HOLLYWOOD icon Robert Redford has passed away at the age of 89, according to his publicist.
The actor, director and producer was both a quintessential Hollywood leading man and influential supporter of independent films through his Sundance Institute.
Redford’s charm and craggy good looks made him one of the industry’s most bankable leading men for half a century.
He became one of the world’s most recognizable and best-loved movie stars despite being initially dismissed as “just another California blond”.
Redford made hearts beat faster in romantic roles such as “Out of Africa” and got political in “The Candidate” and “All the President’s Men”.
He skewered his golden-boy image in roles like the alcoholic ex-rodeo champ in “The Electric Horseman” and middle-aged millionaire in “Indecent Proposal”.
Redford used his earnings to launch the Sundance Institute and Festival in the 1970s, promoting independent filmmaking before it became fashionable.
He never won the best actor Oscar but his directorial debut “Ordinary People” won Oscars for best picture and best director in 1980.
Redford remained best known for the two early movies he made with Paul Newman – “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “The Sting”.
“Butch Cassidy” made blue-eyed Redford an overnight star though he never felt comfortable with celebrity or the male starlet image.
He once told New York magazine that “People have been so busy relating to how I look, it’s a miracle I didn’t become a self-conscious blob of protoplasm”.
Redford maintained his privacy by buying land in remote Utah in the early 1970s for his family retreat.
He was married for more than 25 years to his first wife before their divorce in 1985 and married German artist Sibylle Szaggars in 2009.
Redford used his star status to seek challenging film projects and champion environmental causes throughout his career.
He often espoused a liberal viewpoint and during Donald Trump‘s presidency said “politics is in a very dark place right now”.
Born in Santa Monica in 1937 to a “lower working class family”, Redford initially pursued art before turning to acting.
He made his movie debut in 1962’s “Warhunt” but first won attention in “Barefoot in the Park” opposite Jane Fonda in 1967.
Redford turned down the role in “The Graduate” that made Dustin Hoffman famous, saying he never looked like a college student.
From the 1980s he devoted more time to producing films and developing the Sundance Institute and Festival.
He won an honorary lifetime achievement Oscar in 2001 and remained active in films until the end of his life.
Redford reunited with Fonda for the 2017 Netflix drama “Our Souls at Night” which he said would be one of his last acting roles.
Fonda told journalists that “He’s a great kisser so it was fun to kiss him in my 20s and to kiss him again in my almost 80s”.
Redford planned to focus more on directing and his first love of art in his final years. – Reuters
