Robert Redford, Hollywood Icon Who Transformed Independent Cinema, Dies at 89

There are so few true titans of classic filmmaking, and Robert Redford was definitely one of them.

I remember volunteering at the Sundance Film Festival one year at the Marc. We heard through our headsets that "a special guest" would be arriving momentarily. We all knew what that meant. Minutes later, through the press tent came Redford, the festival founder. I've not seen a Hollywood legend like that in any other setting.

Redford died on Tuesday morning in Utah. He was 89.

Charles Robert Redford Jr. was born August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California. Before becoming the godfather of indie film, Redford established himself as one of Hollywood's most compelling leading men.

He was a staple of so many 1970s-era hits, like The Sting and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, along with adult dramas like All the President's Men (where he also served as producer) and Three Days of the Condor.

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He starred in family drama The Way We Were with Barbra Streisand, and The Natural with Robert Duvall. He appeared in more than 50 films over his six-decade career as both an actor and director. He retired from acting in 2018 after The Old Man & the Gun.

As a director, Redford debuted with Ordinary People, winning the Oscar for Best Director and Best Picture. He continued exploring complex stories with A River Runs Through It, which launched Brad Pitt's career, Quiz Show, which earned him Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Director, and The Horse Whisperer, which he also starred in.

While Redford's good looks and magnetic screen presence made him one of the biggest box office draws of the 1970s, his most enduring contribution to cinema may be his work championing independent filmmakers.

Redford founded the Sundance Institute in 1981 to foster independence, risk-taking, and new voices in American film. The Sundance Institute began humbly, with 15 independent filmmakers chosen to be mentored by film experts such as Waldo Salt and Sydney Pollack in the first script lab.

“There was no room for independent film anymore—everything was becoming more centralized. I could see there was going to be a gap,” Redford said during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival (via Screen Daily).

To fund the Sundance non-profit workshops, Redford obtained a $25,000 government grant. That modest beginning would grow into a transformative force for cinema.

In 2014, TIME named him the "Godfather of Indie Film" in the magazine's "Most Influential People in the World" round-up. The title reflected his decades-long commitment to nurturing voices that might otherwise have been silenced by commercial pressures.

"Take Bob Redford out of the equation," TIME wrote, "and Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith, David O. Russell, Paul Thomas Anderson and other top filmmakers might have had a much rockier road."

Through Sundance, Redford created a movement that democratized filmmaking and gave numerous storytellers their first chance to be heard.