Dead Robert Redford, Hollywood star with an independent soul

The actor, director and activist Robert Redford has died at the age of 89 at his home in Provo, Utah. The death was confirmed to the New York Times by Cindi Berger, the CEO of the advertising firm Rogers & Cowan Pmk. Redford died in his sleep. For more than half a century he embodied the myth of American cinema. With him goes not only one of the public's most beloved faces, but also a pioneer who knew how to combine glamour and civil commitment, star appeal and attention to the most intimate and difficult stories.

It was 1969 when audiences all over the world saw him riding alongside Paul Newman inButch Cassidy: his easygoing smile, his clear and rebellious gaze, his naturalness in front of the camera consecrated him as an instant icon. Since then Redford has never left the collective imagination. In the Seventies he signed a series of films destined to go down in history: The Stingata with Paul Newman, The Way We Were with Barbra Streisand, The Three Days of the Condor, up to All the President's Men, in which he played the role of journalist Bob Woodward and recounted the Watergate scandal.

Redford had within him the urge to tell something else, to go further. In 1980, with Everyday People, he went behind the camera and immediately won an Oscar for directing. He never stopped: from In the Middle Runs the River to Quiz Show, up to The Horse Whisperer, each of his films reflected the search for authenticity, the tension towards true, human, universal stories. At the same time, Redford built a temple for independent cinema: the Sundance Institute and the Sundance Film Festival, a hotbed of new talent and a voice for those who found no space in the industry. Without him, the landscape of young American filmmakers would be different today. His private life, marked by love, pain and constant commitment, was intertwined with his public image.

Four children were born from his marriage to Lola Van Wagenen, but tragedy struck early: eldest son Scott died as an infant, son James in 2020 at the age of 58. Since 2009 he had been married to the German painter Sibylle Szaggars, a discreet and faithful companion. In recent years he had reduced his public appearances, but had not ceased to be a reference point for colleagues and film buffs. In 2013 he surprised everyone with All Is Lost, an almost silent film in which, alone on a boat in the middle of the ocean, he fought for survival. An extreme work, almost an artistic testament, which once again demonstrated his ability to put himself on the line. With his death, an era closes. Redford was not only an actor, not only a director, not only an activist: he was a stubborn dreamer, convinced that cinema could change people and the world. The America of the silver screen loses one of its last romantic heroes, and international audiences a fellow actor who spanned generations.