The award-winning American actor and director Robert Redford died Tuesday at the age of 89 at his home in the state of Utah.
Redford died early this morning in his sleep at his home outside his mountain residence in Provo, his representative, Rogers & Cowan PMK public relations firm CEO Cindi Berger, said in a statement.
Robert Redford dies in his sleep
“Robert Redford passed away on September 16, 2025 at his home in Sundance, in the mountains of Utah, the place he loved, surrounded by his loved ones,” Berger said.
“He will be greatly missed. The family requests privacy,” he added.
The performer, born in 1936 in Santa Monica, California, is one of the most recognized stars of American cinema and had a gigantic impact on Hollywood as an actor, director and promoter of the independent film scene with the creation of the Sundance Film Festival.
He won an Oscar in 1980 for his role as director in the film ‘Ordinary People’, which garnered six nominations, and was nominated for the statuette on several occasions.
In addition, he starred in such blockbusters as ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ (1969), ‘The Sting’ (1973), ‘The Great Gatsby’ (1974), ‘All the President’s Men’ (1976), which deals with the Watergate affair, ‘Barefoot in the Park’ (1967), alongside Jane Fonda, and ‘Out of Africa’ (1985), alongside Meryl Streep.
He will always be remembered as a strong advocate for the environment.
He even addressed a UN panel on climate change where he introduced himself as “an actor by profession, but an activist by nature”.
Despite belonging to a level of established filmmakers, Redford always defended independent cinema.
He was the founder of the prestigious Sundance Film Festival, which is held at the end of January in the state of Utah.
In 2018 he announced his retirement: “I’ve been doing it since I was 21… enough is enough,” he said then.
Not even a single Oscar as an actor in a brilliant career.
Robert Redfort won two Academy Awards: one for best director and one honorary, but none as an actor despite his brilliant career.
He was one of the most popular faces in cinema, with more than 80 films in his career.
Redford was born in Santa Monica, California, on August 18, 1936, and died Tuesday at his home in Utah at the age of 89.
He had been officially retired since 2018, although he did make a surprise appearance in the movie: ‘Avengers: Endgame’ and in March 2025 he surprised with a small uncredited appearance in the series ‘Dark Winds, of which he was a producer.
First steps as an actor
The son of an accountant at a major oil company, Redford was a college baseball star in his youth, which earned him a scholarship to the University of Colorado.
However, he soon gave up the sport and took a job in the California oil fields to pay for a trip to Europe.
Back in the United States he enrolled in the American Academy of Dramatic Art and in 1962 he got his first role in the film ‘War Hunt’ by Denis Sanders, followed by ‘The Chase’, where he shared the cast with Marlon Brando in 1966 and ‘Barefoot in the Park’ with Jane Fonda, in 1967.
Consolidation and stardom
But it was under the orders of director Sidney Pollack, with whom he would manage to form a successful film tandem embodied in titles such as ‘This Property Is Condemned’ (1966), ‘Jeremiah Johnson’ (1972), ‘The way we were’ (1973), ‘Three Days of the Condor’ (1975), ‘The Electric Horseman’ (1979), ‘Out of Africa’, with Meryl Streep (1985), and ‘Havana’ (1990).
His prestige as an actor had already been forged years before for the history of cinema, alongside another of the great interpreters, Paul Newman, in two titles: ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ (1969), with which he won his first BAFTA for best actor, and ‘The Sting’ (1973), for which he received his first Oscar nomination.
That year 1973 she starred with Barbra Streisand in one of the most popular love stories of cinema in ‘The way we were’, a genre in which she repeated, with less success, with Demi Moore in ‘Indecent Proposal’ (1994).
As a director, he debuted in 1980 with ‘Ordinary people’, which won four Oscars, including best director, and also won the Golden Globe for best film in 1981.
Buzzy
Among his next titles as director are ‘The Milagro Beanfield War’ (1988), ‘A River Runs Through It’ (1992) or ‘Quiz Show’ (1994), a story about the biggest television scandal in U.S. history, which was nominated for four Oscars.
In 1998 he directed and starred in ‘The Horse Whisperer’ and a year later was awarded the National Medal of Arts for his efforts on behalf of independent film.
In 2003 he produced ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’, directed by Brazilian Walter Salles, about the youthful travels of guerrilla fighter Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, which, among other awards, won the Goya for Best Adapted Screenplay and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
In addition, Redford was a founding member in 1981 of the Sundance Film Institute based in Utah, where he lived, dedicated to promoting new talent and independent productions, as well as organizing the Independent Film Festival.
A promoter of independent productions and a personality far removed from Hollywood’s social life, he holds an honorary Oscar (2002) for his long film career.
In August 2018, he announced that he was retiring from film.
Shortly before, in September 2017, he had received the Golden Lion at the Venice Mostra for his film career.
His latest international recognition was the César d’honneur from the French Film Academy in 2019.
Political and social commitment
Redford, who published several books, including one on the American West – ‘The Outlaw’ – was honorary president of the Institute for the Invention of New Energy Sources, of which he was a founder, and held the French Legion of Honor for his long career in environmental protection.
A Democratic Party activist, he publicly supported Gary Hart during his 1988 presidential campaign, and called former President George Bush Sr. “a malevolent, short-sighted, tyrannical leader”.
Committed to humanitarian causes, in 2010 he participated in international campaigns for the release of Iranian Sakineh Mohammad Ashtiani, sentenced to stoning for adultery, and filmmaker Jafar Panahi.
He was married between 1958 and 1985 to Lola Wegenen, with whom he had four children.
He later maintained other relationships, with actresses Debra Winger and Sonia Braga, and later with fashion designer Kathy O’Rhear.
Until the late 1990s, when he formed a couple with German painter Sibylle Szaggars, whom he married in 2009.
Impulsor de producciones independientes y personalidad alejada de la vida social de Hollywood, ganó el Oscar honorífico en 2002 por su larga trayectoria cinematográfica
Agencia EFE
With information from EFE
