Introduction
Robert Redford was one of the most influential and multifaceted figures in American cinema. Actor, director, producer, philanthropist, and environmental activist, his career spanned more than six decades and encompassed a wide range of accomplishments that extended far beyond the silver screen—his vision as a patron of independent filmmaking was equally prolific.
Redford founded the Sundance Institute in 1981. A nonprofit organization, the Institute was dedicated to supporting emerging filmmakers. Its flagship event, the Sundance Film Festival, grew into the premier showcase for independent cinema worldwide, launching the careers of countless directors, writers, and actors.
The actor first captured audiences with his rugged good looks and naturalistic performances in films such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973). These films cemented him as a major Hollywood star of the 1970s, a decade in which he also co-founded the star-driven production company Wildwood Enterprises.
A tireless advocate for environmental preservation, Redford championed conservation causes, collaborated with organizations such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, and leveraged his celebrity to underscore the urgency of protecting natural landscapes. His dedication earned him recognition not only as a cinematic icon but as a leading voice in environmental activism.
With the recent passing of this cinematic giant, the film world lost not simply a star but a cultural force whose influence continues to ripple through cinema and activism alike. Redford left behind a legacy of artistry, advocacy, and vision that remains unmatched.
Beginnings
Charles Robert Redford Jr. was born on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California. His father, Charles Robert Redford, Sr., worked as an accountant for Standard Oil, while his mother, Martha Redford (née Hart), provided stability in a household marked by modest means. Redford grew up in a working-class neighborhood, balancing the sunshine of Southern California with the turbulence of adolescence. Redford was of Irish, Scottish, and English ancestry.
Athletically gifted, he found success on the baseball diamond, earning a scholarship to the University of Colorado in 1954. However, his time in Boulder was defined less by academic diligence and more by a hard-drinking lifestyle. By his own admission, Redford spent more time drinking and carousing than studying. His reckless behavior ultimately cost him his scholarship and led to his expulsion from the University. Redford told The New Yorker in 1998:
“…I wasn’t happy. I was drinking, and talking all the time about going to Europe, dreaming about Utrillo and Matisse and Braque…I wanted to be in that place, where they’d been. I’d wanted out of L.A., but Colorado wasn’t far enough. I had a teacher, Richard Dudley, who said, ‘Don’t talk. Just go do it…’”
Following his mother’s untimely death in 1955, Redford sought purpose beyond the distractions of collegiate life. He left for Europe, where he wandered through France and Italy, sketching and painting, indulging in a bohemian existence. He went everywhere with a pad, sketching, drawing pictures, and making notes. Returning to the United States, he enrolled at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and studied painting while still struggling to find a clear direction.
Getting on Track
While studying at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, the 22-year-old Redford met and married Lola Van Wagenen, a 17-year-old Mormon from Provo, Utah. It was around this time that Redford’s interest had begun to switch from art to acting. He trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, honing his craft. By 1959, the young actor was performing on stage, laying the foundation for the rise that would follow.
In 1959, Redford and Lola experienced a heartbreaking loss when their firstborn child died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) at just 2 months old. A devastated Redford poured himself into acting. He appeared in Broadway productions of the 1959 comedy Tall Story, as well as The Highest Tree, also in 1959. By 1960, the 24-year-old Redford landed a substantial role in the hit Broadway drama Little Moon of Alban, starring alongside Julie Harris. His Broadway career would peak in 1963 when he starred in Neil Simon’s smash hit, Barefoot in the Park.
Starting in 1960, Redford had started appearing as a supporting player on numerous popular American TV shows. These included Naked City, The Untouchables, Maverick, Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Route 66, and most famously, The Twilight Zone, among others. His episode of The Twilight Zone (where he plays a sympathetic and kind version of Death) is widely considered one of the iconic series’s best episodes.
