Hollywood acting and directing icon Robert Redford dies aged 89

Hollywood legend and Oscar-winning actor and director Robert Redford has died aged 89. 

Redford died in his sleep at his home in Utah according publicity firm Rogers & Cowan PMK. No cause of death was specified.  

A magnetic onscreen presence, Redford made his mark on the world of cinema through iconic roles in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Great Gatsby, The Sting, All the President's Men, Out of Africa and Spy Game. He won an Academy Award for Best Director in 1980 for his directorial film debut Ordinary People.

In a career spanning six decades, he also received three Golden Globe Awards, including the Cecil B DeMille lifetime achievement honour in 1994.

Redford was also the godfather of independent cinema as the co-founder of the Sundance Resort and Film Institute in 1981.

After a string of superb films, including All Is Lost (2013), Our Souls At Night (2017), The Old Man & The Gun (2018), and a final stint in the MCU as the character of Alexander Pierce in Avengers: Engame (2019) - a role he had previously played in 2014 in Captain America: The Winter Soldier - Redford retired from acting. His final acting credit was Endgame.

Robert Redford was born Charles Robert Redford Jr. on 18 August 1937, in Santa Monica. After an apprenticeship in television and live theater, he attended college on a baseball scholarship and went on to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. His Broadway debut was in the late 1950s and he quickly moved on to star in shows like The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Untouchables.

Redford was cast by director Mike Nichols in a production of Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park, later starring with Fonda in the film version.

His rise to stardom was in the late 60s and early 70s and Redford became one of the biggest stars in Hollywood with films like George Roy Hill’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Sydney Pollack’s Jeremiah Johnson (1972) and Michael Ritchie’s The Candidate (1972).

Roy Hill then cast him in The Sting (1973), the cult caper film which he played grifter Johnny Hooker alongside Paul Newman. It was a critical and commercial success and hugely successful at the 46th Academy Awards, where it won seven of its 10 nominations – including Best Picture, Best Director. Redford was nominated for Best Actor but lost out.  

He next major film was 1974’s The Great Gatsby, the adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, in which Redford played Jay Gatsby. He followed it up with classics like Three Days of the Condor (1975) and All The President’s Men, the Alan J. Pakula political thriller about the Watergate scandal. Redford played Bob Woodward, one of the two journalists investigating the scandal for The Washington Post. The film won four Oscars and is routinely ranked as one of the great political thrillers ever made.

Redford capped off the 70s with his directorial debut, Ordinary People, starring Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore. He won both Best Picture and Best Director in 1980.

Redford then concentrated on directing and producing, and his new role as patriarch of the independent-film movement in the 1980s and ’90s through his Sundance Institute.

Sundance was created to nurture new talent away from the pressures of Hollywood, the institute providing a training ground and the festival, based in Park City, Utah, where Redford had purchased land with the initial hope of opening a ski resort. Instead, Park City became a place of discovery for such previously unknown filmmakers as Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, Paul Thomas Anderson and Darren Aronofsky.

“For me, the word to be underscored is ‘independence,’” Redford told the AP in 2018. “I’ve always believed in that word. That’s what led to me eventually wanting to create a category that supported independent artists who weren’t given a chance to be heard.” 

“The industry was pretty well controlled by the mainstream, which I was a part of. But I saw other stories out there that weren’t having a chance to be told and I thought, ‘Well, maybe I can commit my energies to giving those people a chance.’ As I look back on it, I feel very good about that.”

He also starred in 1985’s Best Picture champion Out of Africa and directed 1988’s The Milagro Beanfield War, 1992’s A River Runs Through It, 1994’s Quiz Show, 1998’s The Horse Whisperer and 2007’s Lions For Lambs.

In 2013, he received some of the best reviews of his career as a shipwrecked sailor in All is Lost, in which he was the film’s only performer. In 2018, he was praised again in what he called his farewell movie, The Old Man and the Gun.

In 2010, Euronews Culture had the pleasure of interviewing Redford and asked him how he wanted to be remembered. He told us: "Just as someone that that contributed something to, the sustainable sustainability of our culture. I guess whether it's my work as a film, I think probably whatever I do, what will probably last the longest are the films that I've made because they they have a long life. So just that I was somebody that that brought something to the culture that had some sustainability or some value, whatever that is. Time will tell."

In 1958, Redford married Lola Van Wagenen. They had four children: Scott Anthony Redford, Shauna Jean Redford, David James Redford and Amy Hart Redford. Scott Anthony died of sudden infant death syndrome at the age of 2 months. Shauna is a painter, David James was a writer and producer (died in 2020), while Amy is an actress, director, and producer. 

Redford and Van Wagenen divorced and in 2009, Redford married his longtime girlfriend, Sibylle Szaggars. Redford is survived by Szaggars and his seven grandchildren.