Robert Redford: the Hollywood heart-throb who fled the limelight to escape to the Costa del Sol

He spent a month almost without speaking, sitting in an iron chair and staring at the horizon. His then-wife - Lola Van Wagenen - tried to turn the Costa del Sol villa into a home and his children played around him or in the empty swimming pool. But he did not see them. He surveyed the landscape from that throne: Fuengirola and the coastline in the distance and the white houses of Mijas over his shoulder. But that was not what he saw either, as he was looking inward. His agent had given him an offer to star in Barefoot in the Park, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to continue working as an actor. "I didn't have any concrete plans. I wanted to paint and read, that's all," Robert Redford said in his memoir. The legendary actor died on Tuesday, 16 September, at the age of 89.

The retreat lasted six months and, although almost six decades have passed since 1966, Redford did not forget his "sabbatical" in Mijas. "I didn't dance flamenco, but it was a wonderful experience," said the star of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and Brubaker (1980). A little over a decade ago, SUR visited Mijas to trace the actor's steps. The staff at the Hogar del Jubilado restaurant remembered him. "Who? Robert Redford? Ah, the blonde man we used to see on the streets," they said. "I remember the woman, who was also blonde. She would come to the village to shop," said cinephile Manuel Jiménez. "They lived in Peña Blanquilla, which used to be an agricultural area, although villas for foreigners had already started to appear around that time," he explained.

The house where Redford stayed with his family was located halfway between Fuengirola and Mijas. According to avid Mijas historian Salvador Pulpillo, the actor's accommodation had already disappeared ten years ago. His colleague Juan Quero said that the house was actually located in the El Maro district, near Rancho de la Luz and La Alquería, while other sources point to another location - in María La Pañala. "It was an old house that didn't even have hot water," Pulpillo said, telling fans that the Redfords led a "hippy" life. During their humble stay, they would go to the village to do their grocery shopping.

In his memoir (Robert Redford: The Biography), Redford himself mentioned that the house was located "outside the village" and that "the exceptional bullring was a ten-minute walk down the winding two-lane road to the coast". The actor, then a rising star, went unnoticed in that younger Malaga province, which was awakening as a paradise.

Also in the book, Redford talks about his days in Spain. He would go to Fuengirola "to buy wine and groceries". The confessions of the actor and director of Ordinary People (1980) and Lions for Lambs (2007) reveal that, after the first month of adaptation, the artist came out of his isolation and, although he did not stop "fighting his demons", as his son Jamie says in the book, he gradually freed himself from the pressure and integrated into the landscape and the people.

The desire to paint, especially his daughter Shauna, dissipated along with the personal crisis, which broke out after he arrived in Hollywood. After making a name for himself on Broadway and in TV series, Redford shot Inside Daisy Clover (1965) and This Property Is Condemned (1966), both with Natalie Wood. The press was quick to pin an affair with the ill-fated actress on him, which, together with the separation of his family because of his work, caused him to flee to Mijas. "I was worried that I was entering the world of Hollywood without realising it," the veteran actor said. "I was drinking too much, spending too much. I knew that if I went on like that I would end either my marriage or myself in less than a year," he confessed.

Redford decided to invest that year in his family and in finding himself. On 1 January 1966, he embarked on a transatlantic liner that arrived in Gibraltar. From there, he went to the Sierra de Mijas. He lived in a bohemian way: his house was close to a hippy commune, which was easily recognised thanks to a large graffiti that said 'Peace and Love'. Despite his lifestyle, he also familiarised himself with the local community and even attended a performance during Semana Santa, which he found to be a "sincere cultural" expression.

With the arrival of summer, his isolation was not only forgotten, but his house had become a gathering point for friends, acquaintances and admirers who would go knocking on his door. Among them was writer Tom McGuane, who years later would be the one to discover the book that Redford would adapt for the big screen and turn into the 1992 film A River Runs Through It.

As time went on, Redford exorcised his demons and decided to continue his acting career. Before returning to Hollywood in the autumn, he finished the summer in Crete, but quickly returned to Malaga in the summer of 1967. His career left a mark in Hollywood with his subsequent roles in hits such as The Sting (1973) and many other productions.