Robert Redford, the iconic actor and director whose career spanned decades, has sadly died at the age of 89.
According to The New York Times, the late star passed away on Tuesday (September 15) morning at his home in the mountains outside Provo, Utah.
The news was confirmed by Cindi Berger, the chief executive of the publicity firm Rogers & Cowan PMK, who stated that the actor passed away peacefully in his sleep.
The cause of death has not been disclosed.
Robert Redford has passed away. Credit: Stephane Cardinale – Corbis / Getty
Redford’s career was marked by a string of groundbreaking performances.
His role as the charming outlaw in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) remains one of his most beloved, while his portrayal of a journalist in All the President’s Men (1976) captured the hearts of audiences during the Watergate scandal era.
In Three Days of the Condor (1975), Redford played an introverted CIA codebreaker embroiled in a deadly cat-and-mouse chase, further cementing his range as an actor.
In addition to his acting legacy, Redford also received his first and only Oscar nomination for his role in The Sting (1973), where he played a Depression-era con artist.
In 2018, the late star announced that The Old Man and The Gun, in which he stars alongside Casey Affleck, Danny Glover, Tom Waits, and Sissy Spacek, would be his final film.
At the time, he said to Entertainment Weekly, cited by BBC: “Never say never, but I pretty well concluded that this would be it for me in terms of acting. I’ll move towards retirement after this ‘cause I’ve been doing it since I was 21. I thought, well, that’s enough. And why not go out with something that’s very upbeat and positive?”
Beyond his success on screen, Redford was a visionary in the film industry. With his Hollywood earnings, he purchased land in a ski area in Utah, renaming it Sundance after his film character.
There, he founded the Sundance Film Festival, which celebrates independent films, and established the Sundance Institute, Sundance Cinemas, the Sundance Catalog, and the Sundance Channel. These ventures helped redefine the landscape of independent cinema.
Redford was also an environmental activist, using his status to raise awareness about clean energy. He was a longstanding member of the board of the Natural Resources Defense Council and funded a wildlife preserve in Utah to protect the land he cherished.
The Hollywood icon is survived by his partner Sibylle Szaggars, his three children, and seven grandchildren.
Our thoughts are with his loved ones at this time.
