Robert Redford

Charles Robert Redford Jr. (August 18, 1936 – September 16, 2025) was an American actor, director, and producer. Recognized as a leading man during the American New Wave, his career spanned more than six decades. He won an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and five Golden Globe Awards, and received honors including the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Kennedy Center Honors, and an Academy Honorary Award.

Redford was born in Santa Monica, California, to Martha Woodruff Redford and accountant Charles Robert Redford Sr. He grew up in Van Nuys, attended Van Nuys High School, and suffered a mild case of polio at age 11. He attended the University of Colorado in Boulder for a year and a half before traveling in Europe. He later studied painting at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and dramatic arts at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Manhattan.

Redford began his career in New York City, working in television and on stage. After appearing in plays such as Tall Story (1959) and Barefoot in the Park (1963), and guest-starring on television shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Twilight Zone, he earned an Emmy nomination for The Voice of Charlie Pont (1962). He made early feature film appearances in War Hunt (1962), Inside Daisy Clover (1965)—which earned him a Golden Globe—and Sydney Pollack's This Property Is Condemned (1966).

Redford achieved stardom with the film adaptation of Barefoot in the Park (1967) and his pairing with Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), winning a BAFTA for his role. During the 1970s, he starred in popular films including Jeremiah Johnson (1972), The Candidate (1972), The Way We Were (1973), The Great Gatsby (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975), and All the President's Men (1976). His role in The Sting (1973) earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and movie exhibitors voted him Hollywood's top box-office star from 1974 to 1976.

In 1980, Redford directed his first feature, Ordinary People, winning the Academy Award for Best Director. His later directorial work included The Milagro Beanfield War (1988), A River Runs Through It (1992), and Quiz Show (1994). As an actor, he starred in hits like The Natural (1984) and Out of Africa (1985), and later appeared in All Is Lost (2013) and The Old Man & the Gun (2018). He portrayed Alexander Pierce in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) and Avengers: Endgame (2019), which marked his final film role.

Beyond acting and directing, Redford co-founded the Sundance Institute and the Sundance Film Festival in 1978 to support independent cinema. He was also active in environmental activism, supported Native American and Indigenous rights, and advocated for LGBTQ equality.