Sundance (United States) (AFP) - Cinema legend Robert Redford, a screen great in front of and behind the camera whose career spanned six decades, died Tuesday morning at his home in Utah, his publicist said. He was 89.

Redford died in his sleep, and a specific cause was not given, according to a statement by Cindi Berger, the chief executive of publicity firm Rogers & Cowan PMK.

“Robert Redford passed away on September 16, 2025, at his home at Sundance in the mountains of Utah – the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved,” Berger said.

The tousle-haired and freckled heartthrob made his breakthrough alongside Paul Newman as the affable outlaw in the Western “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” in 1969.

After 20 years as an actor, he moved behind the camera, becoming a director and co-founding the Sundance festival for aspiring independent filmmakers.

Redford won a directing Academy Award for his 1980 film “Ordinary People,” as well as an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement in 2002.

A committed environmental activist, Redford also fought to preserve the natural landscape and resources around Utah.

- ‘Pure joy’ -

Tributes poured in Tuesday – including from the leading man’s most celebrated female co-stars.

“One of the lions has passed. Rest in peace my lovely friend,” said Meryl Streep, who starred opposite Redford in “Out of Africa.”

Fellow actor-activist Jane Fonda, who like Redford made her film debut in 1960’s “Tall Story,” and reunited with him seven years later for “Barefoot in the Park,” mourned “a beautiful person in every way.”

“It hit me hard this morning when I read that Bob was gone. I can’t stop crying… He stood for an America we have to keep fighting for,” she said.

Barbra Streisand said every day with Redford on the set of “The Way We Were” was “exciting, intense and pure joy,” and hailed “one of the finest actors ever.”

Elsewhere, President Donald Trump described the actor as “great.”

“Robert Redford had a series of years where there was nobody better,” Trump told reporters after a journalist told him that Redford had died.

One of Redford’s most beloved roles was in the classic American political thriller “All the President’s Men” (1976), which tells the story of how two journalists exposed the Watergate scandal that brought down US president Richard Nixon.

Redford earned his only nomination for the best actor Oscar when playing a 1930s con artist in “The Sting” (1973) – but he did not win.

- ‘Redefined cinema’ -

Born Charles Robert Redford Jr. on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California, he was the son of an accountant.

Redford had four children with his first wife, Lola Van Wagenen, one of whom died as an infant.

He married German artist and longtime girlfriend Sibylle Szaggars in 2009.

In the snowy mountains of Utah that he called home, fans paid tribute to Redford’s conservation work as well as his movie legacy.

“I’ll remember him for his commitment to protect nature, Native Americans and animals,” 59-year-old Swiss pastry chef Monika Suter told AFP, weeping outside a conference building named after the actor.

One of Redford’s greatest achievements was the launch in 1985 of the Sundance Film Festival.

Created to discover new filmmakers and as an antidote to Hollywood’s commercialism, it has fostered leading directors such as Quentin Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh.

“We are deeply saddened by the loss of our founder and friend Robert Redford,” the Sundance Institute said in a statement.

“Bob’s vision of a space and a platform for independent voices launched a movement that, over four decades later, has inspired generations of artists and redefined cinema in the US and around the world.”