Robert Redford

Robert Redford, one of Hollywood’s true icons, has died at 89. For more than half a century he embodied the golden era of American cinema, shaping not just what movies looked like, but how America saw itself.

Redford’s career spanned genres, but time and again he returned to the frontier. His roles in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Electric Horseman, and Jeremiah Johnson cemented his place in the Western pantheon. In each, Redford brought a mix of vulnerability and defiance that helped redefine the archetype of the American hero.

Jeremiah Johnson, loosely inspired by the life of John “Liver-Eating” Johnston, remains one of his most memorable turns. I explored Johnston’s real story in a series for Legends of the Old West, where the brutal truth of the mountain man’s life contrasts sharply with the mythic version Redford carried to the screen. That contrast, the borderland between fact and legend, is the same terrain where the stories of Texas Jack Omohundro, Buffalo Bill, and Wild Bill Hickok once rode.

But Redford was larger than any single role. He was an actor, director, producer, and the visionary behind the Sundance Institute, nurturing generations of storytellers who continue to expand the boundaries of American film. He shaped the Western, but he also shaped Hollywood itself.

The mythology of the West has always thrived on reinvention, from dime novels to Wild West shows to classic films. Redford was part of that continuum, carrying the torch from Texas Jack to Tom Mix to John Wayne to Clint Eastwood and beyond. With his passing, we lose more than a star, we lose one of the great keepers of America’s cinematic frontier.