Robert Redford, who has died at the age of 89, began as a blond bombshell at a time when American cinema favoured grit, then turned into a supremely assured director and unlikely keeper of the indie flameRobert Redford, giant of American cinema, dies aged 89 – newsRobert Redford – a life in picturesTributes paid to Robert Redford – latest updatesAs the 1960s turned into the 1970s, it wasn’t cool for star actors to be good-looking. The style was more a scuffed, grizzled, bleary, sweaty, paunchy and shlubby realness. The fashion was for leading men like Gene Hackman, Jack Nicholson, Woody Allen. Even a very beautiful man like Paul Newman had a kind of rugged, daylit quality. But Robert Redford was very different. Here was a supremely beautiful movie star who went on to direct, produce and then be the guardian and gatekeeper of commercial-indie US cinema at his Sundance Institute. And he was always an outlier.When movie audiences thrilled to George Roy Hill’s western Butch Cassidy and ...