American film star, director and environmentalist. Born in Santa Monica, California; died on September 16th 2025 at the age of 89.
Redford's breakout role was as a conservative lawyer opposite Jane Fonda in "Barefoot in the Park" (1967). He became one of Hollywood's biggest stars through "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969) and "The Sting" (1973), both opposite Paul Newman. He received just one Oscar nomination for acting, for "The Sting". Other notable films include "The Way We Were" (1973), with Barbra Streisand; "Three Days of the Condor" (1975); "All the President's Men" (1976), opposite Dustin Hoffman; "The Natural" (1984); and "Out of Africa" (1985), opposite Meryl Streep. One of his final films was "All Is Lost" (2013), in which he was the sole cast member with almost no lines.
Sydney Pollack, who directed him in "The Way We Were", "Out of Africa" and "Three Days of the Condor", compared him to "old-fashioned movie stars who were…heroic in a kind of understated way". Unlike contemporaries such as Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, Redford did not scream or shout; his most marked characteristic was a certain reliable steadiness.
Redford won an Oscar in 1981 for directing "Ordinary People", a portrayal of a family that falls apart after one son dies and another tries to kill himself. He directed nine films in all.
Redford took a dislike to Los Angeles and expensive, formulaic Hollywood films. He bought land in Utah where his first wife grew up, and built a ranch. In 1981 he founded the Sundance Institute to help independent film-makers hone their work. (He named the non-profit after the mustachioed outlaw he played in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid".) In 1985 the institute took over a small film festival in Park City, Utah; it became the world's leading festival for independent films and hosted premieres by Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino, Guy Ritchie and Sofia Coppola, among others. Directors who got their start at Sundance include Richard Linklater, Wes Anderson, Chloé Zhao, Ryan Coogler and Paul Thomas Anderson. "The Blair Witch Project" was made for less than $1m, opened at Sundance in 1999, sold for $1.1m and went on to gross $486m (in today's money). After 41 years in Park City, the festival will move to Boulder, Colorado, in 2027; Colorado offered nearly $70m in tax incentives.
Redford became a trustee of the Natural Resources Defence Council. He campaigned for the Alaska National Interest Conservation Act, passed in 1980, which protected swathes of park land in Alaska. He fought against the construction of a large coal-fired power plant on land in Utah that is now part of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. In his wake other Hollywood actors, including Leonardo DiCaprio and Woody Harrelson, used their fame to fight for environmental causes.
Go slowly to the entertainments of thy friends, but quickly to their misfortunes.