Actor Robert Redford, who died on September 16, 2025, at the age of 89, was in a long-term marriage to wife Sibylle Szaggars Redford.
They met in 1996 and married in 2009 after meeting at his Sundance Mountain Resort, according to People. She was at the resort to ski. Szaggars Redford’s website describes her as “a German-born multimedia environmental artist whose artwork has been exhibited throughout Europe, Monaco, Peru, Singapore, Japan, Suriname, and the United States.”
“Her artistry spans across mediums and decades, from painted oil sketches and photographs of her Moroccan travels, expressions on canvas from her American Indian Pueblo visits, large Oil paintings where she explores ‘The Shape of Color’ and her recent works of watercolor abstracts shaped by the monsoon rains of Santa Fe, New Mexico,” her website says.
According to CBS News, a spokesperson for Redford told the network he died “at his home in the mountains of Utah surrounded by those he loved.”
Robert Redford’s Wife Sibylle Szaggars Didn’t Realize How Big a Star He Was at First, Reports Say
Redford and his wife spoke together in a public appearance for YoungArts Salon, and she revealed that she didn’t know much about him when he first asked her and friends to dinner.
“I knew of him. I had seen Jeremiah Johnson — one of my favorite films — and Barefoot in the Park,” she said, before revealing that she didn’t know much else.
Szaggars also spoke about her work as an artist in that interview.
“You don’t want to become an artist to make big money. You have to follow your passion. You have to stick with your integrity with yourself and your art. I think that’s the most important. Everything else will follow,” she said.
Redford said one of the things “I love about her is she’s totally intuitive. There’s not a lot of planning or thought. Something just happens, and it comes off of intuition.”
He said she worked as a trader for a time. “And her heart is, ‘I think I’ll do this….’ It just happens.”
When they first met, she said they spent two days in a recording studio in New York and “this is where we bonded.”
Redford indicated that he preferred that she didn’t know how big a celebrity he was at first. “It was a wonderful beginning of a relationship, because it began as two human beings meeting each other and finding a connection as two human beings, rather than being colored by success,” he said.
Redford’s wife’s art focuses on the environment.
“Having worked as an environmental artist for almost 4 decades, her desire is to create art that transcends words, languages, cultures and politics. Szaggars Redford creates art in order to speak to a deeper universal consciousness that’s connected to and dependent on the earth and its environments,” her website bio says.
Sibylle Szaggars Is Robert Redford’s 2nd Wife
(Photo by Bret Lundberg/IMAGES/Getty Images)
Redford was married once before.
According to TODAY, his first wife was Lola Van Wagenen. They were married from 1958 to 1985 and had four kids together.
Their two sons, James and Scott Redford, died in 2020 and 1959, according to TODAY. Their daughters Shauna and Amy Redford are still alive.
This story was originally reported by Men’s Journal on Sep 16, 2025, where it first appeared in the Entertainment section. Add Men’s Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.