Robert Redford, magnetic Hollywood icon and Sundance founder, dies at 89

Robert Redford, the histrion and manager who sailed to Hollywood stardom with turns successful classics specified arsenic "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "All the President's Men" and invigorated American autarkic cinema arsenic 1 of the founders of the Sundance Film Festival, died Tuesday greeting astatine his location successful Utah, according to his publicist.

He was 89.

Redford was champion known arsenic a go-to starring antheral of the precocious 1960s and 1970s, instantly recognizable for his windswept hairsbreadth and wide beloved for his casual charisma. But helium was besides an accomplished filmmaker, committed governmental activistic and culture-shaping entrepreneur.

He won the champion manager Oscar for the household melodrama "Ordinary People" (1980), the archetypal of his 9 stints down the camera.

Redford's expansive tone volition unrecorded connected done the Sundance Institute, a nonprofit enactment helium founded successful 1981 that sponsors the Sundance Film Festival. The festival, held annually successful snowy Park City, Utah, showcases offbeat projects and helps motorboat the careers of caller artists.

"I saw different stories retired determination that weren't having a accidental to beryllium told and I thought, 'Well, possibly I tin perpetrate my energies to giving those radical a chance,'" Redford recalled successful a 2018 interview. "As I look backmost connected it, I consciousness precise bully astir that."

In a vocation that stretched crossed much than six decades, Redford won 2 Academy Awards, including an honorary prize successful 2002, and 3 Golden Globe Awards, including the Cecil B. DeMille Award beingness accomplishment grant successful 1994.

President Barack Obama awarded Redford the Presidential Medal of Freedom successful 2016, saying in remarks astatine the White House that Americans "admire Bob not conscionable for his singular acting, but for having figured retired what to bash next."

Charles Robert Redford Jr. was calved Aug. 18, 1936, successful the beachside assemblage of Santa Monica, California, to Martha Hart and Charles Robert Redford Sr., a milkman turned lipid institution accountant.

The younger Redford described himself arsenic a mediocre pupil who was much funny successful the arts and athletics. He graduated from Van Nuys High School successful 1954 and concisely attended the University of Colorado Boulder. He aboriginal ambled astir Europe, soaking up the civilization successful France, Spain and Italy.

He yet moved to New York City, enrolling successful the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He made his Broadway debut successful the play "Tall Story" (1959) and went connected to look successful respective fashionable tv shows of the aboriginal 1960s, including "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and "The Twilight Zone."

Redford's astir high-profile theatrical show from the play was other Elizabeth Ashley successful the archetypal Broadway tally of Neil Simon's "Barefoot successful the Park" (1963), playing the uptight newlywed Paul.

"Barefoot successful the Park" catapulted Redford to supporting roles successful movies, including the off-kilter Alec Guinness drama "Situation Hopeless … But Not Serious" (1965) and the amusement concern communicative "Inside Daisy Clover" (1965), starring Natalie Wood.

"Inside Daisy Clover" handed Redford his archetypal Golden Globe (for champion caller star), and the histrion earned wider attraction co-starring with Jane Fonda successful some the situation interruption yarn "The Chase" (1966) and the 1967 big-screen mentation of "Barefoot successful the Park."

Redford reached a vocation turning constituent successful 1969 with George Roy Hill's "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." He was the sharp-shooting Sundance Kid to Paul Newman's quick-witted Butch Cassidy, 2 charming Wild West outlaws trying to marque their mode to Bolivia.

"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," anchored by 1 of the astir electrical prima pairings successful Hollywood history, conquered the container bureau and won implicit critics. Redford was abruptly a bankable starring antheral with his prime of projects — and legions of admirers crossed the country.

The aforesaid year, Redford starred arsenic a relentless skier successful "Downhill Racer" and a lawman successful "Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here." He followed those parts with turns arsenic a motorcyclist successful "Little Fauss and Big Halsy" (1970) and a jewel thief successful "The Hot Rock" (1972), but some movies fizzled astatine the container office.

"The Candidate," a governmental satire starring Redford arsenic a callow U.S. Senate aspirant, performed respectably and collected mostly affirmative reviews. Obama, in his remarks at the Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremonial successful 2016, called it "the champion movie astir what authorities is really like, ever."

Redford's adjacent respective projects were among his astir commercially successful, lighting up multiplex summons booths and cementing his presumption arsenic 1 of the cardinal A-list performers of the era.

He captivated audiences arsenic a rugged upland antheral successful Sydney Pollack's "Jeremiah Johnson" (1972) and Barbra Streisand's romanticist spouse successful "The Way We Were" (1973). He teamed again with Paul Newman and manager George Roy Hill for the light-hearted caper "The Sting" (1973).

"The Sting," starring Redford and Newman arsenic too-cool-for-school grifters successful the 1930s, dominated the container office, scooped up the Oscar for champion picture, and delivered Redford his archetypal and lone information for champion histrion astatine the 1974 ceremony. (He mislaid to Jack Lemmon for "Save the Tiger.")

Redford scored much hits successful the mediate of the decade, playing the rubric quality successful a 1974 retelling of "The Great Gatsby," a cocky aviator successful "The Great Waldo Pepper" (1975), and a CIA expert swept into a high-stakes conspiracy successful "Three Days of the Conor" (1975).

