SUNDANCE (Realist English). Robert Redford, one of Hollywood’s most iconic actors and an Oscar-winning director who later became a driving force for independent cinema, died Tuesday at his home in Sundance, Utah. He was 89.
Redford “passed away at his home in the mountains of Utah — the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved,” his longtime publicist Cindi Berger said. No cause of death was given.
Redford rose to stardom in the 1960s and became one of the biggest box-office names of the 1970s, starring in The Candidate, All the President’s Men, and The Way We Were. He won the Academy Award for Best Director with Ordinary People in 1980. His rugged good looks made him a quintessential leading man, but he was determined to move beyond typecasting, embracing unglamorous roles and using his platform to promote political and social causes.
His creative partnership with Paul Newman produced two of the most beloved films in American cinema, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973). The former inspired the name of the Sundance Institute and Sundance Film Festival, institutions Redford founded to nurture independent filmmakers outside Hollywood’s commercial system.
Through Sundance, Redford helped launch the careers of Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, Paul Thomas Anderson and Darren Aronofsky, among many others. He often described independence as the value that guided his career.
Although his acting roles became less frequent after the 1970s, Redford delivered acclaimed performances in Out of Africa (1985), All Is Lost (2013) and his self-declared farewell role in The Old Man and the Gun (2018). As a director, he also helmed Quiz Show, The Horse Whisperer and The Milagro Beanfield War.
Born Charles Robert Redford Jr. in Santa Monica, California, on August 18, 1937, he began in theater and television before making his way to film. Over six decades, his career spanned romantic dramas, political thrillers, westerns and intimate character studies.
Redford was married twice and had four children. He is survived by his wife, Sibylle Szaggars. Two of his children, Scott Anthony and James Redford, predeceased him.
In 2002, he received an honorary Academy Award for his lifetime contributions to cinema. Looking back, he often said his “outlaw sensibility” — a drive to challenge convention and expand boundaries — defined both his films and his activism.
“The idea of the outlaw has always been very appealing to me,” he told the Associated Press in 2018. “From the time I was just a kid, I was always trying to break free of the bounds that I was stuck with, and always wanted to go outside.”
