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Actor Robert Redford Dead At 89

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Robert Redford, the actor and director who sailed to Hollywood stardom with turns in classics such as “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “All the President’s Men” and invigorated American independent cinema as the founder of the organization behind the Sundance Film Festival, died Tuesday morning.

He was 89.

Cindi Berger, his publicist, said he died at his home “in the mountains of Utah — the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved. He will be missed greatly. The family requests privacy.”

Redford was best known as a go-to leading man of the late 1960s and 1970s, instantly recognizable for his windswept hair and widely beloved for his easy charisma. But he was also an accomplished filmmaker, committed political activist and culture-shaping entrepreneur.

He won the best director Oscar for the family melodrama “Ordinary People” (1980), the first of his nine stints behind the camera.

Redford’s expansive spirit will live on through the Sundance Institute, a nonprofit organization he founded in 1981 that sponsors the Sundance Film Festival. The festival, held annually in snowy Park City, Utah, showcases offbeat projects and has helped launch many careers.

“I saw other stories out there that weren’t having a chance to be told and I thought, ‘Well, maybe I can commit my energies to giving those people a chance,’” Redford recalled in a 2018 interview. “As I look back on it, I feel very good about that.”

In a career that stretched more than six decades, Redford won two Academy Awards, including an honorary prize in 2002, and three Golden Globe Awards, including the Cecil B. DeMille Award lifetime achievement honor in 1994.

President Barack Obama awarded Redford the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, saying in remarks at the White House that Americans “admire Bob not just for his remarkable acting, but for having figured out what to do next.”

Charles Robert Redford Jr. was born Aug. 18, 1936, in the beachside community of Santa Monica, California, to Martha Hart and Charles Robert Redford Sr., a milkman turned oil company accountant.

The younger Redford described himself as a poor student who was more interested in the arts and athletics. He graduated from Van Nuys High School in 1954 and briefly attended the University of Colorado Boulder. He later ambled around Europe, soaking up the culture in France, Spain and Italy.

Born in the cold month of December, Scotty grew up as a horror fan. With his first horror film ever seen being "Friday the 13th Part 7: The New Blood," Scotty immediately fell in love with horror. Having written six books, the most recent being "The Ultimate Halloween Movie Experience," published by BearManor Media, and being represented by Universal Talent Bookings and 3iBooks Literary Agency, Scotty is excited to bring his horror expertise to GoreCulture to entertain the audience with his vast knowledge of the "spooky things!"