Robert Redford passed away on Tuesday, September 16, at his home in Utah. He was 89.
Robert Redford — a two-time Oscar winner who charmed audiences with “The Way We Were” and “Barefoot in the Park,” directed the complex dramas “Ordinary People” and “Quiz Show,” and founded the Sundance Institute to promote independent storytelling — has died. He was 89.
The Hollywood icon passed away early Tuesday at his home in Utah, Rogers & Cowan PMK chief executive Cindi Berger told the New York Times.
Berger said Redford died in his sleep. No cause of death was given.
“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,” Berger told People in a statement. “He will be missed greatly. The family requests privacy.”
Known for his strawberry-blond hair and boyishly handsome looks, Redford’s Hollywood career spanned over six decades, garnering him five Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, Kennedy Center Honors and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
His most memorable acting work includes roles in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969), “The Sting” (1973), “All the President’s Men” (1976), “The Natural” (1984) and “Out of Africa” (1985).
“The idea of being an actor was to have a sense of freedom. You were free to be, to act as someone else, if you were paying attention to the people around you,” Redford told Collider in 2019.
“You had a chance to be an artist, because acting is an art form. You had a chance to say, ‘I know this person, I’ve seen this person before and I want to bring that forward.’”
Born Charles Robert Redford Jr. on Aug. 18, 1936, the acclaimed actor-director grew up in Southern California.
He was a sportsman during his youth, having played football and tennis and run track. His father, Charles, was an oil company accountant, while his mother, Martha, had a passion for literature and the arts.
He struggled to find his own path.
“I was a failure at everything I tried. I worked as a box boy at a supermarket and got fired. Then my dad got me a job at Standard Oil — fired again,” he told Success magazine in 1980 about his teenage work ethic.
He graduated high school in 1954 and briefly attended the University of Colorado in Boulder.
Tragedy struck in 1955 when his mom died of septicemia — a bacterial infection in the bloodstream. He was 18 years old.
He dashed off to Europe shortly thereafter and focused on being an artist.
“I was increasing my skill set and exploring storytelling through painting. Doing that, I realized how much I loved it,” he told his grandson, producer-director Dylan Redford, in an interview published in 2016.
“Later, when I became an actor, I suffered for four or five years not being sure I wanted to be in that business because I so wanted to be an artist. I just wanted to paint and sketch and tell stories by drawing.”
He returned to the US to study in NYC at the Pratt Institute and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
In 1959, he made his Broadway debut in “Tall Story.” The starring part as conservative-lawyer-turned newlywed Paul Bratter in Neil Simon’s “Barefoot in the Park” followed in 1963.
He would reprise his Broadway role in the 1967 film adaptation opposite Jane Fonda, his frequent co-star.
He made his film debut in the adaptation of “Tall Story” (1960), led by Fonda. They also appeared in “The Chase” (1966) and “The Electric Horseman” (1979).
In fact, Redford starred alongside an impressive batch of actresses over the years, such as Barbra Streisand, Faye Dunaway, Meryl Streep, Michelle Pfeiffer, Debra Winger, and Natalie Wood.
He initially didn’t want to be paired with Streisand in “The Way We Were,” finding the “Funny Girl” actress to have a “controlling” reputation.
Robert Hofler reported in his 2023 book “The Way They Were: How Epic Battles and Bruised Egos Brought a Classic Hollywood Love Story to the Screen” that Redford told director Sydney Pollack: “She will direct herself. It’ll never work.”
The flick itself was close to not being made, according to Hofler.
