Robert Redford, who died on September 16, 2025, was more than a Hollywood icon; he was a devoted father shaped by profound private loss. Behind the golden-boy image and the Sundance legacy stood a man whose deepest joys—and deepest pains—were bound to his family.

Married to Lola Van Wagenen in 1958, Redford became a young father in New York. Their first child, Scott, died of SIDS at just 2½ months in 1959, a trauma Redford said never fully left him and even stirred irrational guilt. The grief lingered in the shadows of his soaring career.

Decades later, tragedy returned when his second son, James “Jamie” Redford, died in 2020 at 58 after liver cancer and lifelong autoimmune disease. A filmmaker and environmental advocate, Jamie shared an unbreakable bond with his father, who mourned privately and praised his son’s legacy of art and conservation.

Redford’s surviving daughters, painter Shauna (married to author Eric Schlosser) and filmmaker-actor Amy, continue his artistic spirit and humanity. Despite fame and accolades, he called his children his greatest achievement. He passed peacefully at his beloved Utah home, surrounded by family.