Robert Redford

Robert Redford (born August 18, 1936, Santa Monica, California, U.S.—died September 16, 2025, Sundance, Utah county, Utah) was an American motion-picture actor and director known for his boyish good looks and diversity of screen characterizations. He gained wide fame with his performance opposite Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and thereafter became a highly sought-after leading man, starring in such notable hits as The Way We Were (1973), The Sting (1973), All the President’s Men (1976), and Out of Africa (1985). Redford was also known for his lifelong commitment to environmental and liberal political causes and for founding the Sundance Institute and promoting the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, which he used to advocate for independent filmmaking and mentor young directors.

Early life and career

Redford’s father was a milkman who later became an accountant, and his mother was a homemaker who died when he was in his teens. Growing up in and around Los Angeles, he had early contact with show business, attending schools with the children of actors and producers such as Dore Schary. Redford briefly attended the University of Colorado on a baseball scholarship but dropped out and spent several years drifting and studying art in Europe and the United States. Redford enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City and soon after made his Broadway debut in the play Tall Story (1959). Landing roles in several television dramas of the early 1960s, such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone, and Route 66, he scored the biggest triumph of his early career with the lead role in Neil Simon’s Broadway hit Barefoot in the Park (1963).

Stardom: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Way We Were

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Redford appeared in mostly forgettable films throughout the mid-1960s, the cult favorite The Chase (1966) and the screen adaptation of Barefoot in the Park (1967) being notable exceptions. The turning point in his career came when he starred with Paul Newman in the enormously popular comic western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), in which he portrayed the outlaw Sundance Kid. The film was the top-grossing picture of the year, and Redford was soon one of Hollywood’s most popular and bankable stars.

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He next appeared in such successful films as Downhill Racer (1969; written by James Salter) and The Candidate (1972). He starred with Barbra Streisand in The Way We Were and reteamed with Newman in The Sting—the two most successful films of 1973—and was ranked as the top American box-office attraction. The Sting won that year’s Academy Award for best picture and earned Redford his only Oscar nomination for acting.

Other Redford films of the 1970s include Jeremiah Johnson (1972), The Great Gatsby (1974), The Great Waldo Pepper (1975), and Three Days of the Condor (1975), but they were overshadowed by All the President’s Men (1976). An account of the downfall of the administration of U.S. Pres. Richard Nixon, the film starred Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, respectively. It garnered Oscar nominations in eight categories and firmly established Redford’s star status.

Redford thereafter became much more selective about his roles and typically went several years between screen appearances. He starred in The Natural (1984), an adaptation of the Bernard Malamud novel about mythical baseball hero Roy Hobbs, which earned four Oscar nominations. Out of Africa (1985), in which he appeared opposite Meryl Streep, won 7 of the 11 Oscars for which it was nominated.

Later films

Although Redford had become established as a Hollywood icon, he was generally unable to repeat his early level of success in his later films. Sneakers (1992), The Horse Whisperer (1998), Spy Game (2001), and The Clearing (2004) earned mixed reviews. Better received was All Is Lost (2013), in which he played a sailor whose yacht is struck by a shipping container; the tense survival drama featured little dialogue, and Redford was the only actor.

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He then made an uncharacteristic appearance in a big-budget studio release, as the undercover agent Alexander Pierce in the Marvel comic book action film Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014). He and Nick Nolte headlined the buddy comedy A Walk in the Woods (2015), which was based on the memoir (1998) by writer Bill Bryson. Redford portrayed CBS reporter Dan Rather in the newsroom drama Truth (2015), which concerns the backlash from a story about U.S. Pres. George W. Bush’s military service. Redford then starred in a remake of Pete’s Dragon, a family film from Disney.

In 2017 he played a widower befriended by his longtime neighbor (played by Jane Fonda) in the Netflix movie Our Souls at Night. The next year Redford portrayed a bank robber with charming manners in The Old Man & the Gun. He reprised the role of Pierce in Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame (2019). His final screen role was a 2025 cameo in Dark Winds (2022– ), a detective series set in the Navajo Nation and based on the work of novelist Tony Hillerman; Redford coproduced the show.

Directing: Ordinary People and A River Runs Through It

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Redford launched his directing career with Ordinary People (1980), a family drama adapted from a novel by Judith Guest. The film won best picture at the Academy Awards, and Redford won an Oscar for best director. Of Redford’s first seven directorial efforts, The Milagro Beanfield War (1988), The Horse Whisperer, The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000), and Lions for Lambs (2007) garnered lukewarm reviews, but Ordinary People, A River Runs Through It (1992), and Quiz Show (1994) are regarded as minor masterpieces. The latter film, which dramatized a 1950s quiz-show scandal, earned four Oscar nominations, including best picture and best director.

Redford subsequently directed The Conspirator (2010), about the trial of Mary Surratt, who was accused of having collaborated in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and The Company You Keep (2012), in which he starred as a family man running from his radical activist past. He also directed a segment about the Salk Institute for Biological Studies building in La Jolla, California, designed by Louis Kahn, for the architectural documentary anthology film Cathedrals of Culture (2014). Redford’s directing style is characterized by long, meditative takes and by an emotional detachment from subject matter that serves to heighten the irony of the narrative.

Sundance Institute and Sundance Film Festival

In the late 1960s Redford purchased several thousand acres of mountain wilderness in Provo Canyon, about 15 miles (24 km) northeast of Provo, Utah. He named it Sundance, after his breakout role, and opened a ski resort. In 1980 Redford established the Sundance Institute at the site as a vehicle to support independent filmmakers whose work did not fit into the constraints of Hollywood studios. The institute became known for hosting “labs” each year, in which established filmmakers provided workshops and guidance to young directors and screenwriters starting their careers; notable past participants include Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, and Chloé Zhao.

Since 1985 the institute has also sponsored the annual Sundance Film Festival in nearby Park City, Utah. By the 1990s the festival had become one of the leading international film festivals, and it continues to be regarded as a vital showcase for new talent. Numerous directors premiered their debut films at the festival, including the Coen brothers (Blood Simple [1985]), Steven Soderbergh (sex, lies, and videotape [1989]), Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs [1992]), and Zhao (Songs My Brothers Taught Me [2015]).

Activism and honors

In addition to his film career, Redford was known as an outspoken activist, especially for environmental protection and Indigenous and LGBTQ rights. Some of his political activities included fighting against the building of a coal power plant in what later became Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument, in southern Utah; serving as a trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council; and supporting same-sex marriage campaigns in the 2010s.

For his work with Sundance and other contributions to film, Redford was presented with an honorary Academy Award in 2002. His numerous other awards include the National Medal of the Arts (1996), Kennedy Center Honors (2005), the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize (2008), and the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom (2016).

Personal life

Redford married Lola Van Wagenen in 1958. They had four children and divorced in 1985. He married Sibylle Szaggars in 2009.