Robert Redford Rides Off Into The Sunset
Tributes are flowing following the news that iconic Hollywood actor, director and founder of the Sundance Film Festival Robert Redford has died, aged 89.
Management agency Rogers & Cowan PMK confirmed Robert Redford had passed away in his sleep overnight in Provo, Utah, south of Salt Lake City.
Redford’s publicist Cindi Berger said he had died in his home “at Sundance in the mountains of Utah – the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved.”
Meryl Streep and Barbara Streisand are among Redford’s co-stars and friends expressing their condolences:
“One of the lions has passed. Rest in peace my lovely friend,” Streep said in a statement shared with AFP.
“Bob was charismatic, intelligent, intense, always interesting – and one of the finest actors ever,” Barbara Streisand said.
“He meant a lot to me and was a beautiful person in every way. He stood for an America that we have to keep fighting for,” Jane Fonda said.
“Robert Redford has passed away. He was part of a new and exciting Hollywood in the 70s and 80s. Hard to believe he was 89,” author Stephen King posted on X.
Fellow actor-director Ron Howard described Redford as a “tremendously influential cultural figure for the creative choices made as an actor/producer/director” and called him an “artistic gamechanger” for his role in establishing the Sundance Film Festival.
Even US President Donald Trump, of whom Redford was a vocal opponent, paid tribute upon hearing the news:
“Wow, that’s a good way to go, I guess. But I’ll tell you, Robert Redford was great. He had a series of years where there was nobody better,” he told reporters before boarding Air Force One for his state visit to the UK.
A true Hollywood legend and giant of American cinema, Robert Redford forged a formidable career as a rugged leading man during the ‘60s and ’70s in films such as ‘Barefoot in the Park’, ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’, ‘All the President’s Men’ and ‘The Sting’.
He held a prolific career as an actor, starring in more than 50 films before his retirement and was known as a highly respected professional. Redford’s final film appearance was portraying Alexander Pierce in ‘Avengers: Endgame’ in 2019.
In 1980, Robert Redford made his directorial debut with ‘Ordinary People’, which won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. He directed a further eight films – ‘Lions for Lambs’, ‘Quiz Show’, ‘A River Runs Through It’, ‘The Horse Whisperer’, ‘The Legend of Bagger Vance’, ‘Slums of Beverly Hills’, ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’, and ‘The Conspirator’ – all produced through Wildwood Enterprises, which Redford co-owned with producer Bill Holderman.
Perhaps Robert Redford’s greatest impact on American cinema can be seen in the success of the Sundance Film Festival, which he founded in 1978 as the Utah/US Film Festival. The event was renamed as Sundance Film Festival in 1991, after Redford’s Sundance property in the nearby Wasatch Mountains. Through the festival and associated organisations, such as the Sundance Institute, Redford was instrumental in promoting independent filmmaking and filmmakers.
Outside of his film pursuits, Redford was an outspoken and ardent political activist for a variety of causes, including environmentalism, Native American rights and LGBT rights as well as being a critic of Donald Trump’s presidency.
“Our shared tolerance and respect for the truth, our sacred rule of law, our essential freedom of the press and our precious freedoms of speech – all have been threatened by a single man,” he wrote in a column for NBC in 2019.
Three years earlier, in 2016, he had been awarded the country’s highest honour, the Presidential Medal of Freedom by then-President Barack Obama.
Robert Redford is survived by his second wife Sibylle Szaggars Redford, the pair marrying in 2009, and his three children Shauna, James and Amy from his first marriage to Lola Van Wagenen.
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