Robert Redford Dead at 89
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| Mr. Redford, seen here in 1960, enjoyed being a sex symbol, except when he didn’t. “This glamour image can be a real handicap,” he once complained. |
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Mr. Redford enjoyed being a sex symbol, except when he didn’t. “This glamour image can be a real handicap,” he complained in a 1974 profile in The Times.
Nonetheless, it was his broad grin, tousled reddish-blond hair and all-American look (“WASP jock” in his own words) that first won the audience to his side. “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” was a well-reviewed picture, but it succeeded at the box office in large part because Mr. Redford — with deft comedic timing honed from Neil Simon was paired with another matinee idol, Paul Newman. They repeated the trick in 1973 for the same director, George Roy Hill, with “The Sting.”
Robert Redford, the big-screen charmer turned Oscar-winning director whose hit movies often helped America make sense of itself and who, off screen, evangelized for environmental causes and fostered the Sundance-centered independent film movement, died early Tuesday morning at his home in Utah. He was 89.
His death, in the mountains outside Provo, was announced in a statement by Cindi Berger, the chief executive of the publicity firm Rogers & Cowan PMK. She said he had died in his sleep but did not provide a specific cause. He was in “the place he loved surrounded by those he loved,” the statement said.
With a distaste for Hollywood’s dumb-it-down approach to moviemaking, Mr. Redford typically demanded that his films carry cultural weight, in many cases making serious topics like grief and political corruption resonate with audiences, in no small part because of his immense star power.
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