Mourning the loss of a screen idol: Actor Robert Redford has died. The Oscar winner was 89 years old. His spokeswoman said he died at his home in Utah."I would do everything the same way again, including the mistakes," he said in one of his interviews.
With him, one of the greats of the film business has passed away: the US actor, director and producer Robert Redford has died at the age of 89.
He died on Tuesday in the US state of Utah, his spokeswoman Cindi Berger told the newspaper. Redford died"at his home in Sundance in the mountains of Utah—the place he loved, surrounded by the people he loved." An exact cause of death was not given, but it was reported that he died in his sleep.
Redford became a Hollywood star more than 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.
Graying, but still sporting his charismatic, dazzling smile, Redford once again brandished his guns as old bank robber Forrest Tucker in"A Crook and a Gentleman" (2018). Tucker enjoyed his life as a thug, the star told the San Francisco Chronicle at the time. He himself had a rebellious side from a young age and always felt like an outsider.
In the superhero spectacle"Avengers: Endgame" (2019), he showed his villainous side as Agent Alexander Pierce. This supporting role was his last appearance in front of the camera. In an interview with"Rolling Stone" magazine in April 2021, Redford said that he didn't miss working in front of or behind the camera. He now wanted to leave that job to others.
His rise to Hollywood stardom was rather bumpy. Redford was born in Santa Monica, California, on the outskirts of the film capital. The son of an accountant, he grew up in humble circumstances. An athletic scholarship granted him admission to the University of Colorado. The young Redford hitchhiked through Europe, sold self-painted pictures, and eventually, via a roundabout route, made it into a New York acting school.
"Hollywood was never my dream destination," he told Esquire magazine in 2013. He could never take the star hype seriously."I was born next door," Redford emphasized. But after films like"Barefoot in the Park" with Jane Fonda and the Western comedy "The Two Bandits" with Paul Newman, Redford quickly became a screen idol in the late 1960s. His steely blue eyes, angular face, and shock of blond hair helped.
On screen, he shone as a lover, for example, with Mia Farrow in"The Great Gatsby" (1974) or alongside Meryl Streep in the award-winning melodrama "Out of Africa" (1985). But he always kept his private life under wraps and out of the headlines.
At just 22, he married Lola Van Wagenen, who later became a historian. The parents of four divorced in 1985. Their firstborn son died at the age of just a few months. Their son, James, also a filmmaker, died of cancer in 2020 at the age of 58.
Redford celebrated his second wedding in Hamburg. There, he married his longtime German girlfriend, the painter Sibylle Szaggars, in 2009. The couple was rarely seen at film parties. Redford, an avid skier, horseback rider, and hiker, lived far from the hustle and bustle in a country house in the US state of Utah and Northern California.
In 1980, he founded the Sundance Institute in the Rocky Mountains. Today, the Sundance Festival is the largest US film festival for independent productions—the independent film scene meets there every January. Redford saw it as his mission to promote young, critical voices.
He said at the opening in 2016 that he has nothing against mainstream Hollywood cinema. However, what matters most to him is supporting the diversity of independent productions."Diversity comes from the word independence; that's the principle we work by here," emphasized the Oscar winner.
He was also a committed environmental activist and conservationist. Redford told Rolling Stone magazine in 2021 that his"wake-up call" came in 1989 at a conference in Denver when two scientists warned of global warming.
He also frequently took a stand on screen or in the director's chair. He became politically active as early as 1972, starring in the election satire"Bill McKay: The Candidate." In the drama "All the President's Men" (1976), he and Dustin Hoffman transformed themselves into the Washington Post's"Watergate" sleuths who brought down Richard Nixon. In his wordy drama"Of Lions for Lambs" (2007), Redford addressed belligerence and incompetence in Washington, uncritical journalism, and television dumbing down.
As an actor, he was at his peak in the survival drama"All Is Lost" at the age of 77. He plays a sailor who drifts alone in the ocean on his leaky yacht. During filming, he pushed himself to his physical limits. But the hoped-for Oscar nomination for"All Is Lost" surprisingly failed to materialize in 2014.
Redford's only chance to win an Oscar as an actor came alongside Paul Newman in the rogue comedy"The Sting" (1973). However, the trophy went to Jack Lemmon for the satire"Save the Tiger." In his long career, Redford won only one Golden Boy, in 1981 as a director for his debut film,"Ordinary People." One consolation: In 2002, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts honored him with a lifetime achievement award.
At the age of 81, he found himself 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 die," Redford joked to reporters at the time.
He had previously expressed satisfaction with his life."I would do everything the same way again, even the mistakes, they're part of it, it's part of the life process," the actor and director told the German Press Agency in 2013 when he presented his ninth directorial work, the political thriller"The Company You Keep - The Grant File." So he had no regrets? "Nothing professionally, maybe privately, but I won't tell you that."