The Big Screen
Robert Redford’s big-screen career officially started in 1960, with a walk-on for the film version of Tall Story, reprising his Broadway role from earlier in the year. Starring Anthony Perkins and Jane Fonda, Redford played a basketball player and wasn’t required to speak a line. This would be the start of a working relationship and friendship with Fonda that would last over six decades and five films. Fonda would later tell The Hollywood Reporter in 2017:
“…In Barefoot in the Park, I couldn’t keep my hands off of him. I was constantly forcing myself on him…When I made the last film with him, the Sundance Institute was just beginning, and now what he created has really changed American cinema in the most profound ways. I wanted to be able to spend time with him and see what he has become…”
In 1962, Redford appeared in War Hunt, a low-budget war drama set during the Korean conflict. While it was only a supporting role, the project proved significant in other ways. It introduced Redford to future Oscar-winning director Sydney Pollack, who worked as a dialogue coach on the film and also had a supporting acting role in it. Pollack would later become one of Redford’s most frequent and trusted collaborators.
Not every project was a success, however. Redford’s appearance alongside Marlon Brando in Arthur Penn’s The Chase (1966) was overshadowed by the film’s critical and commercial failure. Disillusioned, the actor retreated from the Hollywood grind, spending much of 1966 in Spain and Greece with his wife and two young children. During this period of self-reflection, Redford seriously considered abandoning acting altogether in favor of returning to painting and art. Paramount Pictures had other ideas, as Redford was still under contract.
The Sundance Kid
By the late 1960s, Redford was emerging as a leading man. This was in part due to the success of the film version of Barefoot in the Park (1967). Starring opposite Jane Fonda, Redford’s breezy charm and leading-man good looks were a hit with the public, and the 31-year-old actor found himself starting to get recognized on the streets. The offers quickly began to pour in. Redford, however, was wary of being typecast in light romantic comedies and rejected numerous starring roles.
After turning down the role of Nick in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and being turned down for the iconic role of Benjamin in The Graduate (1967), Redford finally found the breakthrough role that would be synonymous with the actor for generations. Jack Lemmon, Warren Beatty, and Steve McQueen all turned down the offer to portray the Sundance Kid in George Roy Hill’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. But Redford liked the script and wanted the opportunity to work with Paul Newman.
The pairing of Redford and Newman was electric. Their camaraderie onscreen became the film’s defining element. Redford’s brooding but playful Sundance was the perfect counterbalance to Newman’s charismatic Butch. Together, they created one of the most enduring partnerships and friendships in Hollywood history. The film was a massive critical and commercial success, grossing over $100 million worldwide and earning seven Academy Award nominations. Redford was now a bankable star.
Evolution
After Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Robert Redford entered a phase of creative exploration. In 1969, he starred in Michael Ritchie’s Downhill Racer as an ambitious, arrogant skier chasing Olympic dreams. Acting alongside Gene Hackman, Redford brought a fresh edge to his on-screen image—cool, confident, and quietly ruthless. While not a commercial hit, the role earned Redford the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer, highlighting his arrival as a serious actor and creative talent.
During this period, Redford began to consider a path that extended beyond acting. He became increasingly interested in producing and, later, directing—ways he could have more say in the stories he brought to life. His ambitions also stretched outside of Hollywood. In 1968, Redford bought a small ski area in Utah called Timp Haven. The following year, he renamed it the Sundance Mountain Resort, a nod to his most iconic role.
Stardom
Now a bankable star and award-winning actor, Redford reunited with director Sydney Pollack for Jeremiah Johnson (1972), a quiet, introspective Western about a mountain man seeking solitude in the wilderness. The film, though understated, reflected Redford’s affinity for the natural world and hinted at the environmental themes that would come to define much of his later life. The film was also a box-office hit, thus proving that audiences would follow Redford into unconventional territory. The actor spoke to Vanity Fair in 2016:
“…For Jeremiah Johnson, nobody wanted to make that film. I went to Sydney Pollack, and I said, “Sydney, I live in the mountains, and I would like to make a film about a person who had to exist in the mountains and survive in the mountains.” So we had this script by John Milius, and we decided to take it on. I brought him up to Sundance—I had property there at that time—I said, “I’d like to film it here, because it’s an all-natural environment…”
Redford’s next triumph came in The Way We Were (1973), opposite Barbra Streisand. The romantic drama, again directed by Pollack, produced one of the decade’s most iconic on-screen duos. A massive box-office hit, the film further solidified Redford’s image as the quintessential leading man. That same year, he appeared in George Roy Hill’s The Sting, reuniting with Paul Newman. The period-piece caper set in Chicago’s 1930s was a massive sensation, winning seven Oscars, including Best Picture, and earning Redford his only Oscar nomination for acting.
