unusual: women couldn’t take their eyes off him. “Every secretary would open her door just to watch him walk by,” she said, laughing. “I knew right then—he was going to be huge.”
And huge he became.
From classics like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to The Sting and All the President’s Men, Redford turned into one of Hollywood’s biggest box office draws. But behind the fame? A very different story.
Fonda says things reached a fever pitch while filming The Electric Horseman in Las Vegas. “Women would run to him and faint at his feet,” she revealed. “I had never seen anything like it… and it made him so uncomfortable.”
Yes—Robert Redford, the ultimate heartthrob, didn’t enjoy the chaos of fame.
According to Fonda, being a movie star wasn’t easy for him. The constant attention weighed on him, even if he appreciated the doors it opened. That fame ultimately helped him launch the Sundance Institute and the world-famous Sundance Film Festival—a move that reshaped independent cinema forever.
Still, Redford wasn’t just a serious filmmaker. Fonda painted a more playful picture too, calling him “really funny” and a lover of practical jokes—though she joked he had one flaw: “He was always two or three hours late,” turning short shoots into months-long productions.
Fonda and Redford shared the screen four times, including their emotional final reunion in Our Souls at Night, where they played aging neighbors finding love later in life—a fitting full-circle moment for two legends.
Redford passed away in 2025 at 89, leaving behind a legacy of iconic films and a quieter truth many fans never saw: the man everyone adored never quite got used to being adored.
And maybe that’s what made him unforgettable.
