today is robert redford's 75th birthday. in honor of the big day, life.com released these never before seen photos from a 1970 cover story. and beginning with this bathrobe, while i don't know robert redford, for his sake, let's just remember these are period photos, 1970s, people actually looked this way, people wore so-called bell bottoms, they were early examples of skinny jeans. and you used to be able to openly tow children behind snowmobiles without safely concerns. other note photos show redford literally taking a cat nap and hailing a cab in new york like midnight cowboy. you can see more of them on the website life.com. and because time marches by so quickly, that is our broadcast on a thursday night. thank you for being here with us. i'm brian williams, hope see you back here tomorrow evening, good back here tomorrow evening, good night. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com >>> right now at 6:00, this undercover video, an example of the new gold rush on the streets of the bay area. the record price for gold leads

. >>> and happy birthday to robert redford. today the actor and director turns 75. >>> all day long you can stay on top of the latest developments in those stories and others as they break on msnbc, and tonight be sure to watch brian williams with "nbc nightly news". finally, here's a look at what's coming up later this morning on the "today" show. new details about an insurance policy taken out on missing american robyn gardner shortly before her trip to aruba. and oscar-nominated actress ann hathaway talks to matt lauer about upcoming roles, including "batman." >>> i'm lynn berry. thanks for watching "early today," just your first stop of the day today on your nbc station. have a good one. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com

for those of you who had a chance to see the recent pdf series narrated by robert redford, you would appreciate the history of what everyone has tried to do to protect this incredible natural resource and historic resource, and in particular, the work of saved the day. i wanted to take the opportunity to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of the largest regional organization working to celebrate our san francisco bay, an organization that has been named non-profit of the year by the bay area chapter of the association for corporate growth and an organization that has been recognized repeatedly for its work on the environment. with that, david lewis, congratulations. >> supervisors, this body has been second to none in taking a leadership role in protecting the environment, and especially protecting san francisco bay. during my tenure leading this organization, there really is no city or county in the region that has taken such a leadership role, and we are proud to be celebrating his anniversary. we will be celebrating with a gala on november 3, and i hope all of you will be able to

the answer is that the person that will play billington is going to be robert redford. [laughter] >> and redford's daily fee is very high. so in order to keep the cost of the movie down, we couldn't afford to have him on screen very long. thus poor mr. billington had to be dispatched. yes? >> you said you do a lot of commencement speeches. what's your sense of the future here? do you think we're going to have a symmetrical warfare forever can terrorists threats or something to get a grip on? >> well, forever is a long time. i think we're going to have it certainly for the foreseeable future. and one the challenges to the united states is really a change in mentality. in the novel, there are some under lying events that are occurring. one of those is a presidential election, and at a number of points in the novel, actions are taken because they are political in the most basic sense, political in the impact rather than what is in some national security interest. but another of those is the war in iraq. our hero, tony ramos, who i will modestly say i think is an interestin

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