Actor and director Robert Redford has died at age 89.
Redford died on Tuesday, September 16, at his home in Utah, according to a statement to The New York Times from his publicist Cindi Berger. His rep confirmed that he died in his sleep but did not provide a specific cause.
Redford got his start in the ’60s with small roles on TV before movies like Barefoot in the Park with Jane Fonda made him a star. He went on to star in classic films including Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Way We Were, Out of Africa, All the President’s Men and Three Days of the Condor. The Sting, which was released in 1973, earned Redford his first and only acting Oscar nomination.
In the 1980s, Redford transitioned into directing, winning an Academy Award for his directorial debut, Ordinary People.
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Redford was also an activist and is known for founding the nonprofit Sundance Institute, which went on to become the Sundance Film Festival.
“I was born with a hard eye,” Redford told The Hollywood Reporter in 2014. “The way I saw things, I would see what was wrong. I could see what could be better. I developed kind of a dark view of life, looking at my own country.”
Before his death, Redford made a brief appearance in the season 3 premiere of Dark Winds alongside Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin. The duo, who were both executive producers on the show, played incarcerated men engaged in a high-stakes game of chess behind bars in the March episode.
Director Chris Eyre opened up about working with Redford in his return to acting after a six-year hiatus. According to Eyre, a potential Redford cameo had been “in the air since the first season,” and there were plans for Redford to appear in the season 2 finale.
“I never thought I could get to a place in my life where I would know Robert Redford, let alone be in a scene with him,” Dark Winds star Zahn McClarnon told Vulture.
Showrunner John Wirth, meanwhile, confirmed that there were obstacles they had to address before Redford’s cameo was filmed, adding, “I was never really sure it was going to happen until it happened.”
Redford’s final role before he returned to the spotlight in Dark Winds was in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, where he reprised the role of former S.H.I.E.L.D. director turned HYDRA traitor Alexander Pierce from Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
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After starring in 2018’s The Old Man & the Gun, Redford said that was likely his final onscreen appearance.
“Never say never, but I pretty well concluded that this would be it for me in terms of acting, and [I’ll] move towards retirement after this ’cause I’ve been doing it since I was 21,” Redford told Entertainment Weekly at the time. “I thought, ‘Well, that’s enough.’ And why not go out with something that’s very upbeat and positive?”
Redford walked that decision back one month later, telling Variety it “was a mistake” to announce he was retiring.
“I should never have said that,” he said. “If I’m going to retire, I should just slip quietly away from acting, but I shouldn’t be talking about it because I think it draws too much attention in the wrong way. I want to be focused on this film and the cast.”
Redford is survived by his wife, Sibylle Szaggars, and daughters Shauna, 64, and Amy, 54, whom he shared with first wife Lola Van Wagenen. Their son James died of cancer in October 2020 at age 58. Their first child, son Scott, died of SIDS in 1959 when he was 2 months old. Redford also had seven grandchildren.
