Robert Redford, film icon and Sundance founder, dies aged 89

Robert Redford, acclaimed actor in films including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All The President’s Men, and founder of Sundance Film Festival, has died aged 89.

Redford died at his home in Utah on the morning of Tuesday, September 16, according to his Cindi Berger, chairperson and CEO at publicity firm Rogers & Cowan PMK.

The actor died “in the mountains of Utah – the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved. He will be missed greatly. The family requests privacy,” said Berger in a statement.

Redford won the Oscar for best director for his feature directorial debut Ordinary People in 1981. He was nominated for three other Oscars – best actor for The Sting in 1974, and best picture and director for Quiz Show in 1995 – and received an honorary award from the Academy at the 2003 ceremony.

The actor also received the Bafta for best actor in a leading role in 1971, for his work in Butch Cassidy, Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here and Downhill Racer. 

Born in Santa Monica, California in 1936, Redford’s acting career began on the Broadway stage in 1959 with Tall Story, in a small role he reprised for his screen debut in Joshua Logan’s 1960 film of the same name.

He won a Golden Globe for best new star in 1966 for his role in Robert Mulligan’s Inside Daisy Clover opposite Natalie Wood, while other early career roles included in Arthur Penn’s The Chase, alongside Jane Fonda and Marlon Brando.

His major career breakthrough came in George Roy Hill’s Wild West outlaw drama Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, in which Redford played titular Kid alongside Paul Newman’s Cassidy.

He reunited with Newman for crime drama The Sting – the highest-grossing film in the US in 1973 – and starred as reclusive millionaire Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby the following year.

Redford took on a real life story in Alan J. Pakula’s All The President’s Men, in which he played Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, investigator of the Watergate scandal alongside Dustin Hoffman’s Carl Bernstein.

He also received wide acclaim for his move into directing with Ordinary People. Redford directed nine features in a period over 30 years, including Nicholas Evans’ adaptation The Horse Whisperer in 1998, in which Redford also starred alongside Kristin Scott Thomas.

Sundance

Redford acted less frequently from the 1980s onwards, although still attained credits including 1985’s Out of Africa alongside Meryl Streep; and J.C. Chandor’s survival drama All Is Lost.

In the 1970s Redford used money earned from his acting success to purchase a ski resort near Provo, Utah.

He then assembled the Sundance Institute, a non-profit organisation to discover and support independent filmmakers, which ran its first Filmmakers Lab in June 1981. The Institute quickly became a leading support resource for US independent filmmakers, soon branching out to take international applicants.

Filmmakers who have come through its many lab programmes include Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Ryan Coogler, Chloe Zhao and Lulu Wang.

The Institute assumed management of the United States Film Festival in 1984, officially rebranding it as Sundance Film Festival in 1991. The event has grown to become the leading film festival in the US, launching titles including sex, lies and videotape, The Usual Suspects, 500 Days of Summer, Little Miss Sunshine, Whiplash and Get Out. 

The festival will move to Colorado for its 2027 edition, after a final event in Utah in January 2026.

Redford’s final on-screen role came in 2019’s Marvel title Avengers: Endgame.

He is survived by two of his four children – Shauna Jean and Amy Hart – from his first marriage, to Lola Van Wagenen; and by his wife Sibylle Szaggars.