Robert Redford has died. The actor and Oscar-winning director was 89 years old.

His death was announced in a statement by Cindi Berger, managing director of the advertising agency Rogers & Cowan PMK, stating that he died in his sleep.

▶︎ Robert Redford – one of the biggest screen stars since the late 1960s with films such as"The Candidate," "All the President's Men," and "The Way We Were."

He capped the decade with the Academy Award for Best Director for 1980's "Ordinary People," which also won Best Picture. His wavy blond hair and youthful smile made him the most sought-after of all leading men, but Redford worked hard to transcend his looks—whether through his political engagement, his willingness to take on unglamorous roles, or his dedication to giving small-budget independent films a platform.

His roles ranged from Watergate investigator Bob Woodward to a coal miner in"Jeremiah Johnson" to a double agent in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and his co-stars included Jane Fonda, Meryl Streep, and Barbra Streisand. But his most famous film partner was his old friend, comrade in crime, and jokester Paul Newman—their films reflected the warm, teasing relationship they shared in private. Redford played the cunning outlaw alongside Newman in 1969's"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," a box office hit that gave its name to Redford's Sundance Institute and the Sundance Festival. He also co-starred with Newman in the 1973 Academy Award-winning"The Sting," which won Best Picture and earned Redford a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his role as a young con man in 1930s Chicago.

After the 1970s, Redford's film roles became less frequent as he focused more on directing and producing, taking on the role of patriarch of the independent film movement through his Sundance Institute in the 1980s and 1990s. But he also starred in"Out of Africa" (1985), the Academy Award winner for Best Picture, and received some of the best reviews of his career for"All Is Lost" in 2013, in which he starred as a shipwrecked sailor—and was the film's sole performer. In 2018, he was acclaimed again for what he called his farewell film,"The Old Man and the Gun."

"I just think I've had a long career that I'm very happy with. It goes back to when I was 21," he told the Associated Press shortly before the film's release."Now that I'm getting into my 80s, maybe it's time to retire and spend more time with my wife and family."