Hollywood Icon Robert Redford Dead At 89

Legendary actor Robert Redford died early Tuesday morning. He was 89.

The star of classic films such as “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969) and “Out of Africa” (1985) passed away in his Utah home, according to an obituary published in The New York Times. At the time of publication, a cause of death had not been given, but Rogers & Cowan PMK chief executive Cindi Berger told the outlet that the actor died in his sleep.

Redford had a long and successful acting career. Rising to fame in the 1960s and 70s, he became the quintessential American leading man, with good looks, charisma, and an overall perception of effortless cool. 

“I was being put up for Butch Cassidy because I’d done the comedy. But that part didn’t interest me,” Redford told Collider in 2019 of one of his most famous roles opposite Paul Newman. 

“What interested me was the Sundance Kid because I could relate to that based on my own experience and particularly my own childhood and feeling like an outlaw most of my life. So I told [director] George [Roy Hill], and he knew Paul really well and knew he was much more like Butch Cassidy, so George turned it all around. He went to Paul and they argued a bit until Paul finally realized that George was right. He was well known and I wasn’t, which is why they switched the title, too.”

Redford used his fame to advance the idea of independent film, founding the Sundance Institute in 1981 and later the Sundance Film Festival, which are still Hollywood institutions to this day.

Some of his most famous films include “The Way We Were” (1973), The Sting (1973), “The Great Gatsby” (1974), “All the President’s Men” (1976), “The Natural” (1984), “Indecent Proposal” (1993), “The Horse Whisperer” (1998) and “All Is Lost” (2013). 

The California-born star also earned an Academy Award for Best Director with “Ordinary People” in 1980. He also directed “A River Runs Through It” (1992), “Quiz Show” (1994), “The Legend of Bagger Vance” (2000), and several others.

The actor was known for keeping his personal life private. He was married twice and had four children. His son James died in 2020 from cancer at the age of 58, and another son, Scott, died shortly after birth from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

Like many other Hollywood celebrities, Redford also championed liberal causes and was a staunch environmentalist and supporter of LGBT rights. He wrote an op-ed in 2019 lamenting President Trump’s “dictator-like attack” and likened his first term to a “monarchy in disguise.”