At 88, Robert Redford sat among close friends in an intimate conversation that would soon ripple far beyond the room. When someone asked him about the great loves of his life, he paused, thoughtful in a way those who knew him recognized as rare. “When I think about love, real love, the kind that shapes you,” he began slowly, “I always come back to those early years. Lola and I, we grew up together, really.
We were kids figuring out life together. There’s something about that first love that stays with you. ”
Pressed further, he made the confession that has since reverberated through Hollywood and among the fans who have followed his six-decade career. “She was the love of my life.
We didn’t make it, and that’s on me in a lot of ways. But when you ask about real love, that was it. Everything after has been different. ”
The woman he was talking about was not his wife of more than fifteen years, Sibylle Szaggars, the German-born environmental artist he married in 2009.
It was Lola Van Wagenen, the Mormon girl from Utah he had eloped with as a struggling twenty-year-old art student in 1957. Nearly forty years after their divorce, at the height of his fame and creative power, Redford had publicly identified his first wife as the enduring love of his life. To understand the significance of that admission, one has to go back to before the fame, before the Academy Awards, before Sundance, to a young college dropout with dreams of becoming an artist. It was 1957 in Los Angeles when Redford, fresh from a trip to Europe where he had studied art in Paris, first laid eyes on seventeen-year-old Lola Van Wagenen.
He was far from the Hollywood icon he would become, a struggling young man with artistic ambitions but no clear path forward. Lola, young as she was, saw something in him that many others missed at the time, a determination and creativity that would eventually change the landscape of American cinema. Their connection was immediate and profound. Within a year of meeting, they eloped to Las Vegas, followed by a formal Mormon ceremony at Lola’s grandmother’s home in Utah.
For Redford, still finding his footing in life, Lola represented something genuine and grounding in a world he was desperate to break into, a world known for its superficiality and fleeting connections. As Redford began pursuing acting more seriously, studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, Lola supported his dreams. In 1959, they welcomed their first son, Scott Anthony. But tragedy struck almost immediately when the infant died of sudden infant death syndrome just two months later.
A young couple barely into their twenties faced a devastating loss that would have torn most marriages apart. Somehow, Redford and Van Wagenen persevered. They went on to have three more children together: Shauna in 1960, James, known as Jamie, in 1962, and Amy in 1970. For twenty-seven years, they built a life together, weathering the storms of Redford’s rising fame and the challenges it brought to their family life.
As his star began to rise in the late 1960s with hits like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the foundation of their relationship started to crack under the pressure. The public adored him as the charismatic outlaw; the private man was trying to hold a marriage together while the world demanded more of him. After nearly three decades together, Redford and Van Wagenen divorced in 1985, when he was at the height of his fame and creative power. The financial cost of the divorce paled in comparison to the emotional toll.
“It was mutual and it was right to move on,” Redford told the Telegraph in 2001, confirming that his growing success in Hollywood had put a strain on the marriage over the years. “We still have great love, great affection, great friendship. ”
Despite those diplomatic words, those close to the actor revealed that the end of this marriage created a wound that never fully healed, one that would shape his approach to love and relationships for decades to come. Following the divorce, Redford entered what many consider his wilderness years.
Not professionally, as his career continued to flourish both in front of and behind the camera, but personally. The late 1980s and early 1990s saw him focus intensely on his work, particularly the Sundance Institute and Film Festival, which he had founded in 1981 and which was growing into a cultural force. During this period, Redford seemed reluctant to commit to another serious relationship, perhaps scarred by the end of his long marriage. Friends noted that despite his status as one of Hollywood’s most eligible bachelors, he kept his romantic life intensely private, rarely bringing dates to public events and never discussing his personal life in interviews.
“I never wanted to be one of those divorced show business casualties. So predictable,” he once remarked. “I wanted to prove that a marriage could last and prove the business wrong, but I couldn’t. ” This sense of failure, despite the amicable nature of the divorce, weighed heavily on him throughout this period.
The tragedy that would bookend his life’s first great loss came in October 2020, when his son James died of liver cancer at age fifty-eight. Though this loss came much later, it connected back to the first profound grief he and Lola had experienced together, the death of their infant son Scott. These bookend tragedies, the loss of his first and third children, created a poignant symmetry in Redford’s life. Friends said it made him reflect deeply on his past as he entered his later years.
Throughout the wilderness years, those closest to Redford noted that he often spoke of his first marriage with a mixture of regret and nostalgia. Despite the painful ending, there was something about those early years with Lola: the simplicity, the authenticity, the shared struggle, that he couldn’t seem to recapture in subsequent relationships. Just when it seemed Redford might never find a deep connection again, he met Sibylle Szaggars, a multimedia environmental artist twenty years his junior. They met in 1996 at his beloved Sundance Mountain Resort in Utah, where she had come to ski with friends.
Intriguingly, Szaggars didn’t know much about the famous actor when they first met. In a panel for the YoungArts Salon in 2014, she 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 several of his movies before their meeting but only watched about fifteen minutes of each one, just enough to fake familiarity if needed. Rather than being put off, Redford was charmed by her lack of knowledge about his celebrity status.
He reportedly said of their first encounter, “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. ” What started as a chance meeting blossomed into a deep connection. Unlike his whirlwind romance and early marriage to Lola, this relationship developed slowly, organically. Szaggars moved in with him in 1996, and they shared his home in Sundance, Utah for over a decade before formalizing their union.
It wasn’t just a physical attraction that drew them together. Both were committed environmentalists, with Szaggars creating art that speaks to environmental consciousness and Redford long advocating for conservation causes. Their relationship was built on mutual respect, shared purpose, and genuine affection. After thirteen years together, they married in July 2009 in Hamburg, Germany.
