The Western that first made Robert Redford’s name, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), won four Oscars and after 37 years still appears in lists of the world’s favourite films. He won another Oscar as director of the 1994 film Ordinary People. He bought a ranch in Utah in 1961 which became the home of the hugely successful Sundance Film Festival for independent film-makers. Speaking of his work there recently he said: “My plan is to take independent film and push it to its maximum and give the best opportunity I can to new talent and give them the best showcasing they can get.” He makes few films nowadays, though he announced recently that he and his Sundance partner Paul Newman are working on a project, but not a sequel. He has recorded the voice of Ike in an animated version of E. B. White’s classic Charlotte’s Web. His 27-year marriage to Lola Van Wagenen ended in divorce in 1985. He has three surviving children from the marriage and four grandchildren. Robert Redford is 70 today. RGT
Brian Aldiss, science fiction writer, 81; Nicola Bayley, writer and illustrator, 57; Earl Castle Stewart, farmer, vice-president Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 1963-1998, the Guggenheim UK Charitable Trust 2000, 78; Sir Robert Horton, chairman of Railtrack, 1993-99, 67; the Right Rev James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool, 58; Sir Christopher Kelly, chairman of the NSPCC, 60; the Most Rev Kevin McDonald, Archbishop of Southwark, 59; Sir John Mason, director-general of the Meteorological Office, 1965-83, 83; Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, president of the European Atlantic Group, 1992-94, 78; Sir Richard Packer, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, 1993-2000, 62; H. S. K. Peppiatt, chairman of Moorfields Eye Hospital, 1991-98, 76; Roman Polanski, film director, 73; Patrick Shovelton, director-general of the General Council of British Shipping, 1978-85, 87; Patrick Swayze, actor, 54; General Bramwell H. Tillsley, General of the Salvation Army, 1993-94, 75; Charles Wilson, Editor of the Times 1985-90, and managing director of the Mirror Group, 1992-98, 71.