The recent death of Robert Redford brought renewed interest to an unresolved search for a murder suspect the one accused of killing the boyfriend of the acclaimed actor's daughter in Colorado decades earlier. As local outlets recounted in the aftermath of Redford's death, his daughter Shauna was attending the University of Colorado Boulder when her boyfriend and fellow student, Sid Wells, was fatally shot in his apartment.
Both were a byword, too, for male beauty, fully alive to the almost laughable impact of their handsomeness, yet ill at ease, now and then, with their perches on the pedestal. "You're always dressed right, you always look right, you always say the right thing. You're very nearly perfect." So says Jane Fonda to Redford in "Barefoot in the Park" (1967), in which they play newlyweds. "That's a rotten thing to say," he replies.
I didn't realize he was 89, but even if he was, he had that air of immortality that attaches to all true movie stars. The double take seemed appropriate-Robert Redford, over his many decades on screen, had, among so many other things, managed to turn it into an art form. He was a kind of skittish actor, whose flashing, darting eyes often appeared almost frantic, whose movements skewed jerky, like there was a scrappy little boy constantly knocking against that old Hollywood exterior.
There's a moment in the 1975 Sydney Pollack thriller Three Days of the Condor that captures what made Robert Redford one of the great movie stars. Redford's Joe Turner is a bookish CIA analyst who leaves the office for lunch one day and returns to find that all of his colleagues have been murdered. He then goes on the run, forcing a photographer, Kathy Hale (Faye Dunaway), to let him use her basement apartment as a safe house.
Best known to global audiences for roles in films including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President's Men, Redford's performances and persona embodied America's self-image in the superpower decades after the Second World War. As a leading man he was principled and rugged, often compromised, always restless for change, and sometimes necessarily violent. But before Hollywood brought him fame, Redford's first ambition was to be a painter.
I was a newspaper reporter with USA Today at the time, and I'd arranged an hour-long sit-down with the bandwhich they abruptly canceled shortly before we were set to meet. Why? Well, Robert Redford had made them a better offer. The Sundance founder (and Sundance Kid) had invited them to his mountainside Sundance Mountain Resort to have a drink at his personal watering hole.
I had a mild case of polio-not enough to put me in an iron lung, but enough to keep me bedridden for weeks. As I came out of it, my mom wanted to do something for me. She realized that, growing up in the city, I'd missed out on a lot of nature.
When you're a larger-than-life, generation-spanning star like Robert Redford, the hard truth is that every movie is notable in some way. He was iconic in his own time, whether in front of the camera, or behind it. And in his lifetime, so many of his films transcended their original reviews to find passionate fanbases: Just ask older millennials about the 1992 hacker movie Sneakers or the Sex and the City generation about The Way We Were.
➡️ It's another intense news day, particularly for the trans community, as Utah prosecutors say text messages between Charlie Kirk's alleged shooter and his roommate (who has been under scrutiny from right-wing media for possibly being trans) have become pivotal evidence in the case. Meanwhile, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has quietly withdrawn a lawsuit against a doctor accused of providing gender-affirming care for youth, and AGs from nine other states have pledged to support young trans people.
But, for genre fans, and perhaps Marvel fans in specific, many will note that his last feature film ever was a brief cameo in Avengers: Endgame, in which he reprised his role as Alexander Pierce, one of the higher-ups at S.H.I.E.L.D. The Endgame moment was very brief because the real movie in which Redford plays Pierce isCaptain America: The Winter Soldier, which remains not only one of the most consequential Marvel movies in the saga but also holds up today as a solid superhero spy flick.
Robert Redford sits behind the camera (and lends some voice-over narration) for this 1992 film version of Norman Maclean's 1976 novella. A River Runs Through It tells the story of two brothers, played by Brad Pitt and Craig Sheffer, who are raised by their reverend father with a penchant for fly fishing in rural Montana. Through Redford's stately direction, A River Runs Through It soars beyond its sleepy grandpa-core appearances to wind up an emotionally powerful tale of brotherhood and
Redford and Fonda actually made five films together together, between 1960 and 2017. And though they never privately acted on that love Fonda said she felt, the two stars enjoyed one of the sweetest and most enduring friendships in Hollywood, according to People. Fonda addressed that friendship, as well as her grief in a statement Tuesday, after learning of Redford's death at age 89.
Spanning seven decades, his career in front of and behind the camera included some of the most iconic and beloved films in cinematic history. Notable among them were "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," "The Sting," and "Ordinary People." It was from the Western classic with co-star Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy that he adopted the moniker Sundance. He later applied it to his revolutionary film festival and the Utah resort that bears the name.
Redford died "at his home at Sundance in the mountains of Utah, the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved," his publicist Cindi Berger said. He passed away in his sleep at his home in the mountains of Utah, according to his publicist Cindi Berger. Redford rose to fame in films like "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "All the President's Men,"
The hardest thing in the world is when your children have problems. There have been so many hits on our family that no one knows about, and I don't want them to, for my family's sake. I've made some interesting movies, and I've been very satisfied with the work, but if someone wrapped it all up and said to me, 'What's your greatest achievement?' I'd say, 'The children. They're the best thing in my life'.
Hollywood legend and Oscar winning director and actor has died peacefully at his home in the mountains outside Provo aged 89. The New York Times reported that Redford died in his sleep, but no specific cause has been disclosed at this time. Redford was famed for his role in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and also starred alongside Brad Pitt in Spy Games. Redford is survived by Szaggers, his three children and seven grandchildren.
September 16, 2025 Robert Redford, the director, actor, and activist who won an Academy Award for "Ordinary People," has died at his home in Utah. Robert Redford, the Oscar-winning actor and director, has died at the age of 89. He passed away in his sleep at his home in the mountains of Utah, according to his publicist Cindi Berger, who shared a statement with the New York Times.
