Robert Redford, Hollywood Icon & Sundance Founder, Dies at Age 89
Robert Redford, the silver screen heartthrob, Sundance Film Festival founder, Oscar-winning director, and environmental conservationist, has passed away at the age of 89. In a statement, his publicity firm wrote that he died in his sleep at his home in Utah, in “the place he loved surrounded by those he loved.”
Redford wins Oscar for Best Achievement for Directing in the movie, ‘Ordinary People’.
Redford was born in 1936 in Santa Monica, California, and with his tousled, reddish-blonde hair and charming good looks, came to exemplify the rugged California cool masculinity of the New Hollywood era. Alongside fellow leading man Paul Newman, his roles in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), about a pair of rollicking outlaws in the declining Old West, and The Sting (1973), about two clever Depression-era schemers in Chicago, made Redford an icon. (The Sting garnered Redford his only Oscar nomination as an actor.)
Redford during the filming of George Roy Hill's 'The Sting', circa 1973
Redford’s role as the mustachioed “Sundance Kid” inspired the name he later gave to his institute and the famous film festival he founded in the early 1980s. The Park City-based program became an incubator for independent cinema and a showcase for films made by emerging filmmakers and those working outside of the bounds (and budgets) of the traditional studio system. Nurturing several generations of talent, Sundance created an exciting new marketplace for boundary-pushing films.
Redford (left) as The Sundance Kid and Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy in a publicity still for the western film 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid', 1969
Around the same time, in his 40s, Redford began directing films, including 1980's family drama Ordinary People, for which he won the Academy Award. He also continued to act alongside some of the 20th century's biggest stars, playing the love interests of Barbra Streisand (The Way We Were), Meryl Streep (Out of Africa), and Jane Fonda (Barefoot in the Park).
Redford and Jane Fonda as Paul and Corie Bratter, in 'Barefoot In The Park', directed by Gene Saks, 1967
Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford in 'The Way We Were', 1972.
Outside of his Hollywood career, Redford was known for his dedication to preserving the natural world. He was a trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council, and personally took up the mantle against environmentally destructive projects in his home of Utah. He is survived by his wife of 16 years, the German artist Sibylle Szaggars, daughters Shauna and Amy, and seven grandchildren.