He adjacent co-starred successful 1 of the astir celebrated movies of the 1970s: "All the President's Men" (1976), an adaptation of a bestselling memoir of the aforesaid sanction by The Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who doggedly investigated the Watergate scandal.

"All the President's Men," a commercialized and captious triumph, represented 1 of the peaks of Redford's power successful the movie industry. He orchestrated the project, including purchasing the movie rights to the publication and hiring "Butch Cassidy" scribe William Goldman to constitute the screenplay.

The film, a tense and fast-based relationship of however Woodward (Redford) and Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) unraveled the conspiracy that brought down President Richard Nixon, besides reflected Redford's governmental consciousness and consciousness of civic responsibility.

"Accuracy was the big, large nonsubjective successful making the film," Redford recalled successful a 2006 interview. "We had to beryllium accurate, different we would autumn nether that cognition that Hollywood was messing astir with a precise captious event."

Redford closed retired the 1970s with a comparatively tiny portion successful the warfare epic "A Bridge Too Far" (1977) and the relation of a shambolic rodeo prima successful "The Electric Horseman" (1979), co-starring predominant collaborator Jane Fonda.

The dawn of the 1980s marked the commencement of a important vocation chapter. He appeared successful the 1980 situation flick "Brubaker," but Redford's much important task that twelvemonth was his wrenching directorial debut, "Ordinary People."

"Ordinary People" chronicles an upper-middle-class Midwestern household wracked by grief and dysfunction. The film, starring Timothy Hutton, Donald Sutherland and Mary Tyler Moore, examines the affectional responsibility lines underneath America's clean-cut suburban ideal.

Oscar voters lavished the acclaimed play with 4 awards, including champion representation and a manager trophy for Redford. ("Raging Bull" fans are inactive smarting from the knockout punch.)

Redford acted successful lone 3 much films successful the 1980s — the shot representation "The Natural" (1984), the champion representation victor "Out of Africa" (1985) and the courtroom drama "Legal Eagles" (1986) — and directed the mostly forgotten dramedy "The Milagro Beanfield War," released successful 1987.

But successful that aforesaid period, Redford helped signifier 1 of the signature institutions of modern movie culture. He founded the Sundance Institute successful 1981 with the extremity of discovering endowment from extracurricular the Hollywood system, highlighting autarkic productions and supporting caller artists.

The Sundance Film Festival, named for 1 of the actor's astir iconic characters, grew into a cornerstone of the movie manufacture and yet 1 of the astir glitzy extravaganzas connected the Hollywood societal calendar, known arsenic overmuch for screenings arsenic for enforcement deal-making and VIP parties.

The festival was a launching pad for immoderate of the astir well-known auteurs of the past quarter-century — Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Soderbergh, Gina Prince-Bythewood — and continues to beryllium an incubator for promising young writers, directors and different originative personalities.

It has likewise focused nationalist attraction connected seminal autarkic films specified arsenic Soderbergh's "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" (1989) and Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs" (1992) arsenic good arsenic "Clerks" (1994),"The Blair Witch Project" (1999), "Donnie Darko" (2001) and "Little Miss Sunshine" (2006).

In the 1990s and aboriginal 2000s, arsenic Sundance helped crook autarkic movie into a lucrative business, Redford continued to enactment steadily.

In those years, Redford starred successful the heist drama "Sneakers" (1992), the erotic potboiler "Indecent Proposal" (1993), and the back-to-back 2001 thrillers "The Last Castle" and "Spy Game."

He was besides an progressive manager during that period, helming "A River Runs Through It" (1992), "Quiz Show" (1994), "The Horse Whisperer" (1998), "The Legend of Bagger Vance" (2000), and "Lions for Lambs" (2007), and much precocious "The Conspirator" (2010) and "The Company You Keep" (2012).

"A River Runs Through It" and "Quiz Show" drew praise, and the second received Oscar nominations for champion representation and champion director. Redford's consequent directorial outings received mixed reviews, however, though "Lions" and "Company" allowed him to research governmental themes.

In his aboriginal years, Redford took connected a challenging relation successful "All Is Lost," a 2013 endurance communicative that featured virtually nary different characters and hardly immoderate dialogue. The histrion received a lasting ovation aft the movie screened astatine the Cannes Film Festival.

He portrayed erstwhile CBS newsman Dan Rather successful "Truth" (2015) and introduced himself to a caller procreation of moviegoers arsenic the villainous authorities operative Alexander Pierce successful the Marvel franchise entries "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" (2014) and "Avengers: Endgame" (2019).

Redford's starring relation arsenic a gentlemanly slope robber successful David Lowery's quality survey "The Old Man & the Gun" (2018) was his last, adding a gentle grace enactment to an illustrious Hollywood career.

"I conscionable fig that I've had a agelong vocation that I'm precise pleased with. It's been truthful long, ever since I was 21. I fig present arsenic I'm getting into my 80s, it's possibly clip to determination toward status and walk much clip with my woman and family," Redford told the Associated Press successful 2018.

He is survived by his wife, Sibylle Szaggars, and 2 children from a erstwhile matrimony to Lola Van Wagenen: Shauna Jean Redford and Amy Hart Redford. Redford and his archetypal woman mislaid 2 sons: Scott Anthony Redford, calved successful 1959, died of abrupt babe decease syndrome; David James Redford died of crab successful 2020.