Dilip Kuner
HE was one of Hollywood’s greatest stars – but Robert Redford once swapped the glitz of Los Angeles for a rustic farmhouse in Mijas with no electricity or running water.
The actor, who has died aged 89, often said it was Spain that gave him his artistic soul. From sketching in Barcelona as a teenager, to painting by the Mediterranean light in Mallorca, and finally living the simple life in the whitewashed hills of Malaga, Redford found a creative refuge that shaped the way he saw the world.
“This time we went to Malaga, then to Fuengirola, and from there to Mijas. We rented a farm without electricity or running water. I didn’t dance flamenco, but it was a wonderful experience,” he once recalled.
Redford first arrived in Spain at just 19, chasing his dream of becoming a painter. “When I was studying, I came to Spain. It was wonderful. I travelled the country, spent time in Barcelona, and then two months in Mallorca where I painted,” he recalled years later.
In Barcelona, he soaked up Gaudí’s colourful modernism and the city’s blend of tradition and avant-garde, finding in its architecture the same spark he later brought to cinema.
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By 1957, Redford was living in Mallorca, painting canvases and breathing in the island’s luminous Mediterranean atmosphere. He returned with his young family in the 1960s, staying in the then-sleepy fishing village of Puerto de Alcudia.
“I wanted my children to grow up around other cultures,” he said. At the time, he was considering leaving acting behind after only three films in Hollywood. The Balearic island – with its stone houses, whitewashed walls and dazzling light – gave him space to rethink, and later shaped the way he used landscapes almost as characters in his movies.
In 1966, Redford moved to Mijas, Malaga, for nearly seven months – and it was here, in the Andalucian hills, that he truly embraced a stripped-back life.
The young actor lived simply among the pueblo blanco’s narrow cobbled streets, whitewashed houses and flower-filled balconies. But when more and more Americans began to appear in the village, Redford felt it was time to head back to Hollywood.
Spain was more than a passing stop for Robert Redford – it was where he grew as an artist.
Barcelona’s modernism, Mallorca’s light and Mijas’s rustic charm left their fingerprints on a career that would dazzle the world.
As the world mourns a Hollywood legend, Spain can claim a piece of the story too – the quiet months when Robert Redford swapped the red carpet for a farmhouse with no light or water, and called it ‘wonderful’.
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