Robert Redford (front row, center) with fellow members of the Kappa Sigma fraternity at the University of Colorado, c. 1955. Photo: UC-Boulder Alumni Association, Flickr
 
	Redford attended Van Nuys High School, where he was classmates with baseball pitcher Don Drysdale.[4][9] He described himself as having been a "bad" student, finding inspiration outside the classroom in art and sports.[4] He hit tennis balls with Pancho Gonzalez at the Los Angeles Tennis Club to help Gonzalez warm up for matches. Redford had a mild case of polio when he was 11.[10]
 
	After graduating from high school in 1954,[11] he attended the University of Colorado in Boulder for a year and a half,[4][12][13] where he was a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity.[14] While there, he worked at a restaurant/bar called The Sink, where a painting of his likeness now figures prominently among the bar's murals.[15] While at Colorado, Redford began drinking heavily and, as a result, lost his half-scholarship and was kicked out of school.[12][13] He went on to travel in Europe, living in France, Spain, and Italy.[4] He later studied painting at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and took classes at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (Class of 1959) in New York City.[4][16]