Academy Award winning director Robert Redford dies at 89

PROVO, Utah (ABC4) — The Oscar-winning director, actor, producer, and Sundance founder, Robert Redford, has died at age 89.

Redford passed away at his home at Sundance early Tuesday morning. He was surrounded by the Utah mountains and loved ones when he passed.

Redford’s representative, Cindi Berger, confirmed his passing to ABC News. The Redford family requests privacy at this time of mourning.

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class="wp-block-heading">Who is Robert Redford?

Robert Redford was an Oscar-winning director, liberal activist, and became known as the “godfather for independent cinema” when he founded Sundance, after the name of one of his most-loved characters.

Rising to fame in the 1960s, Redford became a prominent star of the ’70s in films like “the Candidate,” “All the President’s Men,” and “The Way We Were.” Completing his legendary decade in film, in 1980 he won the Academy Award for best director for “Ordinary People.”

His wavy blond hair and sincere smile made him a desired leading man, but he worked hard to be more than a pretty face in his professional works. His political advocacy, taking on not so glamorous of a role, or his determination to provide a platform for low-budget films made him stand out as a unique star in Hollywood.

Taking on new roles like becoming a Washington Post journalist as Bob Woodward, to a mountain man in “Jeremiah Johnson,” to a double agent in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Redford was determined to have a variety of characters throughout his career.

Notable coworkers include Jane Fonda, Meryl Streep, and Tom Cruise, but his most well known screen partner, friend, and fellow activist, was Paul Newman. Their relationship was always warm and joking both on and off screen.

According to the Associated Press, “Redford played the wily outlaw opposite Newman in 1969’s “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” a box-office smash from which Redford’s Sundance Institute and festival got its name. He also teamed with Newman on 1973’s best picture Oscar winner, “The Sting,” which earned Redford a best-actor nomination as a young con artist in 1930s Chicago.”

After his leading acting career in the ’70s, Redford continued his career in film, focusing on directing and producing. He concentrated his time on his new role “as patriarch of the independent-film movement in the 1980s and ’90s through his Sundance Institute.”

His later acting roles included starring in 1985’s best picture “Out of Africa” as well as playing a shipwrecked sailor in the critically acclaimed film “All is Lost,” where he was the movie’s only performer. He called the 2018 film “The Old Man and the Gun” his farewell movie, notably saying, “I just figure that I’ve had a long career that I’m very pleased with. It’s been so long, ever since I was 21 — I figure now as I’m getting into my 80s, it’s maybe time to move toward retirement and spend more time with my wife and family.”

The Rise of Sundance

Being cautious of the Hollywood scene, Redford wanted to ensure the “creative spirit” of his early career didn’t die. Sundance was created to be a place for new talent without having the pressures of Hollywood. It provided a training for young artists as well as the Sundance Film Festival, based in Park City, Utah.

The Associated Press mentioned that Redford had purchased land in Utah with the initial idea of opening a ski resort. Park City soon became much more than that. It became a place of discovery for such previously unknown filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, Paul Thomas Anderson and Darren Aronofsky.

When discussing Sundance, Redford says, “For me, the word to be underscored is ‘independence.’ I’ve always believed in that word. That’s what led to me eventually wanting to create a category that supported independent artists who weren’t given a chance to be heard.

“The industry was pretty well controlled by the mainstream, which I was a part of. But I saw other stories out there that weren’t having a chance to be told and I thought, ‘Well, maybe I can commit my energies to giving those people a chance.’ As I look back on it, I feel very good about that.”

ABC News and Associated Press contributed to this reporting.