Hollywood legend Robert Redford dies at 89

Robert Redford, the iconic Hollywood actor behind classics like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and Out of Africa (1985), has died at the age of 89.

According to The New York Times, Redford passed away in his sleep at his home in the mountains outside Provo, Utah, on the morning of Tuesday, Sept. 16. No cause of death was given, but Rogers & Cowan PMK chief executive Cindi Berger confirmed in a statement he died peacefully in his sleep.

Redford wasn’t just a leading man of 1970s Hollywood; he had the talent to match the looks. He earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination for The Sting (1973), won Best Director for Ordinary People (1980), and earned another Best Director nod for Quiz Show (1994).

"I've spent most of my life just focused on the road ahead, not looking back," Redford said in his 2002 honorary Oscar speech. "But now tonight, I'm seeing in the rearview mirror that there is something I've not thought about much, called history."

Born August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California, Redford trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and made his Broadway debut in Tall Story (1959), followed by a lead in Barefoot in the Park (1963), reprised in the 1967 film alongside Jane Fonda. His early onscreen work included TV shows like Tate, Route 66, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone, and The Untouchables.

His career-defining moment came in 1969 with the role of the Sundance Kid in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, starring opposite Paul Newman.

Other standout films in Redford’s career included The Way We Were (1973), The Sting (1973), The Great Gatsby (1974), All the President’s Men (1976), The Natural (1984), Indecent Proposal (1993), The Horse Whisperer (1998), and All Is Lost (2013). Behind the camera, he directed Ordinary People (1980), A River Runs Through It (1992), Quiz Show (1994), The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000), and Lions for Lambs (2007), among others.

In 2018, Redford announced he would retire after The Old Man & the Gun, starring alongside Casey Affleck, Sissy Spacek, Danny Glover, Tika Sumpter, and Tom Waits.

"Never say never, but I pretty well concluded that this would be it for me in terms of acting, and [I'll] move towards retirement after this 'cause I've been doing it since I was 21," he said at the time.

A month later, he admitted to PEOPLE that calling it retirement was premature: "I think it was a mistake to say that I was retiring because you never know. It did feel like it was time, maybe, to concentrate on another category."

Redford returned briefly to screens in March 2025 with a cameo in Dark Winds and lent his voice to the 2020 film Omniboat: A Fast Boat Fantasia, as well as his wife Sibylle Szaggars Redford's 2024 performance art piece The Way of the Rain — Hope for Earth.

Robert Redford’s legacy is vast, Hollywood heartthrob, Oscar-winning director, and cultural icon whose presence will be remembered for generations.