Items from the Robert Redford archive collection at Boston University’s Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center include scripts, photos, and more.

Arts & Culture

Robert Redford’s Mysterious, and Little-Known, Tie to Boston University

The late legendary actor and director’s collection of annotated scripts and personal papers at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center sheds new light on his career. But what happened to his diary?

When Academy Award–winning actor and director Robert Redford died on September 16 at the age of 89, the world mourned the loss of a Hollywood legend. As it turns out, a small slice of his life and career lives on at Boston University through a trove of his personal scripts and memorabilia carefully preserved at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center (HGARC) at BU Libraries.

On September 18, a selection of items from the six-box collection was displayed for BU Today to photograph. Among these items were scripts, a Christmas card featuring a photo of the actor, photos from film sets, and a program from the premiere of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

The collection has over a dozen of Redford’s scripts, spanning films he acted in, directed, or produced, including Barefoot in the Park, All The President’s Men, The Candidate, and A River Runs Through It. In several cases, Redford even annotated the pages, offering a rare insight into his creative process. The collection also features promotional materials—some signed—like film posters, lobby cards, press kits, and photos, as well as his personal sketch book, which includes watercolors, pastels, and pen and ink drawings.

Scripts from two of Robert Redford’s films, Barefoot in the Park and All the President’s Men, with notations by the actor.

Jennifer King, associate university librarian for academic engagement and special collections, oversees HGARC and all other Special Collections. While the Redford collection is modest in size, King describes it as a wonderful collection that offers a glimpse into the actor’s early career. “It’s really exciting to see the scripts that Robert Redford performed,” she says, “and you can see, in some cases, some of his notes and get a sense of how he created the role that was envisioned on the page.” 

Sought out by Howard Gotlieb himself

Although Redford spent the majority of his life in California and Utah (where he started the Sundance Film Festival), he had an affinity for New England: he was a proud Red Sox fan and his father hailed from Westerly, R.I. Redford lived in Connecticut for about 20 years, until the mid 1990s, down the street from his friend and Butch Cassidy costar Paul Newman.

In 1968, Redford—who had just starred in Barefoot in the Park alongside Jane Fonda—began sending materials to BU’s newly established Special Collections, founded by University archivist Howard Gotlieb (Hon.’88) in 1963 (and renamed in his honor in 2003), which was still in its infancy.

“Howard Gotlieb took an approach to collection-building that really broke new ground, and BU was one of a handful of libraries to begin to reach out to living individuals to talk about the importance of archiving their papers,” King says. “It was a new approach, because the practice had really been for papers to be placed, usually at the end of someone’s life or even after they’d passed. But Howard Gotlieb reached out to many individuals at the early stages of their careers to have a conversation about how beneficial it would be for their papers to be accessible to students and community members.”

Today, HGARC houses an estimated nine miles of shelves containing correspondence, photographs, manuscripts, and other personal items from public figures as diverse as Hollywood stars Fred Astaire and Robin Williams, politicians like the late Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino (Hon.’01), and historic figures, including the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. (GRS’55, Hon.’59) (whose donation of more than 80,000 letters and objects to BU is what kicked off the center), and 19th century nurse and social reformer Florence Nightingale.

Jennifer King says the HGARC offers a behind-the-scenes look at the creative process of so many influential personalities, and every year hundreds of researchers, students, and community members visit the archive to do research in their area of interest. “It is an invaluable resource here on campus,” she says.

The mystery of Redford’s diary

In a 1985 feature on the BU archives, the New York Times wrote as an aside that Gotlieb had managed to acquire Redford’s diary, which became the subject of much curiosity. “It is sealed,” Gotlieb would say, adding that he accepted “‘any reasonable restrictions’ on the sensitive papers of other donors,” according to the article.

As King explains, it’s not uncommon for personal items like diaries that are donated to an archive to come with special instructions. Today, Redford’s diary is not listed in the inventory of the collection—and she knows why.

Many years after the collection was started, she says, Redford sent his assistant to BU to visit the archive. “What he communicated through his staff person was that he was very pleased with the way his papers were being cared for…but he wanted that diary,” King says. “He requested that we return it to him, which we did, and it was on that occasion that he donated [additional] scripts to BU.”

Reflecting on the Redford collection, King calls it a “humbling and inspiring experience” to browse through the legendary actor’s personal papers, “to realize that Robert Redford was just a lovely guy who held this piece of paper [a script] and performed it to the best of his ability and created a character that we all remember for our entire lives,” she says.

“On the occasion of Redford’s passing, it is really a gift that he left to all of us: that we can engage with his work a bit more in-depth here at BU.”

Research appointments are required to view materials in the Mugar Memorial Library Reading Room; they can be requested by filling out this contact form or emailing archives@bu.edu.