Died at 89
male
Charles Robert Redford Jr. (August 18, 1936 – September 16, 2025) was an American actor, director and activist. Throughout his career, he won several film awards, including the Academy Award for Best Director for his 1980 film Ordinary People. He also received an honorary Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2002 and was also the founder of the Sundance Film Festival. In 2014, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and in 2016 he was honored with a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Appearing on stage in the late 1950s, Redford's television career began in 1960, including an appearance on The Twilight Zone in 1962. He earned an Emmy nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Voice of Charlie Pont (1962). His greatest Broadway success was as the stuffy newlywed husband of co-star Elizabeth Ashley's character in Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park (1963). Redford made his film debut in War Hunt (1962). His role in Inside Daisy Clover (1965) won him a Golden Globe for the best new star. He starred alongside Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), which was a huge success and made him a major star. He had a critical and box office hit with Jeremiah Johnson (1972), and in 1973 he had the greatest hit of his career, the blockbuster crime caper The Sting, a re-union with Paul Newman, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award; that same year, he also starred opposite Barbra Streisand in The Way We Were. The popular and acclaimed All the President's Men (1976) was a landmark film for Redford. In the 1980s, Redford began his career as a director with Ordinary People (1980), which was one of the most critically and publicly acclaimed films of the decade, winning four Oscars including Best Picture and the Academy Award for Best Director for Redford. He continued acting and starred in Brubaker (1980), as well as playing the male lead in Out of Africa (1985), which was an enormous box office success and won seven Oscars including Best Picture. He released his third film as a director, A River Runs Through It, in 1992. He went on to receive Best Director and Best Picture nominations in 1995 for Quiz Show. He received a second Academy Award—for Lifetime Achievement—in 2002. In 2010, he was made a chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur. He additionally won BAFTA, Directors Guild of America, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild awards.
After Hercules successfully completed the 12 labors, Apollo’s promise of an immortal life on Mount Olympus was still many difficult years way. Hercules had to rescue the princess of Troy from a hungry sea-monster and help Zeus defeat the Giants in a great battle for the control of Olympus before he could take his earned place among the Olympians. Many years later, Hercules married to Deianira, whose name means “man-destroyer” or “destroyer of her husband”. One day, upon returning home from what would be his last adventure, Deianira presented Hercules with a cloak. She had coated it in what she thought was a magic balm that would guarantee his love for her forever. Unfortunately for Hercules the balm was actually poison. When Hercules put the cloak on it began to burn him. Unable to get the cloak off, Hercules was sure death was the only release from this agonizing pain. And so a huge funeral pyre was built for the hero atop Mount Oeta. Just as the fire started to burn all around Hercules, the gods looked down from Mount Olympus. At that moment, Hera finally agreed that Hercules had indeed suffered enough. Zeus sent Athena to save Hercules from the burning pyre and bring him to Mount Olympus on her chariot. So that was cool. Finally, at the end of Hercules’ story, he was welcomed home and allowed to spend eternity among the gods on Mount Olympus.
