Robert Redford, Oscar-winning actor, director and indie patriarch, dies at 89

Robert Redford, the Hollywood golden boy whose wavy blond hair and easy charm made him one of the most bankable stars of the 1970s, and who later reinvented himself as an Oscar-winning director, political activist and pioneering force for independent film, died Tuesday at his home in Sundance, Utah. He was 89.

“Robert Redford died at his home at Sundance in the mountains of Utah — the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved,” his publicist, Cindi Berger, said in a statement. No cause of death was provided.

Redford’s career spanned six decades, beginning with his breakthrough in the 1960s and soaring into superstardom in the following decade. He was the earnest political hopeful in The Candidate (1972), the crusading journalist Bob Woodward in All the President’s Men (1976), and the romantic lead opposite Barbra Streisand in The Way We Were (1973). In 1981, he won the Academy Award for directing Ordinary People, the searing family drama that also claimed the best picture Oscar.

Though his matinee-idol looks made him one of the most desired leading men of his generation, Redford worked consistently to outpace the limitations of his image. He sought unglamorous roles, supported socially conscious projects and lent his celebrity to liberal causes, including environmental protection and Native American rights. “I never wanted to be a pretty boy,” he once remarked. “I wanted to do work that mattered.”

His versatility on screen was remarkable. He embodied rugged frontiersmen, such as the trapper in Jeremiah Johnson (1972); suave con men, as in The Sting (1973); and even a Marvel double agent in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014). He played opposite some of the greatest actresses of his era, including Jane Fonda, Meryl Streep and Natalie Wood.

But perhaps his most enduring on-screen chemistry was with his close friend Paul Newman. Their partnership in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) produced not only a box office triumph but also the nickname that Redford would later bestow on the Sundance Institute and Film Festival — institutions that came to define his lasting contribution to cinema. Their second collaboration, The Sting (1973), won best picture and earned Redford his only Oscar nomination for acting.

By the 1980s, Redford had shifted much of his energy to directing and producing. Through the Sundance Institute, founded in 1981, he created a launchpad for independent filmmakers who struggled to find space in Hollywood. The annual Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, grew into the most important showcase for independent film in the United States, introducing audiences to the early works of Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh and countless others.

Redford never abandoned acting entirely. He starred in the sweeping romance Out of Africa (1985), opposite Meryl Streep, and in All is Lost (2013), a nearly wordless survival drama that won him some of the best reviews of his later career. In 2018, he appeared in what he called his farewell performance, The Old Man and the Gun, playing a real-life career criminal who couldn’t resist robbing banks well into his 70s.

“I just figure that I’ve had a long career that I’m very pleased with. It’s been so long, ever since I was 21,” Redford told the Associated Press as the film was released. “I figure now as I’m getting into my 80s, it’s maybe time to move toward retirement and spend more time with my wife and family.”

Handsome, ambitious and fiercely independent, Redford left a mark that extended far beyond the silver screen. To audiences, he was the quintessential star; to filmmakers, a patron saint of creative risk. And to many Americans, he remained — much like his most famous character — the Sundance Kid, eternally young, daring and unwilling to conform.

Redford is survived by his wife, the painter Sibylle Szaggars; three children from his first marriage to Lola Van Wagenen — daughters Shauna and Amy, and son James; and several grandchildren. Another son, Scott, died in infancy in 1959.

With AP/PTI inputs