Riding this wave of acclaim, Redford starred as Jay Gatsby in Jack Clayton’s The Great Gatsby (1974). Written by Francis Ford Coppola, Gatsby was a role that seemed tailor-made for Redford’s cool, enigmatic screen presence. While F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third screen adaptation received mixed reviews, it was another financial hit. By year’s end, Redford had achieved a rare feat—becoming the first performer since Bing Crosby in 1946 to have three films rank among the year’s top ten box-office hits.
Political Intrigue
Building on the momentum of The Way We Were and The Sting, Redford began seeking material of a more personal nature. The result was The Great Waldo Pepper (1975), another collaboration with George Roy Hill. The film, a nostalgic but often bleak look at post–World War I stunt pilots, reflected Redford’s fascination with American mythology and the restless pursuit of freedom. Though not as commercially successful as his earlier projects, it showcased the actor’s willingness to take risks on darker material.
That same year, Redford starred in Three Days of the Condor, again reteaming with Sydney Pollack. The film, about a CIA analyst uncovering a deadly government conspiracy, became one of the defining spy thrillers of the decade. Co-starring Faye Dunaway, the film’s mix of paranoia, realism, and post-Watergate anxiety mirrored America’s growing mistrust of authority. Alongside films like The Parallax View (1974) and Marathon Man (1976), Three Days of the Condor helped shape the genre of the paranoid political thriller.
All the President’s Men (1976) was the apex of Redford merging filmmaking with his interest in politics. Based on the investigation by Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the film dramatizes the Watergate scandal that led to President Nixon’s resignation. Redford not only portrayed Woodward but served as the film’s executive producer, buying the rights to Woodward and Bernstein’s book and hiring William Goldman to write the script. The film won four Oscars (including Goldman) and stands as one of the defining films of the 1970s.
The Director
By the beginning of the 1980s, Robert Redford had established himself as one of the most prominent figures in American cinema. His work as an actor and producer during the previous decade had demonstrated both commercial appeal and critical success. With All the President’s Men (1976), Redford had gained valuable experience behind the camera as a hands-on producer, which encouraged him to pursue directing. His directorial debut came with Ordinary People (1980), an adaptation of Judith Guest’s 1976 novel.
The film focused on a suburban family struggling with grief and communication following the death of a son. Starring Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, and Timothy Hutton, the film received widespread critical acclaim and became both a commercial and critical success. Ordinary People won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Redford, as well as Best Supporting Actor for Hutton. It also earned six Golden Globe nominations, further establishing Redford’s credibility as a filmmaker.
After Ordinary People, Redford continued to develop projects that reflected his broader interest in nurturing artistic voices and supporting independent production. In 1981, he founded the Sundance Institute, headquartered in Utah, to provide resources and guidance for emerging filmmakers. Named after his well-known character from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the organization launched annual filmmaker workshops and later the Sundance Film Festival, which quickly became a significant platform for independent film in the United States. Redford spoke to Entertainment Tonight in 1996:
“…I was producing things I was acting in, but I had never directed, and I felt it was time. I was looking for a piece of material that was about behavior and feelings. When I read Judith Guest’s book, I thought, This is it…At that particular time there was no interest in the film. I’d gone to a couple of studios and they were not interested. They thought it was decidedly uncommercial…”
Sundance and Beyond
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Redford maintained a dual presence in American cinema as both an acclaimed filmmaker and a recognizable star. Following the success of Ordinary People, he returned to acting in Brubaker (1980), a prison drama that underscored his continuing interest in social themes. In 1984, he appeared in The Natural, directed by Barry Levinson. Adapted from Bernard Malamud’s novel, the film became one of the decade’s defining sports dramas and, four decades later, is wisely considered one of the greatest sports films of all time.
The following year, Redford reunited with director Sydney Pollack for Out of Africa (1985), co-starring with Meryl Streep. The film, based on Karen Blixen’s memoir, was a major critical and commercial success, winning seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Redford’s performance as Denys Finch Hatton added to his long collaboration with Pollack and reinforced his status as a dependable leading man well into his late forties.
