(born 1937) Blond, blue-eyed handsome romantic hero whose roles have embodied some of the most characteristic images of American masculinity, while sometimes adding tragic or ironic reverberations. In a string of movies that made him one of the country’s most popular actors from the 1970s onwards, Redford has been the outlaw (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969, and others), the operator (The Sting, 1973), the athlete (The Natural, 1984), the crusading journalist (All the President’s Men, 1976) and, always, the romantic lover (The Way We Were, 1973; Out of Africa, 1984; Up Close and Personal, 1996). As he has matured, Redford has also become involved in production and direction, winning a directing Oscar for Ordinary People (1980). That same year, he founded the Sundance Institute near his Utah resort and ranch, which has grown to be a major site for the training and exposition of independent film-makers through the Sundance Film Festival.