The Hollywood golden boy, Robert Redford, passed away on Tuesday at the age of 89. He was an Oscar-winning director, a liberal activist, and the godfather of independent film under the name of one of his most beloved characters.
Publicist Cindi Berger said in a statement that Redford passed away “at his home at Sundance in the mountains of Utah — the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved.” There was no cause of death mentioned.
With roles in movies like “The Candidate,” “All the President’s Men,” and “The Way We Were,” Redford was one of the biggest stars of the 1970s. He won the best director Oscar for the 1980 best picture, “Ordinary People,” to top off the decade.
He was the most sought-after of leading men due to his youthful smile and wavy blond hair, but he made a concerted effort to go beyond his appearance, whether it was through his political activism, his willingness to play unglamorous roles, or his commitment to giving low-budget films a voice.
He costarred with Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, and Jane Fonda in roles ranging from a double agent in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to Washington Post writer Bob Woodward. However, his most well-known on-screen companion was his longtime friend Paul Newman; their films were a reflection of their friendly, lighthearted off-screen bond. The name of Redford’s Sundance Institute and festival comes from the box office success of 1969’s “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” in which Redford played the cunning outlaw alongside Newman.
Redford received a nomination for best actor for his role as a young con artist in 1930s Chicago in the film “The Sting,” which he co-wrote with Newman and won the 1973 Best Picture Oscar.
As Redford focused on directing, producing, and his new position as the founder of the independent film movement, his film roles became increasingly infrequent after the 1970s.
His role as a shipwrecked sailor in “All is Lost,” in which he was the sole performer, garnered him some of the finest praise of his career in 2013. He also starred in the 1985 best picture winner “Out of Africa.” In 2018, he received more accolades for his final film, “The Old Man and the Gun.”
At the time, he told The Associated Press, “I think it might be time to move toward retirement and spend more time with my wife and family now that I’m getting into my 80s.”
Redford wanted to restore the creative energy of the early 1970s after witnessing Hollywood become more restrained and cautious at that time. Sundance was established to develop fresh talent away from Hollywood’s demands. For previously undiscovered directors like Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Darren Aronofsky, the Park City, Utah-based institute and festival became a center of discovery.
“Independence is the word that should be emphasized,” Redford told the AP in 2018. “I’ve always held that term to be true. I eventually wanted to establish a category that helped independent musicians who weren’t given an opportunity to be recognized because of this.
The event gained so much popularity by 2025 that its organizers decided to move it to Boulder, Colorado, beginning in 2027.
Redford’s love of the outdoors was portrayed in “A River Runs Through It” and other movies, as well as in his decades-long environmental activism, which was sparked in part by seeing Los Angeles turn into a metropolis of roads and smog. His actions included serving on the board of the Natural Resources Defense Council and advocating for the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act.
Redford was born in Santa Monica, California, on August 18, 1936. He received a baseball scholarship to college and went on to play a middle-aged slugger in the 1984 adaption of Bernard Malamud’s novel, “The Natural.” He attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and showed an early interest in painting and drawing. Before making his television debut on programs like “The Twilight Zone,” “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” and “The Untouchables,” he had his Broadway debut in the late 1950s.
Sibylle Szaggars was Redford’s most recent spouse. Two of his four children have passed away: James Redford, a filmmaker and activist, died in 2020, and Scott Anthony died in 1959 when still a baby.
Redford also made an appearance in a number of political stories. In “The Candidate,” he parodied campaigning as an idealist seeking a U.S. Senate seat. When his character wins, he shouted one of the most iconic closing lines: “What do we do now?” In the 1976 film “All the President’s Men,” which told the tale of the Washington Post reporters whose Watergate investigation contributed to the downfall of President Richard Nixon, he played Woodward to Dustin Hoffman’s Carl Bernstein.
His greatest cinematic achievement was his directing debut on “Ordinary People,” which won an Oscar ahead of Martin Scorsese’s iconic “Raging Bull.”
Among Redford’s previous directing endeavors were “The Horse Whisperer,” “The Milagro Beanfield War,” and “Quiz Show,” which was nominated for both best film and best director Oscars in 1994.
“I’ve always found the outlaw concept to be really alluring. The outlaw sensibility, which I believe has likely been my sensibility, is typically mentioned in some of the movies. “I believe it was innate in me,” Redford stated in 2018. “Ever since I was a young child, I have wanted to go outside and have always tried to escape the limitations that I was placed in.”