While his acting career remained active, Redford began to increasingly center his attention on his work as a director and advocate for independent film. The Sundance Institute rapidly grew throughout the 1980s, with its annual Sundance Film Festival evolving into a prominent showcase for independent filmmakers. By the early 1990s, the festival had become an essential launchpad for directors such as Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino, and Kevin Smith, helping to shape a new era of American cinema.
The 1990s
During the 1990s, Redford continued to balance his work as an actor, director, and advocate for independent cinema. As the Sundance Institute and its film festival gained prominence, Redford’s name became increasingly associated with the rise of independent filmmaking in the United States. By the early part of the decade, Sundance was discovering new filmmakers and premiering influential titles such as Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989) and Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992).
Redford continued to direct through the decade, including A River Runs Through It (1992), an adaptation of Norman Maclean’s semi-autobiographical novella, starring Brad Pitt. Featuring strong performances from Pitt, Craig Sheffer, and Tom Skerritt, it won the Oscar for Best Cinematography as well as nominations for Best Original Score and Best Adapted Screenplay. He followed this with Quiz Show (1994), a historical drama examining the 1950s TV quiz show scandals. The film is regarded as one of his most accomplished directorial works.
Now in his late 50s, Redford remained a major box-office draw and leading man. In 1993, he starred in Indecent Proposal opposite Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson. The film was a commercial success, grossing over $260 million worldwide. He continued his leading-man status with Up Close & Personal (1996), co-starring with Michelle Pfeiffer, and The Horse Whisperer (1998), which he both directed and starred in. The latter film, based on Nicholas Evans’s novel, was another critical and commercial success, marking his return to directing after several years focused on acting and producing.
Activism and Later Years
From the early 2000s onward, Robert Redford, now in his 60s, remained active as a filmmaker, actor, and environmental advocate. While his on-screen appearances became less frequent, his commitment to the arts and to environmental protection continued. Redford continued his advocacy by supporting organizations such as the Natural Resources Defense Council and The Wilderness Society. He frequently spoke out on issues related to renewable energy, conservation, and climate change.
Redford’s Utah-based Sundance Resort rapidly became a model for sustainable development, incorporating renewable energy and land preservation initiatives. In recognition of his ongoing efforts, Redford received numerous honors, including the National Medal of Arts in 1996 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.
“…When I realized how important the environment was for me, and how important it was to sustain it, the predominant thinking came from people who saw it in a different way. They saw the environment as something to destroy so they could build, something they could develop. So very early on, when I realized the importance of the environment, I also realized that I was going to have to play a role in protecting it…”
Retirement and Legacy
By the time of his retirement from acting in 2018, Robert Redford’s career had encompassed more than sixty years and included achievements across acting, directing, producing, and activism. His influence touched nearly every aspect of modern cinema, from major studio productions to the independent film movement. Even after his retirement, Redford continued to oversee projects related to Sundance and environmental education.
On September 16, 2025, Redford died in his sleep at his home in Sundance, Utah, at the age of 89. His passing prompted tributes from across the entertainment world. Fellow actors and collaborators such as Jane Fonda, Paul Newman’s family, Meryl Streep, and Brad Pitt praised his professionalism, artistic integrity, and commitment to storytelling. Former president Barack Obama called Redford “one of the foremost conservationists of our generation.”
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Sundance Institute released statements honoring Redford’s artistic achievements and environmental leadership. His legacy endures through his films, the artists he inspired, and his lifelong commitment to using cinema as a force for change. Fittingly, Robert Redford was laid to rest on his property in Sundance after a private funeral. Always fighting and pushing back against stereotypes, the actor spoke to The New York Times back in 1974:
“I never thought of myself as a glamorous guy, a handsome guy, any of that stuff…Suddenly, there’s this image. And it makes me very nervous, because it keeps people from judging you on performance…When I made ‘The Candidate,’ people said, ‘Yeah, sure, slick, handsome guy, the part’s just right for him…I had to fight to get ‘Jeremiah Johnson’ because it didn’t fit the image…An image can be a real handicap. Image is crap…”
