When Hollywood star Robert Redford rocked up to a school in Sutton on the northside of Dublin to attend a choir performance featuring the children of his Irish biographer Michael Feeney Callan in the 1990s, the mammies at the gates could scarcely believe their eyes.
Or their luck.
It was like all four Beatles had showed up wrapped in a festive bow and they were not slow in showing their appreciation.
“My daughter, who was really good with Bob, wanted him to hear the school choir so down he went. It was exactly like a scene from a Hard Day’s Night. He was immediately surrounded by the yummy mummies,” the author said, recalling the encounter in the hours after learning of Redford’s death at the age of 89.
He remembered the clacking of their high heels and the scrambling for scraps of paper so autographs could be signed.
“It was hilarious and I think got a bit of fun out of that,” he said.
Feeney Callan also recalled how he once took Redford to the now closed Little Caesar’s, off Grantham Street in Dublin, where they were served penne arrabbiata, a nice bottle of Merlot and a side order of camera flashes from neighbouring tables bowled over to be in the presence of Hollywood royalty.
The owner had to tell their fellow dinners to desist.
The author knew the actor for more than quarter of a century, first meeting him in 1995 in New York City after Redford had read his biography of Anthony Hopkins and agreed to give him access to his life.
[ Robert Redford 1936 – 2025: A life in picturesOpens in new window ]
Irish writer Michael Feeney Callan holds his prize-winning book Robert Redford as he poses with Tiffany Gassouk on the red carpet of the 48th Deauville American Film Festival in Normandy, 2022. Photograph: Lou Benoist/ AFP via Getty Images
Redford travelled to Ireland on multiple occasions over the next 14 years and would stay in Feeney Callan’s home in Sutton.
“It was a five-year project that took 14 years and developed into a 30-year friendship,” Feeney Callan said.
“We had our spats and we did fall out many, many times but I had untrammeled access to all his friends, the likes of Jane Fonda, Paul Newman and his family, and I had his letters and his diaries.”
Redford rented a house in Sutton when in Ireland for longer periods.
Photo of Feula Gentile, owner of Le Caprice Restaurant in Dublin, with Robert Redford when he dined there. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien/ The Irish Times
“I remember we had a fight one night,” Callan Feeney said.
“He wanted me to take something out of the book that I want to keep in and I decided to storm out of the house. He blocked me at the door; he physically blocked me. Then he put his hand on my shoulder and said: ‘Hey Butch, it’s just me, Sundance.’ It was this ridiculous moment that brought us back to reality.”
He said there were two versions of Redford.
“When he was ready to be complicit with the celebrity side he had this great Beatles haircut and he’d walk around in his leather jacket and tight jeans,” he said.
“But he could be quite grim and depressed at times when things were not going well and he had this black beret he’d pull over his fringe. He had this theory that the beret made him unrecognisable.”
It didn’t always do that.
On one occasion when the author and Redford were having dinner at La Caprice on St Andrew’s Street in Dublin city centre, they were spotted by Dickie Rock who happened to be eating there too.
The singer whispered to the resident pianist and up to the piano and started singing The Way We Were, from the 1973 RomCom staring Redford and Barbara Streisand.
It could have gone either way but Redford loved it and it prompted him to remove the beret.