Robert Redford’s Relationships: From the Woman He Married Before He Was Famous to the Wife He Met at Sundance
See how his two marriages shaped his career and helped inspire his activism
As one of the most handsome leading men of the ’60s and ’70s, Robert Redford was the subject of countless crushes, and the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid star’s love life proved to be an enduring source of fascination. Unlike his contemporaries such as Warren Beatty, Redford, who infamously lost out on the lead role in The Graduate because he revealed he’d never been romantically rejected, actually settled down before he was famous, and managed to keep his private life fairly private.
Read on for a look at Redford’s first marriage to Lola Van Wagenen, his current marriage to Sibylle Szaggars and some of the women he dated in between.
Lola Van Wagenen: The woman Robert Redford married before he was famous
Robert Redford married his first wife, Lola Van Wagenen, in 1958, before he had any movie credits to his name. Like Redford, Van Wagenen was dedicated to political causes, and she cofounded the environmental organization Consumer Action Now in 1970. In 1995, she cofounded Clio Visualizing History, an organization dedicated to promoting historical education.
Van Wagenen was instrumental in Redford’s legacy, as she was from Utah, and Redford would develop a deep connection with his wife’s home state, building a family home there and founding the Sundance Film Festival, which would become one of Utah’s major events, in 1978.
Redford and Van Wagenen weathered personal trauma when their first child, Scott, passed away from sudden infant death syndrome at just 2 months old in 1959. They went on to have three more children; Shauna, now an artist; James, who became a director and activist, and sadly died at 58 in 2020; and Amy, now a director and actress.
After more than 20 years of marriage, the Ordinary People director and his wife divorced. They never publicly announced their split, but in the ’80s and ’90s, Redford was romantically linked to actresses Sonia Braga, who appeared in the The Milagro Beanfield War (1988), which he directed, and Lena Olin, his costar in the 1990 historical drama Havana.
Looking back on his marriage and divorce, Redford said, “It was mutual and it was right to move on. We still have great love, great affection, great friendship. It is wonderful, and I think we probably deserve credit for it because the kids are great, they came through it OK. I never wanted to be one of those divorced showbusiness casualties—so predictable! I wanted to prove that a marriage could last and prove the business wrong. But I couldn’t.”
Sibylle Szaggars: Robert Redford’s current wife and partner in activism
Robert Redford met his current wife, German artist Sibylle Szaggars, at his Sundance Mountain Resort in the ’90s. After years of partnership, they married in 2009, and have been together ever since.
Redford and Szaggars share a deep passion for environmental activism, and he serves as the vice president for The Way of the Rain, an environmental non-profit she founded in 2015. Redford and his wife prefer to keep the spotlight on their art and activism rather than their marriage, but he spoke admiringly of his wife in a 2011 AARP interview, telling them, “She’s a very special person. She’s younger than I am, and European, which I like, so that’s a whole new life.”
Szaggars wasn’t initially drawn to Redford for his fame. In fact, she admitted that when she first met him, she thought, “Oh, my God, I don’t know any of his films,” and decided to rent a variety of his movies and watch 15 minutes from each, so she’d be prepared to talk to him. It turns out she didn’t have to do that, as the Out of Africa star said, “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.” 16 years into their marriage, it’s clear that this unexpected meet-cute moment has led to lasting love.
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