Hollywood icon Robert Redford dies at 89

• Oscar-winning actor-turned-filmmaker Robert Redford passed away on September 16. He was 89.

• He was an influential supporter of independent films through his Sundance Institute.

• Robert Redford was born Charles Robert Redford Jr. on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, a California boy whose blonde good looks eased his way over an apprenticeship in television and live theatre that eventually led to the big screen.

• He had an early interest in drawing and painting, then went on to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, debuting on Broadway in the late 1950s and moving into television on such shows as ‘The Twilight Zone’, ‘Alfred Hitchcock Presents’ and ‘The Untouchables’.

• After scoring a Broadway lead in Sunday in New York, Redford was cast by director Mike Nichols in a production of Neil Simon’s ‘Barefoot in the Park’.

• He made his movie debut in 1962 in a low budget film called ‘Warhunt’, but first won attention in ‘Barefoot in the Park’ (1967), opposite Jane Fonda.

• After rising to stardom in the 1960s, Redford was one of the biggest stars of the ’70s with such films as ‘The Candidate’, ‘All the President’s Men’ and ‘The Way We Were’, capping that decade with the best director Oscar for  ‘Ordinary People’, which also won best picture in 1980.

• His most famous screen partner was his old friend and fellow activist and practical joker Paul Newman. 

• Redford played the wily outlaw opposite Newman in 1969’s ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’, a box-office smash from which Redford’s Sundance Institute and festival got its name. 

• He also teamed with Newman on 1973’s best picture Oscar winner, ‘The Sting’, which earned Redford a best-actor nomination as a young con artist in 1930s Chicago.

• Film roles after the ’70s became more sporadic as Redford concentrated on directing and producing, and his new role as patriarch of the independent-film movement in the 1980s and ’90s through his Sundance Institute. 

• He devoted more time to producing films and to the establishment of the Sundance Institute — a year-round workshop for aspiring filmmakers — and the Sundance Festival, which has become one of the most influential independent film showcases in the world.