Robert Redford, the Oscar-winning actor and director who founded the Sundance Institute and helped shape American independent film, died in his sleep at his home in Utah on Tuesday, The New York Times reported. He was 89.
A major Hollywood leading man for decades, Redford won the Academy Award for best director for Ordinary People (1980) after a celebrated acting career that included roles in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men and The Way We Were. In 1981 he established the Sundance Institute, which grew into the Sundance Film Festival and became a central platform for new filmmakers and independent cinema.
Redford’s career spanned acting, directing and cultural advocacy. He became a symbol of a certain midcentury American screen charisma while also moving behind the camera later in life. Critics and colleagues cited his work as both commercially successful and influential to generations of filmmakers. He received numerous honors over the years, including the Chaplin Award; when Barbra Streisand presented him the prize in 2015 she quipped about their on-screen partnership, reflecting a long-standing friendship between the two.
Born Charles Robert Redford Jr. in 1936 in California, Redford’s early life included serious health and family challenges that he later said shaped him. As a child he contracted a mild case of polio that confined him to bed for weeks. He was 18 when his mother, Martha Hart, died; he described her death as a defining, painful loss in interviews and later paid tribute to her at events tied to the Sundance festival. After being dismissed from the University of Colorado, where he had been on a baseball scholarship, he traveled to Europe, studied painting in Paris and eventually turned to acting.
Biographical accounts and interviews document other hardships. Redford and his first wife, historian and producer Lola Van Wagenen, married in 1958 and had four children. Their first son, Scott, died of sudden infant death syndrome when he was about 10 weeks old; Redford later described the loss as ‘‘a tough hit.’’ The couple divorced in 1985 but maintained an amicable relationship, he said. One of his sons, Jamie Redford, died in October 2020 after a prolonged illness. Redford was survived by grandchildren and by his second wife, German artist Sibylle Szaggars, whom he married in 2009.
Throughout his life Redford navigated episodes of public attention and private sorrow. Media accounts and biographies relate episodes including an arrest in his youth and a near-fatal dare; he told interviewers that facing fear early in life shaped his outlook. Family members also endured tragedies: his daughter Shauna’s then-boyfriend was shot to death, and she survived a serious car accident.
Redford’s personal life intersected with his professional partnerships in ways that often drew public curiosity. He shared notable screen chemistry with several leading actresses. Barbra Streisand and Jane Fonda both spoke in later years about strong feelings during their work with him: director Sydney Pollack said Streisand had ‘‘a crush’’ on Redford during The Way We Were, and Fonda told interviewers she had been ‘‘in love’’ with Redford during multiple collaborations. Accounts published in recent biographies include anecdotal details—reported claims that Redford took measures to avoid encouraging off-screen advances during the filming of The Way We Were—while both Streisand and Redford emphasized long-term friendship and professional respect.
Redford’s marriage to Szaggars, an environmental artist, began after they met at Redford’s Sundance Mountain Resort in the 1990s. The couple kept a private life together while collaborating on environmental and arts projects; in 2015 Szaggars founded The Way of the Rain, a performance and educational initiative focused on environmental awareness, with Redford listed as vice president. The pair and their work received awards and recognition in arts and conservation circles.
Beyond his on-screen roles and festival work, Redford pursued documentary and cultural projects and championed environmental causes. He directed a segment for the documentary Cathedrals of Culture and lent his name and energy to various conservation efforts over the decades, helping to extend his influence beyond Hollywood.
Tributes from colleagues, festival alumni and public figures reflected the breadth of Redford’s impact on film and culture. Film historians point to his role in popularizing the leading-man image of the 1960s and 1970s, while festival organizers and independent filmmakers credited Sundance with providing a crucial stage for new voices. Redford’s combination of star power, behind-the-camera accomplishments and institutional legacy made him a formative figure in late 20th- and early 21st-century American cinema.
As news of his death circulated, obituaries and remembrances emphasized both Redford’s cinematic achievements and the personal losses that marked his life. He leaves a filmography that includes some of Hollywood’s best-known titles, the institution of the Sundance festival and a record of activism and mentorship that industry figures said would continue to influence filmmakers and audiences.
Redford’s family and representatives did not immediately release detailed funeral or memorial plans. Colleagues and cultural institutions that worked with him said they expected tributes in the coming days and weeks to mark a career that was both publicly celebrated and privately complicated.