The actor became a fan favorite over 50 years ago as a charming crook. In the Western comedy"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969, original title:"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"), he robbed railroads and banks alongside Paul Newman. This was followed by the comedy"The Sting" (1973). Redford's crook image never left him, even in his later years. Graying, but still sporting his charismatic, dazzling smile, Redford politely brandished his guns again in"The Gentleman" (2018) as the veteran bank robber Forrest Tucker.

"I thought it would be wonderful if my last film was quirky, upbeat, and funny," Redford said in 2018 after the premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in Canada. Tucker enjoyed his life as a thug. He himself had a rebellious side from a young age and always felt like an outsider, the star told the San Francisco Chronicle at the time.

Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement

But in 2019, the actor and director was persuaded to return again. In the superhero spectacle"Avengers: Endgame" (2019), he showed his villainous side as Agent Alexander Pierce. In an interview with"Rolling Stone" magazine two years later, Redford said that he didn't miss working in front of or behind the camera. He would now leave that job to others.

At 81, he was back in the spotlight alongside Jane Fonda. The Venice Film Festival awarded the two screen veterans the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement in 2017. There, they also presented the romantic drama"Our Souls at Night," in which they play neighbors who slowly grow closer."I really wanted to work with Jane again before I died," Redford joked to reporters at the time.

Bumpy start in Hollywood

But Redford's rise to Hollywood stardom was rather bumpy. He was born on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California, on the outskirts of the film capital. The son of a milkman, he grew up in humble circumstances. An athletic scholarship granted him admission to the University of Colorado. The young Redford hitchhiked through Europe, selling paintings he had painted himself, and eventually, via a roundabout route, made it into a New York acting school.

After films like"Barefoot in the Park" (1967) with Jane Fonda, the handsome young man with steely blue eyes, an angular face, and a shock of blond hair quickly became an idol in the late 1960s. On screen, he shone as a lover, for example with Mia Farrow in"The Great Gatsby" (1974) and alongside Meryl Streep in the award-winning melodrama "Out of Africa" (1985), as well as years later in"The Horse Whisperer" (1998).

But the actor wasn't satisfied with the image of a Hollywood pretty boy. As a director, he immediately won an Oscar for his feature film debut,"Ordinary People," in 1981. Redford became a supporter of independent cinema and founded the Sundance Institute, which is behind the Sundance Film Festival as the most important US forum for independent filmmaking.

Redford was also a committed environmental activist and conservationist. In 1989, at a conference in Denver, he once told Rolling Stone magazine that he received his"wake-up call" when two scientists warned of global warming.

Private life remained private

Redford kept his private life out of the headlines. At just 22, he married Lola Van Wagenen, a future historian. The parents of four divorced in 1985. Their firstborn son died at the age of five months. His son, James, also a filmmaker, died of cancer in 2020 at the age of 58.

Redford celebrated his second wedding in Hamburg, where he married his longtime German girlfriend, the painter Sibylle Szaggars, in 2009. Redford, an avid skier, horseback rider, and hiker, had lived for decades far away from Hollywood in a country house in Utah.