The bad boy bisexual character that put Robert Redford on the map way back in 1965.

From Westerns like Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, to romantic dramas like The Way We Were, to political thrillers like All The President’s Men, Redford was the very epitome of a movie star.

He used his fame to support and champion independent artists, specifically by co-founding the Sundance Film Festival, which has long been a platform for marginalized voices in filmmaking, by extension launching the careers of countless LGBTQ+ writers, directors, and actors over the years.

And it’s possible neither Sundance nor Redford’s ascent to the upper echelon of the A-list might have happened if he hadn’t played a queer character way back in 1965.

After a series of stage and television appearances in the late ’50s and early ’60s, Redford had his first proper film role in 1962 with the largely forgotten War Hunt, though it’s his work in the 1965 drama Inside Daisy Clover that many consider his major breakthrough.

The two stars quickly get hitched, but after Wade ditches Daisy on their honeymoon, it comes to light that her new husband is bisexual and… we guess therefore not to be trusted? What can we say? It was the ’60s, and there was still clearly plenty of progress to be made in terms of LGBTQ+ representation on screen.

What’s especially interesting is that, in the 1963 novel on which the movie is based, Wade is actually a gay closet case, all too happy to marry young, naive Daisy to be his beard. Reportedly, Redford didn’t want to play gay and insisted that Wade also be interested in women, which does at least soften the character and makes the motivations behind his marriage less duplicitous.