Robert Redford - Michael Feeney Callan [77]
Shauna had enrolled at the Dalton School in Manhattan and Jamie was due to begin there that spring, but the trip upended the plan. In later life, Jamie and Shauna would both observe that education was a priority in their father’s eyes. “But at that time,” says Jamie, “he truly felt there was more to be learned traveling than studying.” Jamie has hazy but happy memories of these Spanish days. “I enjoyed it, except for the Semana Santa Easter festival. It was a crucifixion scenario, where the faithful parade through the streets reenacted the journey to Calvary. But this wasn’t playacting. It was extreme self-mortification. There was blood everywhere, and the person playing Christ was actually nailed to the cross. It was upsetting for a kid of four to endure, but Dad thought it was okay, that it was honest cultural exposure, which I guess it was.” Jamie is less sure of the outing to the local butcher’s shop, in preparation for Sunday lunch: “Right before my eyes, they slaughtered a lamb and cut it up. Okay by Dad, not okay by me. I hollered the place down.” Redford himself saw this exposure as “my own reenactment of how I’d learned the rules from Tot and Gil in Texas. It was like my mom being thrown into Barton Springs to sink or swim. It was tough love, but I didn’t feel it was excessive.” He hesitates. “Well, maybe a little excessive.”
The dreams of painting Shauna in all her Renoir colors disappeared in the dazzling distractions of summer. Like the French Riviera, the Costa del Sol doubled its population from May through September, and well-wishers came to the Redfords’ villa with letters from mutual friends in New York and Los Angeles. Gradually the social whirl absorbed Redford, displacing the meditations on career and family. The writer Tom McGuane was one of many houseguests. “It was pleasant,” says Redford, “but it was a diversion I didn’t want. I began to understand that the community I was fantasizing about wasn’t on the costa. It was really just a combination of Palm Springs and the dropout guys.” Redford indulged, but became frustrated when he encountered the partner of Lorenzo Semple Jr., the Hollywood screenwriter, on a pathway one day. The men conversed, and it emerged that Lorenzo was living down the road, writing Batman scripts that were then sent by overnight courier to ABC in Los Angeles. “I thought, That’s it! This is just another Hollywood-on-location. Time to get out of here.”
The family made for Crete instead. Here he mimicked Henry Miller again, settling down on the island’s north shore. Jamie and Shauna loved the fantasy tour and the high spirits. “It all stepped up a gear,” says Jamie. “Suddenly it was lectures about myths and monsters, and they all scared me stiff. Dad lived for this storytelling. I can see myself sitting on some beach, and him telling me about the Cyclops that lived in the cave there.” The family stayed in Iráklion, exploring the coastal sweep from Chania to Sitia and the long, winding hiking trails of Europe’s longest gorge, the ten-mile Samaria, flanked on one side by the White Mountains and on the other by the cypress forests of Mount Volikas. Bit by bit the diary, and the conceit of bohemian living, were lost to the joys of what Redford calls “a simple extended family vacation with a little bit of social research thrown in.” He knew now that he had outgrown the part of Beat bum, that he was a family man with duties and gifts to give. “The days in Iráklion were among the best, but I knew I had to come back, that it was important for me to build a future for my family.”
In July, Stan Collins received a postcard from Crete in which Redford described his change of heart. Lola had suffered enough waiting for the career break; now, wrote Redford, “she’s on the spending trail, cutting through Europe like a Mack.” Redford recalls, “We did indulge ourselves. We overspent like crazy, but I was confident that I had a career to come back to and a check in the pipeline.