Matthew Wilson
Robert Redford has tragically died. The actor was a Hollywood legend and starred in some of the industry’s most beloved classics such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Videos by Rare
What happened: His representatives confirmed that he passed away earlier on September 16 at his home in Utah.
“Robert Redford passed away on Sept. 16, 2025, at his home at Sundance in the mountains of Utah — the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved,” Cindi Berger, chairman and CEO of Rogers & Cowan PMK, said in a statement. “He will be missed greatly. The family requests privacy.”
The New York Times first reported his death. Berger confirmed that he died peacefully in his sleep.
Robert Redford’s Career
Redford passed, but he leaves a lasting legacy. Going back to the 1970s, he wowed audiences and picked up a Best Actor Academy Award nomination for 1973’s The Sting. He then tried his hand behind the camera, winning an Oscar for Best Director for 1980’s Ordinary People.
In 2002, the Oscars awarded him an honorary Academy Award. At the time he said, “I’ve spent most of my life just focused on the road ahead, not looking back. But now tonight, I’m seeing in the rearview mirror that there is something I’ve not thought about much, called history.”
But arguably the most beloved film of his career was Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
- “I was being put up for Butch Cassidy because I’d done the comedy. But that part didn’t interest me,” Redford told Collider in 2019. “What interested me was the Sundance Kid because I could relate to that based on my own experience and particularly my own childhood and feeling like an outlaw most of my life. So I told [director] George [Roy Hill], and he knew Paul really well and knew he was much more like Butch Cassidy, so George turned it all around. He went to Paul and they argued a bit until Paul finally realized that George was right. He was well known and I wasn’t, which is why they switched the title, too.”
Leaving A Legacy Behind
Robert Redford continued to act well into the twilight years of his career, but ultimately, he decided to retire after making The Old Man & the Gun. “Never say never, but I pretty well concluded that this would be it for me in terms of acting, and [I’ll] move towards retirement after this ’cause I’ve been doing it since I was 21,” he said at the time.
However, he later recanted, saying, “I think it was a mistake to say that I was retiring because you never know. It did feel like it was time, maybe, to concentrate on another category.” Ultimately, Redford would only make two voice actor roles and a cameo after retiring.
As an artist, he had a lot to say.
“To be able to be part of a freedom of expression that allows us as artists to tell our stories in our own way about the human condition, the complexities of life, the world around us, is a gift and not one to be taken lightly,” he said. “And I think the glory of art is that it can not only survive change, it can lead it. As an artist, I just can’t think of a better life than the one that I’ve been blessed with.”
