Who Is Robert Redford’s Wife? All About Sibylle Szaggars

Robert Redford shared his passion for environmental activism with his wife, artist Sibylle Szaggars.

The Oscar-winning actor died on Sept. 16 at age 89. Cindi Berger, chairman and CEO of Rogers & Cowan PMK, told PEOPLE that Redford “passed away at his home at Sundance in the mountains of Utah — the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved.”

“He will be missed greatly. The family requests privacy,” she said.

Redford and Szaggars met in the late ’90s at the actor’s Sundance Mountain Resort, which he founded in 1968 along with the Sundance Film Festival. The Out of Africa star and the multimedia artist went on to wed in 2009.

The couple were deeply private, and Redford rarely discussed their relationship publicly. However, in his 2011 cover story for AARP The Magazine, he said Szaggars was a “very special person” and gave him a “whole new life.”

So, who is Robert Redford’s wife? Here’s everything to know about Sibylle Szaggars and her relationship with the late actor.

She’s a multimedia artist

Szaggars has been a visual artist for over 40 years, channeling her passion for the environment through mediums such as oil painting, photography and performance art, according to her website. Her work has been displayed worldwide, including in Europe, Monaco, Peru, Singapore, Japan and the United States.

Her love for art started with her painting and sketching as a young girl, inspired by her travels with her family. She admired the indigenous cultures and ancient lands she observed and felt inclined to immortalize them in art.

In the mid-’90s, she painted a series that depicted the environmental threats to the American buffalo’s well-being.

“I used the American Buffalo as a symbol for vanishing life,” she told Big Life Magazine.

“From the beginning of my career as an artist, nature was the force that inspired me to be an activist from within my art, warning of the impending dangers of extinction, but also pointing out through color and beauty how incredible this earth is,” she continued.

She’s from Germany

Szaggars was born in Hamburg, Germany, on April 9, 1957. In the 1980s, she moved to London and started her career as an artist.

Redford also spent some formative years in Europe. Before beginning his career in acting, Redford had wanted to be an artist and spent 18 months in Paris, painting and even sketching with chalk on sidewalks for tips, according to AARP The Magazine.

In the late 1980s, Szaggars moved to the U.S. and explored different picturesque states full of natural wonders across the Southwest, as well as Utah, per Big Life Magazine, where she would later meet and eventually settle down with Redford.

She didn’t know much about Redford when she met him

Redford was divorced from his first wife, Lola Van Wagenen, when he met Szaggars at his Sundance Mountain Resort in 1996. She had come to ski and didn’t know much about the actor.

In a panel for the YoungArts Salon in March 2014, Szaggers revealed that Redford had invited her and a group of friends to dinner, and she thought, “Oh my god, I don’t know any of his films.”

She rented all of his movies and says she watched 15 minutes of each of them two nights before the dinner, just in case he would bring them up, but he didn’t.

Redford said that her not knowing much about him actually attracted him to her.

“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,” Redford said.

She and Redford have been married since 2009

Redford and Szaggars got married in a small, private ceremony at the luxurious Louis C. Jacob Hotel in her hometown of Hamburg, Germany, in July 2009.

The couple showed their creativity in their wedding style choices. Redford wore a white suit for the occasion, while Szaggars wore a champagne-hued gown, according to local reports.

She’s dedicated to protecting the environment

Szaggars’ passion for environmentalism began when she was little; she spent extensive time traveling with her family and learning about indigenous cultures and ancient lands.

“I learned that all these people had one thing in common. They respected nature and the environments they lived in, and they celebrated Earth within their ceremonial acts,” she told Big Life Magazine. “I was more than aware that Western or ‘modernized’ cultures had moved away from paying attention to all of this.”

Environmentalism was an important cause to Redford as well. In an April 2020 PEOPLE feature, the actor spoke about how an early trip to Utah with his mother sparked his love for the natural world and his desire to protect it.

“Since then, I have spent decades joining scientists and activists in trying to do whatever we could to raise the red flags about the catastrophic climate change we ourselves are responsible for,” he said.

She founded a nonprofit

In 2015, Szaggars founded The Way of the Rain, a nonprofit organization dedicated to “developing, producing and performing educational and artistic performances — themed and designed to promote public awareness to support the protection of our Earth.”

The nonprofit was named after a performance art piece of the same name that Szaggars debuted in 2013, and Redford served as the organization’s vice president up until his death in September 2025.

She’s a stepmom to Redford’s children

While Redford and Szaggars didn’t have children together, she is a stepmom to Redford’s children from his previous marriage.

Together, Redford and Van Wagenen had two daughters: Shauna Jean, born in 1960, and Amy Hart, born in 1970.

They also had two sons: Scott Anthony, who died of SIDS just two months after his birth in 1959, and James, who died at age 58 from liver cancer in October 2020.

James was an activist and filmmaker, much like his father. In 2005, James and Redford co-founded The Redford Center, a nonprofit dedicated to producing environmental impact films.