Robert Redford, Western Icon and Activist, Dead at 89

Robert Redford, one of the most iconic and beautiful leading men in history, turned Oscar-winning director whose career helped America make sense of itself across decades, died early Tuesday morning at his home in Utah. He was 89. His death was confirmed in a statement by Cindi Berger, chief executive of Rogers & Cowan PMK, who said he died peacefully in his sleep. No cause of death was given.

Redford was the man Hollywood went to in the 1970s and 1980s, a rare leading man with those leading man looks who could play dashing antiheroes, thoughtful loners, and sly con artists with equal ease. His breakout came with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), where his Sundance Kid opposite Paul Newman cemented him as a cinematic icon. Newman and Redford would be reunited four years later in The Sting, a movie that astonishingly nabbed him his only Oscar nomination for acting.

Through the 1970s, he starred in some of the defining works of his era, from the paranoia-laced thriller Three Days of the Condor (1975) to the journalistic procedural All the President’s Men (1976), where he played the legendary Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward during the Watergate scandal. But Redford could display a softer side, too, with romantic classics like The Way We Were (1973), opposite Barbra Streisand, and sweeping epics like Out of Africa (1985), alongside Meryl Streep.

And late in his career, Redford could still wow audiences. In All Is Lost (2013), he delivered a nearly wordless performance as a sailor struggling to survive at sea, a film that staggeringly didn’t net him a well deserved Academy Award — or even a nod. But the star power was still there, proven as he stepped into blockbuster territory with a memorable role as Alexander Pierce in Marvel’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), later reprising the part briefly in Avengers: Endgame (2019).

What Films Did Robert Redford Direct?

Redford enjoyed a remarkable second act as a director, too. His debut, Ordinary People (1980), won four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for him, marking one of the strongest directorial debuts in Hollywood history. He went on to helm acclaimed works like A River Runs Through It (1992) and Quiz Show (1994). And off screen, as a man who hated the Hollywood commercial machine, he founded the Sundance Institute and Sundance Film Festival, creating a launchpad for independent filmmakers. Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, Damien Chazelle, and countless others found their voices thanks to the platform he built.

It’s not an overstatement to say Robert Redford is one of the most legendary and iconic individuals in the history of Hollywood, and his death leaves a huge hole in the world we know today. Our thoughts are with his loved ones.