American actor, director, and environmental activist who received an Academy Award for Best Director for his film “Ordinary People” in 1980 and appeared in films that include “All The President’s Men,” 1976, “The Way We Were,” 1973, “The Sting,” 1973, “The Great Gatsby,” 1974, “The Natural,” 1984, “Out of Africa,” 1985, and “The Horse Whisperer,” 1998. He first became well known for his signature role as “The Sundance Kid” in the classic film “Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid,” 1969.
Redford is the only child of an accountant father and homemaker mother. Growing up in Van Nuys, California, he spent his childhood daydreaming of action beyond the narrow confines of his town. A poor student and often in trouble, he found his passion in art and baseball. “I grew up in a state of indescribable boredom – In grade school I hated being regimented. My mind wandered constantly. I’d amuse myself by sketching. My only outlet was sports. To alleviate the tedium I hung out with a pretty rough crowd in high school. Outgrowing all this, I went off to the University of Colorado on a baseball scholarship where I ran into another form of regimentation.” The death of his beloved mom during Redford’s 18th year confirmed his desire to escape and explore. “Then I quit, boarded a freighter and headed for Europe, where I bummed around trying to be a painter. And my real education, my real life began.”
After returning to Los Angeles, Redford married 18-year-old Lola Van Wagenen on 12 September 1958, a neighbor in his apartment building. The couple moved to New York, where Redford enrolled in The Pratt Institute of Art and Design and eventually in The American Academy of Dramatic Arts. By 1961 he had a leading role in the Broadway play “Sunday In New York,” followed by another leading role two years later in the Broadway hit “Barefoot In The Park.” In 1967 he played opposite Jane Fonda in the film of the same title, and was noticed by actor Paul Newman, who cast Redford to play opposite him in “Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid,” which catapulted Redford to superstardom.
While a steady stream of successful films followed in the ’70s and 80s, Redford changed his role from actor to director in the films “Ordinary People,” 1980, “The Milagro Beanfield War,” 1988, “A River Runs Through It,” 1992 and “Quiz Show,” 1994. In 1981, disgusted with the star making machinery of tinsel-town, Redford established The Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, now a Mecca for independent filmmakers from around the world. “I find Hollywood to be as cold and harsh a business as Wall Street. The dollar drives it, not art.”
In addition to acting, directing and managing Sundance, Redford is an crusader for saving the environment, receiving the Audubon medal from President George Bush. “The best thing we can do about the environment is to educate people. Then have enough faith in the people that once they understand, they’re going to be mad enough, frustrated enough, impatient enough to do something about it.”
In 1985 he and Lola separated, and they divorced in 1992. Redford maintains a good relationship with the family; they had weathered the death of their two-month-old first son Scott Anthony (born 1 September 1959) of SIDS on 17 November 1959, a 1984 car crash that nearly killed their daughter Shauna and their son Jamie’s liver transplant in 1993. Shauna, born on 15 November 1960, became an artist, Jamie, born on 5 May 1962, a screenwriter and Amy, born on 22 October 1970 in New York City, an actress. In memory of their first child, Redford has quietly worked to raise money for SIDS research (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). Son Jamie has suffered debilitating colitis which led to cirrhosis, and in 1993, underwent an unsuccessful liver transplant. After a second operation and more complications, Jamie is now fine. A grandfather of four, Redford sums up his life, “I’ve made some interesting movies, I’ve been very satisfied with the work, but if someone wrapped it all up and said to me ‘What’s your greatest achievement?’ I’d say, ‘The children. They’re the best thing in my life.”
In June 1990, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Massachusetts. A dedicated environmentalist, Redford was once burned in effigy, April 1976, for opposing a power plant construction in Utah. With his creation of the Sundance Institute and Film Festival in Utah, he has spurned Hollywood to split his time between rugged mountains near Salt Lake City and Manhattan. He loves skiing, values his privacy and is extremely selective in his acting and directing vehicles. Redford maintains two homes, one on his 5,000 acre ranch in the Wasatch Mountains in Utah and one in New York City.
He established a relationship with fashion designer Kathy O’Rear in 1993, whom he met on the set of his film, “A River Runs Through It,” and has had romances with actress Sonya Braga and artist Sibylle Szaggars. His youngest daughter, Amy Hart married on 25 June 2000, to photographer Mark Mann.
On 25 March 2002, he was awarded an honorary Oscar for his lifetime achievement in film.
On 11 July 2009 he married his girlfriend of the past 12 years, Sibylle Szaggars, age 51, in Hamburg, Germany. She is a German-born artist.
In May 2011, Alfred A. Knopf published Robert Redford: The Biography by Michael Feeney Callan, written over fifteen years with Redford’s input and drawn from his personal papers and diaries.
Link to Wikipedia biography