RIP Robert Redford: Iconic Leading Man Dies at 89

Robert Redford, one of the quintessential American actors of the 1960s-1980s, who for many defined the very outline of a Hollywood leading man, has reportedly passed away at the age of 89, dying early Tuesday morning at his home in Utah according to The New York Times. The actor’s death was announced in a statement from his publicity firm, saying that he had died in his sleep while not providing any additional details or cause. It says simply that Redford spent his last days in “the place he loved surrounded by those he loved.”

Robert Redford was known for his iconoclastic stances on topics that stirred his empathy and activism, being a renowned environmentalist and cinematic aesthete, and champion of independent cinema. Breaking through in Hollywood in 1967’s Barefoot in the Park and especially 1969’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid–the first of his collaborations with fellow legend Paul Newman–Redford displayed judiciousness and consideration when it came to choosing roles, preferring to eschew traditional popcorn entertainment in favor of weightier and more complex films and characters. This led to an incredible string of success in the 1970s in particular, in films that included Three Days of the Condor, The Way We Were, All the President’s Men and The Sting, which earned him his only Academy Award nomination as an on-screen performer. In the 1980s, he continued to appear as a leading sex symbol and leading man in films such as Out of Africa and The Natural, but he was simultaneously preparing to make a sideways transition into film direction, a field where he would arguably have even more success.

Redford’s Hollywood feature film directorial debut was 1980 drama Ordinary People, which immediately netted three Oscars, including both Best Picture and Best Director for Redford. His subsequent directorial efforts included the likes of 1992’s A River Runs Through It, starring a young Brad Pitt, and 1995’s Quiz Show, which netted him another Best Director nomination. Even as he continued to direct and produce various political thrillers and dramas throughout the 2000s and 2010s, Redford never lost his love for performance, starring in films such as All Is Lost, Truth and The Old Man & The Gun in the 2010s, in addition to a high-profile appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the antagonistic Alexander Pierce in 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, fittingly the MCU film that came closest to capturing the tenor of Redford’s own filmography. His final on-screen appearance was actually a cameo as Pierce in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame.

Beyond his contributions in front of and behind the camera, Robert Redford was also deeply influential to the trajectory of modern Hollywood due to his involvement with the Sundance Institute, the nonprofit body he founded in 1981, which eventually took over a small film festival in Utah in 1984, renaming it the Sundance Film Festival. Within a few years, the festival had become a hotbed for the debuts of emerging Hollywood talent, especially following the debut of Steven Soderbergh with Sex, Lies and Videotape at the festival in 1989. In the early 1990s, this led to the reputation of Sundance as a cradle of budding cinematic superstars, prominently including the likes of Darren Aronofsky, David O. Russell and Quentin Tarantino, and eventually filmmakers such as Chloé Zhao, Ava DuVerNay and Ryan Coogler. Redford remained involved with the festival throughout the years, even as he bemoaned its ever-increasing commercialization. In March, the festival announced that after 44 years it would be moving from Utah to Boulder, CO in recognition how how large it has now grown.

Robert Redford was an icon of the New Hollywood era, one whose star never dimmed, who proved to be exceedingly versatile even as he dedicated his time toward the causes that moved him and assisted another generation of Hollywood royalty in ascending the ladder. He will be missed by all lovers of classical American cinema.

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