Robert Redford: The Storyteller Who Changed Hollywood

Charles Robert Redford Jr., the Oscar-winning actor, director, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival, died peacefully in his sleep on September 16 at his home in Sundance, Utah. He was 89.

Robert Redford was not only one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars of the 1970s but also a visionary filmmaker who reshaped American cinema. Over a career spanning six decades, he won an Academy Award for directing Ordinary People (1980), received an Honorary Oscar in 2002, and was honoured with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.

Audiences first embraced Redford in the 1960s, but it was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), opposite Paul Newman, that catapulted him to stardom.

The film’s success was followed by another Newman collaboration, The Sting (1973), which became a global phenomenon and earned Redford an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

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Other classics defined his place in Hollywood history:

• The Candidate (1972) – a sharp political drama that showcased his charisma and conscience.

• The Way We Were (1973) – his unforgettable romantic pairing with Barbra Streisand.

• All the President’s Men (1976) – where he portrayed journalist Bob Woodward, bringing the Watergate scandal to the screen.

• The Natural (1984) – a soaring sports fable that remains a beloved baseball film.

• Out of Africa (1985) – his sweeping romance with Meryl Streep, which went on to win Best Picture at the Oscars.

Even in his later years, Redford delivered powerful performances in All Is Lost (2013), a nearly wordless tale of survival at sea, and The Old Man & the Gun (2018), which he declared would be his final leading role.

Redford’s directorial debut, Ordinary People (1980), stunned Hollywood. The family drama won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, establishing him as one of the rare actors who achieved equal acclaim behind the camera.

He went on to direct A River Runs Through It (1992), which helped launch Brad Pitt’s career, and Quiz Show (1994), a searing look at television scandals that earned multiple Oscar nominations.

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Beyond his Oscar wins, Redford’s shelves carried five Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA Award, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, the Kennedy Centre Honours, France’s Honorary César, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2014, Time named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Redford was also a cultural builder. In 1981, he founded the Sundance Institute and Sundance Film Festival, creating a platform that gave rise to independent filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, and Chloé Zhao.