Robert Redford, Oscar-Winning Hollywood Legend, Dies at 89

Cindi Berger, chairman and CEO of Rogers & Cowan PMK, tells “Extra,” “Robert Redford passed away on Sept. 16, 2025, at his home at Sundance in the mountains of Utah — the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved. He will be missed greatly. The family requests privacy.”

No cause of death was given. Berger shared that Redford died in his sleep.

Redford was for 60 years a household name revered for his excellence, and for his own reverence of the medium of film. Along the way, he became a pop cultural institution thought of as one of the handsomest men in the movies, a safe bet at the box office, and an important part of some of the most famous films ever made.

Perhaps most iconically, he played privileged WASP Hubbell Gardiner in the 1973 hit “The Way We Were” opposite Barbra Streisand as Katie Morosky, a passionate Marxist Jew. Their romance is a test of how similar two people need to be to share love and share space, and it fueled one of the most beloved romantic dramas of all time.

Before that, he had been one half of one of the silver screen’s most iconic pairs in the buddy movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969), paired with Paul Newman in a rollicking outlaw movie that ended with the two deciding to shoot it out with the Bolivian army, a freeze-frame for the ages.

So iconic was that film that his character, Sundance, became the name of the famous film festival he tirelessly championed.

His most famous films were quite literally among the most famous films: “The Candidate” (1972), “The Sting” (1973), “The Great Gatsby” 1974), “Three Days of the Condor” (1975), “The Natural” (1984), “Out of Africa” (1985) — all featured his magnetic presence.

He was even a meme — he is the outdoorsy “nodding man” as seen all over the internet.

Redford was born August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California. A polio survivor, he attended college briefly and studied painting in New York City in the late ’50s.

He made his Broadway debut in 1959 in “Tall Story,” also appearing in “The Highest Tree” (1959) and “Sunday in New York” (1961), but made a career-shaping splash in Neil Simon’s “Barefoot in the Park” (1963) with Elizabeth Ashley.

His first film was the movie adaptation of “Tall Story” in 1960 with his great friend, the like-minded Jane Fonda, with whom he would work again over the course of his long career.

“It hit me hard this morning when I read that Bob was gone,” Fonda said upon hearing of his death. “I can’t stop crying. He meant a lot to me and was a beautiful person in every way. He stood for an America we have to keep fighting for.”

Before he established himself as a film A-lister, he made many early-TV appearances, including on “Maverick” (1960), “Perry Mason” (1960), “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” (1961), and on a famous episode of “The Twilight Zone” (1962), in which his alarming good looks made him perfectly cast as the seductively handsome face of Death.

His film career went into high gear by the mid-’60s, starting with “Situation Hopeless — But Not Serious” (1965) and continuing with the Natalie Wood starrers “Inside Daisy Clover” (1965) and “This Property Is Condemned” (1966); “The Chase” (1966) with Marlon Brando; the film adaptation of “Barefoot in the Park” (1967), which again paired him with Fonda; and “Downhill Racer” (1969).

Starting in the early ’70s, he was inarguably an icon, enjoying one of the most head-spinning runs of successful, impactful films of any actor: “Jeremiah Johnson” (1972); the incisive political drama “The Candidate” (1972); “The Way We Were” (1973); and “The Sting” (1973), a reunion with his “Butch & Sundance” co-star Newman.

His fan-favorite movies also include the thriller “Three Days of the Condor” (1975) with Faye Dunaway; the Watergate classic “All the President’s Men” (1976) with Dustin Hoffman; the star-studded WWII actioner “A Bridge Too Far” (1977); and the romance “The Electric Horseman” (1979), again with Fonda.

By this time, Redford began to slow his work schedule, making just four films in the 1980s, among them the crowd-pleasing baseball period piece “The Natural” (1984) with Glenn Close and, with Meryl Streep, the Oscar-winning “Out of Africa” (1985).

Redford continued to excel in a head-spinning variety of films, from the high-concept, multiplex-ready “Indecent Proposal” (1993), in which he plays a billionaire who offers a young couple $1 million for the opportunity to sleep with the wife (Demi Moore), to one of his signature western-vibing parts in “The Horse Whisperer” (1998), about a man who had more than just a way with stubborn horses.

Among his last films, he made time for the repairing with Jane Fonda “Our Souls at Night” (2017), which found the longtime screen duo elderly and contemplating life together after losing their spouses, and “The Old Man & the Gun” (2018) with Sissy Spacek, in which he portrayed an old heist man who’s spent his life eluding capture.

His final on-screen appearance in a feature film was suitably BIG: “Avengers: Endgame” (2019). His last TV gig was a surprise, uncredited cameo this year on the Navajo detective series “Dark Winds,” on which he was an executive producer.

But Redford’s talent extended beyond his acting ability. For his very first attempt at directing, the compelling suburban drama “Ordinary People” (1980), which gutsily cast America’s sweetheart Mary Tyler Moore as an unfeeling mother, he won the Oscar — something he never managed to do as a performer, although he was given an honorary Oscar in 2002.

Shockingly, he was nominated as an actor just once, for “The Sting.” One of the most famous actors of all time actually had more nominations for Best Director — he was also nominated for “Quiz Show” (1994).

Perhaps he made acting look easy.

Redford was the driving force behind the Sundance Film Festival, the annual fest held in Utah (switching to Boulder, Colorado, as of 2027) that became the largest independent-film showcase in the world. The festival embodied Redford’s love of film.

He remained politically engaged throughout his life, including writing a lament about the state of the U.S. in 2018 that feels prescient today. Its opener: “Tonight, for the first time I can remember, I feel out of place in the country I was born into and the citizenship I’ve loved my whole life. For weeks I’ve watched with sadness as our civil servants have failed us, turning toward bigotry, mean-spiritedness, and mockery as the now-normal tools of the trade.”

Redford married young and had four children, one of whom died of SIDS in 1959. His other son, Jamie, died in 2020 of bile-duct cancer.

Married to Lola Van Wagenen from 1958-1985, he married Sibylle Szaggars in 2009.

Redford is survived by his wife and by his two daughters, Shauna and Amy, and by his seven grandkids.