Sundance Kid's reach surpassed the big screen

Robert Redford, a generational icon who commanded the big screen as the star of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "The Way We Were" and won awards and lasting praise for directing films such as "Ordinary People," has died. He was 89.

- BY NARDINE SAAD

GENERATIONAL ICON Robert Redford's star rose opposite Paul Newman in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," above.

Long a critical force in the elevation of independent filmmaking through the Sundance Institute, Redford died Tuesday morning at his home, his publicist confirmed. He was "in the mountains of Utah - the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved," the statement said.

Redford was a natural star who seemed to comfortably reflect the postwar zeitgeist in America with his choice of movie roles and side projects. As Newsweek put it, "What Redford has always captured best is the flawed American hero."

Redford's most memorable roles were arguably those that exploited the juxtaposition of the actor's chiseled, class-president good looks and his ability to conjure up a scarred and hostile psyche. Whether he was playing the sulky, driven Olympic hopeful in "Downhill Racer, the corruptible political idealist in "The Candidate" or the charismatic outlaw in "Butch Cassidy," Redford said he hewed to that line "between what appears and what is."

"There was always that tension, and the darker side is what interests me," he said. "People always ask me, 'Why did you play all those inarticulate guys?' Well, that was the way you made the point playing a character who can't always articulate what he's feeling and who has to develop action to find out."

The late director Sydney Pollack, a frequent Redford collaborator, explained his allure this way: "Bob is a minimalist; he withholds, he never seduces his audience but makes them come to him."