They Looked Unbreakable At The 1967 Premiere—But Behind Robert And Lola Redford’s Glamorous Smile Was A Love Story Marked By Private Grief, Growing Distance, And A Heartbreaking Ending After 27 Years Together
The photograph looks like a beginning.
That’s what makes it so difficult to look at for too long.
May 24, 1967. New York City. The premiere of Barefoot in the Park. Flashbulbs burst like tiny explosions of light, capturing a moment that, at the time, felt complete. Robert Redford stands beside Lola, both of them impossibly composed, impossibly certain in the way young love often is.
If you didn’t know anything else, you would think this was the kind of story that stays whole.
You would think nothing could break it.
But photographs are dangerous like that.
They freeze the surface.
They don’t show what comes after.
Robert Redford wasn’t yet the legend people would later describe. He was building something—career, identity, direction—all at once. And Lola Van Wagenen was there before any of it was guaranteed.
Before the fame.
Before the myth.
Before the world decided who he was supposed to be.
They met when everything was still uncertain.
That matters.
Because relationships that begin in uncertainty often carry a different kind of truth. There’s no image to protect yet, no expectation to live up to. Just two people trying to make sense of their lives at the same time.
They married in 1958.
He was young.
Still searching.
Still trying to find where he belonged.
The early years weren’t polished.
They weren’t designed for admiration.
They were lived.
Money wasn’t stable.
Opportunities came slowly.
There were stretches where the future felt like something they were chasing rather than holding.
And in the middle of that, they built a family.
Their first child, Scott, was born in 1959.
And then, almost as quickly as that new life arrived… it was gone.
He died as an infant.
Sudden. Unexplainable in the way that leaves no place to put the pain.
That’s where the story changes.
Not publicly.
Not in a way people would have seen from the outside.
But internally.
Permanently.
Grief doesn’t always announce itself.
Sometimes it settles quietly into the structure of a relationship.
Sometimes it changes the way two people look at each other, even when they don’t say a word about it.
Robert would later speak, in fragments, about how deeply that loss affected him.
But even then, it never felt like a full explanation.
More like a shadow.
Something that stayed present without needing to be described.
And that shadow didn’t disappear as his career began to rise.
Because while the world was starting to notice him—stage roles, television appearances, then films—his private life was already carrying something heavy.
That’s the contradiction people don’t always see.
Success doesn’t erase what came before.
It just builds on top of it.
By the time Barefoot in the Park arrived, Robert Redford had become something visible.
Recognizable.
The kind of presence that didn’t need introduction.
The film mattered.
It pushed him further into the spotlight.
It confirmed what people were starting to believe—that he wasn’t just another actor passing through.
He was going to stay.
And that’s where the pressure begins.
Because once the world starts watching…
Everything changes.
The expectations grow.
The demands multiply.
The time that once belonged to a relationship begins to fragment.
Lola wasn’t just standing beside a man anymore.
She was standing beside a rising figure the world was beginning to claim.
And the world is not gentle when it decides to claim someone.
There are long days.
Longer nights.
Endless travel.
Conversations that become shorter.
Silences that last longer.
And then there’s the part no one prepares you for.
The distance that doesn’t come from physical space.
But from everything else.
Robert Redford became one of the most recognizable faces in American film.
That kind of visibility brings admiration.
But it also brings something else.
Isolation.
Because the more people think they know you…
The harder it becomes to remain known by the people closest to you.
Their marriage continued.
They had more children.
They built a life that, from the outside, looked stable.
But stability doesn’t always mean balance.
There were years of success.
Films that defined an era.
Moments that placed him firmly at the center of American cinema.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
The Sting.
The Way We Were.
Each one adding to something larger.
A legacy forming in real time.
And with each step forward…
Something else quietly shifted.
Lola’s life moved in a different direction.
She wasn’t part of the machine that was growing around him.
She built her own path—education, activism, interests that didn’t revolve around Hollywood.
That difference mattered.
Not immediately.
But over time.
Because when two people begin to move in different rhythms…
Even love can struggle to keep them aligned.
There’s no single moment where everything breaks.
That’s another thing people misunderstand.
It’s not always one event.
One decision.
One mistake.
Sometimes it’s accumulation.
Small distances.
Unspoken frustrations.
The quiet realization that the life you’re living is no longer the one you imagined together.
And the hardest part?
It often happens without either person fully understanding when the shift began.
They were married for 27 years.
That’s not a short story.
That’s a lifetime in itself.
Which is why the ending doesn’t feel simple.
Because how do you explain the unraveling of something that lasted that long?
How do you separate the love that existed…
From the distance that eventually replaced it?
Their marriage ended in 1985.
No public collapse.
No dramatic scandal.
Just an ending.
And that’s what makes it harder to understand.
Because there’s no single moment to point to.
No clear reason that explains everything.
Just time.
And change.
And the quiet ways people grow apart.
When people look back now, they often focus on what was lost.
The idea of something beautiful that didn’t last.
But that’s only part of the story.
Because what they had…
Did exist.
It wasn’t imagined.
It wasn’t temporary.
It carried them through years that mattered.
Years that shaped both of them.
And maybe that’s what gives the photograph its weight.
Not because it represents something that failed.
But because it represents something that was real…
Even if it didn’t last forever.
Robert Redford would go on to continue his career.
To build something even larger.
To create Sundance.
To shape an entire generation of filmmakers.
Lola would continue her own path.
Independent.
Defined by her own choices.
Their lives didn’t end when the marriage did.
They just changed direction.
And that’s the part people often struggle to accept.
That not all endings mean something was broken.
Sometimes they mean something has simply reached its limit.
And yet…
The image remains.
Two people standing side by side.
Unaware of everything that would come after.
It’s easy to romanticize that moment.
To imagine it as something perfect.
But perfection isn’t what gives it meaning.
What gives it meaning is everything that followed.
The years.
The loss.
The growth.
The separation.
All of it contained in a single frame that doesn’t show any of it.
That’s why it lingers.
Because it reminds us of something uncomfortable.
That even the most beautiful beginnings don’t promise a permanent ending.
And that love…
Even when it’s real…
Doesn’t always stay the same.
But it still matters.
It always matters.
Even after it changes.
Even after it ends.
Because for those years…
It was everything.
And somewhere, inside that photograph…
It still is.
