I once made this guy I liked watch Out of Africa with me. Partly because I really, really love that movie and partly because I thought it would be a quasi-romantic thing to do (I used to wear exclusively 1930s pleated skirts from Shag and read lots of Housman so can you blame me?). This boy had sandy blonde hair and blue eyes and freckles all over his nose and he was bad, he was so bad, and he once showed me how to blow smoke rings in my garden and I should have realised that he wouldn't want to watch Out of Africa of all things. He used to wear white tee shirts and blue jeans and he had a big poster of Buffy the Vampire Slayer above his bed because, he told me, Sarah Michelle Gellar was his number one girl. Where did I fit into this? I guess I was the girl who made him watch Out of Africa (why did I do that? why?). I wanted to be the girl who flung her arms around his neck while they danced, or the girl who cooked him carbonara, or the girl who sat in the front seat of his car with the windows down and the music turned up as high as it would go.
I've always loved Robert Redford who - as I so often muse as I shake my head in complete confusion - is in fact older than my grandfather, but still has a full head of hair and oh, was just so lovely when he was younger. He wasn't bad, but he wasn't good either, he had charm like no other, and a perfect smile, and kind hands, and even when he was wrong you still loved him. He was that guy with the great hair, and the absurdly white turtleneck sweater, and the college sweats and the easy smile. He'd call you chief, just between the two of you. The popular guy, the American all-star, the one who'd dance real slow with you at the end of the ball just when you thought he didn't care. That, there is the real American Dream. Average girl bags the beautiful boy? It's Circle of Friends, but with better weather and less catholicism. It never works like that in real life, but that's why we have the movies, right?
I love that bit of RUSSH where they do flat lays around a particular person. I always love the male ones best, they did Jack Nicholson in a recent issue, and it was spot on perfect; "He's the class clown, the son of a showgirl, and the kind of man who called Hunter S Thompson a friend. The kind you want to make a family man.... But you know you never could (make him a family man, that is). Anjelica Huston didn't. Couldn't. But you can't blame her. He's just too damn slick to pin down". Whoever writes these is amazing. There's one on Robert Redford this month and it just brings it all back, the longing glances over a chintz-y couch during Out of Africa, the desire to push back this boy's sandy blonde hair, the yen to wear camel coats with big, turned-up collars and not bring an iron within an inch of my hair. I think the most compelling thing about Robert Redford (and yes I do realise I keep referring to him by his full name...) is that he is an everyman. Him - and his characteristics - are easily transmutable, and yet he plays similar characters. Strong but silent, kind and caring, yet sometimes cruel, just because of the way he was, who prayeth well that loveth well both man and bird and beast. Everyone and no-one, all at once. Gatsby and Hubbell, Denys Finch-Hatton and John Booker and Bob Woodward. He's a white tee shirt, and blue jeans, and someone you can dance real slow with.
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