US actor and director Robert Redford arrives on May 22, 2013, for the screening of the film “All is Lost” presented out of competition at the 66th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes/AP. US screen legend Robert Redford passed away early on September 16, 2025, at his Utah home, The New York Times reported. He was 89.
Robert Redford, the iconic screen star in front of and behind the camera, whose illustrious career has spanned more than 60 years, died early Monday morning at his home in Utah, his publicist said. He was 89.
Redford died in his sleep, and a cause was not provided, said Cindi Berger, chief executive of publicity firm Rogers & Cowan PMK.
“Robert Redford lives an extraordinary life,” Berger said, “and on 16 September 2025, he died at his home in Sundance in the mountains of Utah — a place he surrounded by those who simply knew him as Dad or Bob.”
The tousle-haired and freckled matinee idol broke through with Paul Newman as the comically convivial young outlaw in the hippy Western “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969).
US actor and director Robert Redford poses during a photocall for the film “All Is Lost” presented out of competition at the 66th Cannes Film Festival on May 22, 2013.
After two decades as an actor, he transitioned behind the camera, becoming an Oscar-winning director and a co-founder of the prestigious Sundance Film Festival, which supports aspiring independent filmmakers.
An ardent environmentalist, Redford was also an advocate for protecting the natural Utah wilderness he called home.
Charles Robert Redford Jr was born on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California, the son of an accountant.
Redford had four children with his first wife, Lola Van Wagenen; one died in infancy.
In 2009, he married German artist and longtime girlfriend Sibylle Szaggars.
US actor Robert Redford (R) and his wife Sibylle Szaggars arrive on the red carpet before the screening of “The Company You Keep” during the 69th Venice Film Festival on September 6, 2012, at Venice Lido.
Household name
A familiar US household name and international star of English-language motion pictures, Redford won an Academy Award for directing his 1980 film “Ordinary People” — as well as an honorary Oscar in 2002.
The intellectual, the artist, and the cowboy are consistently represented in all of Robert Redford’s work as both an actor and a director. As a producer, US actress Barbra Streisand said when presenting him with an honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement in 2002.
American actor Robert Redford (L) clutches his honorary Oscars with US actress and singer Barbra Streisand (R), 24 March 2002 at the 74th Academy Awards in Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre. AFP
Redford claimed his only Oscar nomination for Best Actor for his turn as a 1930s con man in “The Sting” (1973).
Among the highlights of the avowed liberal and conservationist’s career was founding the independent Sundance Film Festival in 1985.
Designed to bolster filmmakers who felt alienated by Hollywood’s creative restrictions and lack of diversity, it has helped nurture the careers of well-known independent directors, including Jim Jarmusch, Quentin Tarantino, and Steven Soderbergh.