Robert Redford, the golden-haired Hollywood heartthrob who grew into an Oscar-winning director, liberal activist and godfather of independent cinema, is dead. He was 89.
His publicist, Cindi Berger, confirmed that the actor died Tuesday at his beloved Sundance home in the Utah mountains, surrounded by family. No cause of death was given.
Redford’s career was the stuff of Hollywood legend. Rising to stardom in the 1960s, he became one of the biggest names of the 1970s with classics like The Candidate, The Way We Were and All the President’s Men. In 1980, he made the leap from star actor to acclaimed filmmaker, winning the Academy Award for Best Director with Ordinary People, which also took home Best Picture.
Known for his wavy blond hair, boyish grin and commanding screen presence, Redford was more than a pretty face. He threw himself into political causes, championed unglamorous roles, and used his influence to build platforms for struggling filmmakers.
He played everything from Bob Woodward, the Washington Post journalist who exposed Watergate, to a rugged mountain man in Jeremiah Johnson, to a double agent in Marvel’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier. His screen chemistry with Paul Newman became immortal in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973), both box-office smashes that cemented their friendship and Hollywood dominance.
By the ’80s, Redford had shifted focus from acting to directing and producing, and more importantly, to reshaping cinema through the Sundance Institute and Festival. What began as a training ground for new talent in Utah turned Park City into a global discovery hub for filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh and Paul Thomas Anderson.
For me, the word to be underscored is independence, Redford said in 2018. I wanted to create a space where artists who weren’t being heard could finally tell their stories.
Even as Sundance grew into a commercial magnet, Redford never apologized. “It’s always been built on diversity,” he told the AP in 2004. “Hollywood will always try to grab what works.
By 2025, the Sundance Festival had outgrown Park City, with organizers announcing a move to Boulder, Colorado, beginning in 2027. Redford, an alumnus of the University of Colorado, welcomed the change, saying, Change is inevitable, we must always evolve and grow.
Away from Hollywood, Redford was a fierce environmentalist. Witnessing Los Angeles transform into a city of smog and concrete, he pushed for clean air and water legislation, fought for land conservation in Utah, and sat on the board of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
His personal life carried both love and tragedy. Twice married, he shared his later years with German-born artist Sibylle Szaggars. Of his four children, two preceded him in death: infant son Scott in 1959, and filmmaker James Redford in 2020.
