What happened to Robert Redford’s son? Inside actor’s family and health struggles as he turns 89

Hollywood legend Robert Redford, who turned 89 on August 18, experienced a deep personal loss when his son died at the age of 58. On October 16, 2020, James Redford, an activist, filmmaker, and philanthropist, died from bile-duct cancer in his liver at his home in Marin County, California.

According to James' wife, Kyle, who spoke to The Salt Lake Tribune in 2020, his cancer was discovered in November 2019 while he was waiting for a liver transplant. She also shared that his previous liver disease had returned two years ago.

Announcing his death, Kyle took to X on October 17, stating:

“Jamie died today. We’re heartbroken. He lived a beautiful, impactful life & was loved by many. He will be deeply missed. As his wife of 32 [years], I’m most grateful for the two spectacular children we raised together. I don’t know what we would’ve done [without] them over the past 2 [years].”

Subsequently, a representative for Robert also shared a statement on his behalf following James' passing:

"The grief is immeasurable with the loss of a child. Jamie was a loving son, husband and father. His legacy lives on through his children, art, filmmaking and devoted passion to conservation and the environment."

According to his IMDb page, James Redford, who was born in New York City, was diagnosed in 1993 with a rare autoimmune disease affecting the liver called Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis. After battling the illness and receiving two liver transplants, he was inspired to launch the James Redford Institute for Transplant Awareness, a nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness about organ and tissue donation.

Following more than a decade of work as a screenwriter and producer, James co-founded The Redford Center in 2005 with his father, Robert Redford, which is an "environmentally-focused storytelling non-profit."

He met his wife, Kyle, at the University of Colorado Boulder, and they married in June 1998. They had two kids, Dylan and Lena. He is Robert Redford's third child with his ex-wife, Lola Van Wagenen.

Robert Redford's personal life explored

Robert Redford was born on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California, to Charles Robert Redford and Martha Hart, who died when he was just 18 years old from a hemorrhage. 

"The one person who stood behind me was my mother. She believed that all things considered, she just had faith that I had something in me that was going to turn out OK,” he told Closer Weekly in February 2018.

In his 2011 book Robert Redford: The Biography, author Michael Feeney Callan revealed that Redford had polio as a child. In an interview with NPR’s radio show Fresh Air, published in September 2018, Redford explained that he had "mild polio," which left him bedridden for two weeks.

“And because in those days, polio, before the Salk vaccine was discovered, what hung over your childhood was always the fear of polio because all you saw were people in iron lungs. So yeah, when I got it, it was because of an extreme exertion in the ocean - in this bright sunlight in the ocean. And it was alarming, but it wasn't serious enough to go much further,” he added.

He married his first wife, Lola Van Wagenen, on August 9, 1958, and had four kids, and divorced in 1985. Tragically, their first child passed away in 1959 from sudden infant death syndrome at just two months old. Later in 1996, he met Sibylle Szaggars at his Sundance Mountain Resort and married in her hometown of Hamburg, Germany, in July 2009. They do not have any children together.

Robert Redford made his film debut in the 1960s in Tall Story. He rose to fame with a series of iconic performances in Barefoot in the Park (1967), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Jeremiah Johnson (1972), and Candidate (1972).