Robert Redford, Actor, Director, Environmentalist, Dead at 89

Robert Redford, the dashing actor and Oscar-winning director who eschewed his status as a Hollywood leading man to champion causes close to his heart, has died, according to his publicist Cindi Berger, chairman and CEO of Rogers & Cowan PMK. He was 89, Tricia Escobedo reported for CNN.

Redford was also a dedicated environmentalist, moving to Utah in 1961 and leading efforts to preserve the natural landscape of the state and the American West. (Photo: World Travel & Tourism Council Flickr)

“Robert Redford passed away on September 16, 2025, at his home at Sundance in the mountains of Utah — the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved. He will be missed greatly,” Berger said in a statement to CNN.

“The family requests privacy.”

Known for his starring roles in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President’s Men, Redford also directed award-winning films such as Ordinary People and A River Runs Through It. 

His passion for the art of filmmaking led him to establish the Sundance Institute, a nonprofit that supports independent film and theater and is best known for its annual Sundance Film Festival.

Redford was also a dedicated environmentalist, moving to Utah in 1961 and leading efforts to preserve the natural landscape of the state and the American West.

Redford acted well into his later years, reuniting with Jane Fonda in the 2017 Netflix film Our Souls at Night. 

The following year, he starred in The Old Man & the Gun at age 82, a film he said would be his last — although he insisted, he would never fully retire.

“To me, retirement means stopping something or quitting something,” he told CBS Sunday Morning in 2018. “There’s this life to lead, why not live it as much as you can as long as you can?”

In October 2020, Redford voiced concern over the lack of focus on climate change amid devastating wildfires in the western United States, in an opinion piece he wrote for CNN.

That same month, Redford’s 58-year-old son, David James Redford, died of cancer.