Hollywood legend Robert Redford dead at 89
Hollywood icon Robert Redford has died aged 89, it has been confirmed.
Redford’s death was announced by Cindi Berger, the chief executive of the publicity firm Rogers and Cowan PMK, who told the New York Times.
The actor, who co-founded Sundance Film Festival, died in his sleep at his home in the mountains of Utah during the early hours of September 16th. No cause of death has been provided.
Berger said that Redford died in “the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved” and stated that he “will be missed greatly”.
Redford was a star of the screen for more than six decades, but acting wasn’t always his goal. Reflecting on his childhood to Esquire in 2017, Redford said of his initial ambitions: “It started with getting out of LA. It started to go off at one point, but then I got it back. I grew up in a situation where you were either gonna drown in it or you were gonna swim out of it.”
He also said of his childhood in California: “It was a very lower-working-class environment. We weren’t impoverished, but we were on the lower end of things. I decided, “I’m gonna bust out of this and go as far as I can.”
Redford’s first stop outside of California was the University of Colorado in Boulder after finishing high school. Yet, he was kicked out before he could graduate. However, this unfortunate incident took him to New York City, following an excursion to Europe, which allowed him to develop a love of acting.
While his career was beginning to take off on Broadway, tragedy struck in his personal life when he lost his infant son, Scott, in 1959. He shared to Esquire of the heartbreaking grief, “I was only 21; my wife was 20. We were just starting our lives; I was just starting my career in New York. Of course it was traumatic, and how that plays out over time, I don’t know.”
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Towards the end of the 1960s, Redford confirmed his status as a Hollywood star with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which proved to be a career-defining role. It also led to his first major honour, a Bafta for ‘Best Actor in a Leading Role’ in 1970. Notably, it was also the start of his iconic on-screen relationship with Paul Newman, who played Butch Cassidy.
Redford’s first Academy Award nomination came in 1973 for his performance in The Sting, also alongside Newman, yet remarkably, he never won an Oscar for his acting. It wasn’t until he moved into directing in his 40s that Redford was rightfully celebrated with an award by the Academy, who honoured him with the gong for ‘Best Director’ in 1980 for Ordinary People.
The Oscars later commemorated his career in 2002 by bestowing an ‘Honorary Award’ upon him, an honour reserved for the Hollywood elite.
Another acting performance that Redford delivered, which will be remembered for eternity, is All the President’s Men in 1976, about the Watergate scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon’s reign in the White House.
He said of the film in 2013 to AARP: “The big moment for me was making All the President’s Men. It was not about Watergate or President Nixon. I wanted to focus on something I thought not many people knew about: How do journalists get the story?”
During this decade, any movie starring Redford was as close to a guaranteed box-office hit as possible, and he used his star power to explore his other cinematic passion – directing. As previously mentioned, he won an Oscar for his directorial debut, Ordinary People, but it was another eight years before he returned to the director’s chair for The Milagro Beanfield War.
Even during the latter stages of his career, while he was beginning to wind down, Redford kept on challenging himself. In 2013, when in his late 70s, he starred in All At Sea, which featured him as the only cast member telling the story of a man lost at sea. He was nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance.
His last proper role came in 2018 in The Old Man & the Gun, which again landed him a Golden Globe nomination. While a brief cameo in Avengers: Endgame followed in 2019, Redford stayed true to a pledge he made in 2018 to retire from acting, stating, “I’ve been doing it since I was 21. I thought, ‘Well, that’s enough.”
In addition to his work as a blockbuster star, Redford will also be remembered for the permanent mark that he’s left behind on independent cinema. He used his A-list status to shed light on lesser-known figures in the cinematic industry by founding the Sundance Film Festival in 1981. He said of his mission at the time, “Storytellers broaden our minds: engage, provoke, inspire, and ultimately, connect us.”
Sundance proved to be a launching pad to success for directors such as Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Chloe Zhao, Steven Soderbergh, and Ryan Coogler, which was all made possible due to Redford’s vision.
Redford is survived by his wife, Sibylle Szaggars, and his two surviving children, Shauna and Amy, from his previous marriage to Lola Van Wagenen.
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