Robert Redford: I’m heartbroken!
News reaches the wires that Robert Redford (72) married his long-term German artist girlfriend, Sibylle Szaggars (51), at the weekend in Germany. Here’s a photo of the happy couple (source of photo: Daily Telegraph) and if readers click on the photo they can read the HuffPost article about the nuptials:
I wish them both all the best and it’s a wonderful rite of passage when a couple with maturity, who’ve been together 10+ years, decide to make the ultimate commitment. It’s also to be admired and applauded that their relationship has been kept private, treasured and sacred instead of splashed across the tabloids or on celeb blogs like other celebrities and their personal soap operas.
“True love” is as I wrote in the poem, When, for a friend’s wedding ceremony nine years ago:
A moment continuous eternal,
A collection of experiences and conversations,
A promise of sharing life,
A synchronicity of separate souls.
[The entire poem is at the end of this blog post.]
Still, as much as I wish them well………..I am heartbroken (ok, only metaphorically rather than literally — LOL).
You see, Robert Redford is the only celebrity I’ve ever had a crush on. Whilst other girls / women have had crushes on these male celebrities (in no particular order):
* any of the James Bonds
* Harrison Ford circa Hans Solo and early Indiana Jones
* Brad Pitt
* Johnny Depp
* George Clooney
* Matt Damon
* Denzel Washington
* Will Smith
* Russell Crowe circa Gladiator because, apparently, women like unconstructed testosterone in a skirt
* Hugh Jackman (currently People‘s Sexiest Man Alive)
* Tom Cruise
* Rob Lowe
* Matthew McConaughy
* Zac Efron
* Robert Pattinson
* Chace Crawford
* Ed Westwick
* Gael García Bernal
* Javier Bardem
* Oliver Martinez
* Daniel Auteuil
* Vincent Cassel
* Tony Leung (the Tom Cruise of HK cinema —i..e., biggest box-office — and my brother looks like him)
* Andy Cheung (platinum-selling HK singer and Chinese-equivalent of Oscars winner; think Oriental version of Jamie Foxx)
* Chow Yun-Fat (of Crouching Tiger fame but his best work is in The Curse of the Golden Chrysanthemum)
* Lang Lang (mainland Chinese piano prodigy now 27)
Their appeal has greatly gone by me. Technically, I can recognize that they have good features or a physique that would attract the opposite sex but there simply isn’t that j’ai ne sais quoi that makes me pay more attention.
Robert Redford, though, I’ve had a crush on since I was a teenager and saw him and Jane Fonda (absolutely beautiful, smart and feline-feminine) in Barefoot in the Park, which is still one of the best romantic comedies around. No, I wasn’t a ’60s teenager. I just love the film, its incongruity of relationship dynamics and the rat-a-tat raconteurism.
*Sigh* wistfully.
They don’t make romantic comedies of that caliber anymore. Ditto Bringing Up Baby, Adam’s Rib, Top Hat, It Happened One Night, The Philadelphia Story, Pillow Talk, Breakfast at Tiffanys, The Apartment, Some Like it Hot, La Dolce Vita, Annie Hall, When Harry Met Sally, Cyrano de Bergerac and Chinese Ghost Story.
Actually, I haven’t paid money to see any of the romantic comedies of the 1990s or the 2000s so Jennifer Aniston, Sandra Bullock, Julia Roberts, Renée Zellweger, Kate Hudson, Cameron Diaz, Hugh Grant, Tom Cruise, Vince Vaughn, Matthew McConaughy et al have failed to work their magic on me. Instead I’ve paid box-office money to watch the Terminator series, Star Wars prologues, X Men series, Star Trek, Independence Day, Batman Returns, Blair Witch Project, Scream, etc. — although not Transformers which I read and collected the comics of as a kid. Yes, I liked robots and intelligent machines even then! LOL.
AND, of course, I paid to see Indecent Proposal because it starred……..Robert Redford.
Just listen to the evocative theme composition from John Barry for Indecent Proposal and then watch Out of Africa with Redford and the sublime Meryl Streep. The Barry signature of expansive, elliptic violins heightening to heart-stirring waves is there.
So, there’s the music from Redford’s films — who can forget ‘Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head’ from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with Paul Newman or Barbara Streisand’s melancholic ‘The Way We Were’ or Celine Dion singing the most beautiful ode to another person ever, ‘Because You Loved’ from Up Close and Personal? Plus there are the films themselves and the founding of the Sundance Film Festival to foster emerging talents and green activism. Here he is as versatile, charismatic actor: Days of the Condor, All the President’s Men, The Sting, The Way We Were, The Great Gatsby (one of my all-time favorite books). Also as astute, award-winning director: Ordinary People (4 Oscars in 1980), Quiz Show (4 Oscar nominations in 1995), A River Runs Through It.
Natural brains, beauty, talent, political awareness, sunny smiles and humanity — we can’t ask for more than that!
True, he’s more than twice my age but I’d rather queue in the rain for his autograph than for any other male celebrity’s. Actually I’ve only queued once in my life to-date for an autograph and that was for the author of Wild Swans, Jung Chang. I’ve never ever waited in the crowds for a movie première or a celebrity appearance even though these take place all the time in London; it’s just not my style — LOL.
Ai-yo (or “Dearie me” as the Scots would say), now that Robert Redford’s happily married I’ll have to find another talented man with j’ai ne sais quoi to develop a crush on!
[Not sure how my beloved's going to feel about that, but c'est la vie! Maybe one day I'm going to write a version of When for my own wedding............LOL!]
***********************************************************************************************************
WHEN (© Twain, 08/2000)
When we first met you were a stranger,
A danger,
A possibility unknown,
Alien to my senses,
A million miles from home.
—
When our eyes first met,
A thought revolution,
A friend or foe,
A million questions manifold,
An open invitation to explore.
—
When we first spoke,
A free fluent tongue,
A question, an answer flowing to and fro,
A whisper of insignificant differences,
A stepping stone to new sensations.
—
When we first laughed,
An infectious explosion,
An expansion of warm friendship,
A bridge between life’s wonders,
A reminder of shared similarities.
—
When we first fell in love,
A moment continuous eternal,
A collection of experiences and conversations,
A promise of sharing life,
A synchronicity of separate souls.
—
When we first imagine,
A marriage everlasting,
A happy future for our family,
A circle of contentment unconditional,
A memory of today.
