Robert Redford dies, aged 89

Cinema legend Robert Redford, a screen great both in front of and behind the camera whose career spanned six decades, died early on Tuesday morning at his home in Utah, his publicist said. He was 89.

Redford died in his sleep, and a specific cause was not given, according to a statement by Cindi Berger, the chief executive of publicity firm Rogers & Cowan PMK.

“Robert Redford passed away on September 16, 2025, at his home at Sundance in the mountains of Utah — the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved,” Berger said.

The tousled-haired and freckled heartthrob made his breakthrough alongside Paul Newman as the affable outlaw in the hippy Western “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” in 1969.

After 20 years as an actor, he moved behind the camera, becoming an Oscar-winning director and co-founding the flagship Sundance festival for aspiring independent filmmakers.

A committed environmental activist, Redford also fought to preserve the natural landscape and resources of Utah, where he lived.

Born Charles Robert Redford Jr. on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California, he was the son of an accountant.

Redford had four children with his first wife, Lola Van Wagenen, one of whom died as an infant.

He married German artist and longtime girlfriend Sibylle Szaggars in 2009.

Household name

A household name in English-language cinema in the United States and around the world, Redford won a directing Oscar for his 1980 film “Ordinary People”, as well as an honorary award in 2002.

“Robert Redford’s work as an actor, director and producer always represents the man himself: the intellectual, the artist, the cowboy,” US actress Barbra Streisand said in 2002 when presenting him with the Lifetime Achievement honorary Oscar.

Redford won his only nomination for the best actor Oscar when playing a 1930s con artist in “The Sting” (1973).

One of the greatest achievements of the avowed liberal and conservationist was the launch in 1985 of the independent Sundance Film Festival.

Created to boost filmmakers disaffected with Hollywood’s commercialism and lack of diversity, it has fostered leading independent directors such as Jim Jarmusch, Quentin Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh.

AFP