It was a private ceremony reflective of Redford’s desire to keep his personal life out of the spotlight. No paparazzi, no elaborate celebrity affair, just two people in love making a commitment to each other. In the years that followed, Redford spoke warmly of his relationship with Szaggars in the few interviews where he touched on his personal life. “She’s a very special person,” he told AP the Magazine in 2011.
“She’s younger than I am and European, which I like. So that’s a whole new life. ” The sentiment that Szaggars represented a whole new life for him seemed significant. After the pain of his divorce and the challenging years that followed, Redford had found someone who brought fresh perspective and energy into his world.
Their relationship has endured for over twenty-five years now. Now at 88, Redford has lived a life most can only dream of. The fame, the accolades, the respect of his peers, the legacy of Sundance. But recently, as he stepped back from public life and acting, his last major role was in 2018’s The Old Man and the Gun, he has had time to reflect on his life’s journey in a way that wasn’t possible during the whirlwind of his career.
This period of reflection has coincided with significant milestones. In 2020 came the devastating loss of his son James. Then in early 2025, he made a surprise return to acting with a brief cameo in the AMC series Dark Winds, which he executive produces alongside Game of Thrones author George R. R.
Martin. These moments, one of profound loss, one of unexpected return to his craft, have bookended a period of deep introspection. And it was during this time that he reportedly made the emotional confession that has shocked many. Despite his twenty-five-year relationship with Szaggars, it was Lola Van Wagenen, his first wife, who was the love of his life.
According to sources close to the actor, Redford has been increasingly reflective about his first marriage in recent years, especially following the death of their son James. The shared grief has reportedly brought Redford and Van Wagenen closer together again, not romantically, but as two people united by decades of history, shared children, and now grandchildren. “Robert and Lola have stayed close friends,” one source revealed. “She has been there for him through some of his darkest moments, including the loss of their son.
There’s a bond there that time and circumstances couldn’t break. ” This renewed connection, coming at a time when Redford is contemplating his legacy both as an artist and as a man, has naturally led him to reassess his life’s relationships. In doing so, he has apparently arrived at a truth that has surprised many: that Van Wagenen, his partner during those formative years before fame, remains the most significant love of his life. In what sources describe as an intimate conversation with close friends that later found its way to the media, Redford opened up about his lifelong relationships in a way he rarely has before.
Coming nearly forty years after their divorce, his acknowledgment of Lola Van Wagenen as the love of his life stunned many who had followed his career and romantic history. It suggested that despite his long and seemingly happy relationship with Szaggars, a part of Redford’s heart had remained with his first wife, the woman who had known him before fame, who had believed in him when no one else did, who had shared his greatest joys and most devastating sorrows. For fans who had watched Redford portray some of cinema’s most romantic figures, there was something poignantly real about this admission. The man who had made millions swoon with his on-screen romances had, in his own life, never quite recovered from his first heartbreak.
But this revelation raises an obvious question. What about his current wife, Sibylle Szaggars? Sources close to Redford insist that his confession doesn’t diminish his feelings for Szaggars, whom he deeply respects and cares for. Rather, it reflects the complex reality of the human heart: that one can love deeply more than once in a lifetime, but in different ways.
“Robert and Sibylle have a profound connection based on shared values and mutual respect,” one friend explained. “It’s a mature love that came to him later in life. But there’s something about first love, especially when it’s tangled up with youth, with becoming who you are, with having children together, that leaves an indelible mark. ” This nuanced perspective suggests a man who, after nearly nine decades of life, has come to understand that love isn’t a zero-sum game, that acknowledging the significance of his first marriage doesn’t negate the value of his current one.
When asked to elaborate on why he considers Van Wagenen the love of his life despite his subsequent relationship with Szaggars, Redford offered a perspective that resonates far beyond his personal story. “There’s something pure about that first love,” he explained, “before fame, before money, before all the complications. We loved each other for ourselves, not for anything else. And maybe you only get that once.
I’m not diminishing what came after. I’ve loved deeply more than once. But there’s a foundation that gets laid with that first person who really sees you, who knows you before you even fully know yourself. And when that foundation cracks, everything you build afterward sits on something slightly less stable.
”
This reflection offers a glimpse into why, despite his long and successful relationship with Szaggars, Redford still feels a special connection to his first wife. By his own admission, the authenticity of that first love, coming before fame and fortune complicated his life, created a benchmark that was difficult to match. It also explains why, as his career reaches its final chapters, Redford seems drawn to reconnect with his past in meaningful ways. Whether or not Redford and Van Wagenen have rekindled any romantic feelings, and sources close to both adamantly deny this, emphasizing that they remain simply good friends and co-grandparents, his public acknowledgment of her as the love of his life represents a kind of emotional honesty that has been rare in his public persona.
It’s a vulnerability that contradicts the stoic characters he often portrays, revealing the complex, feeling man behind the Hollywood icon. As one friend put it, “Robert is finally being honest with himself about what has always mattered most to him. The authentic connections he’s made throughout his life. Whether with Lola, with his children, with Sibylle, or with the artists he’s mentored through Sundance — at 88, there’s no reason not to speak your truth.
” This truth, the enduring significance of his first great love, might explain why despite his enormous success, Redford has often projected a certain melancholy, a sense of something missing despite having achieved so much. His story contradicts the fairy-tale narratives his films often portray. In movies like The Way We Were or Out of Africa, love is passionate, all-consuming, and often tragic. But in Redford’s real life, love proved more nuanced, more complicated, vulnerable to the pressures of fame, ambition, and human imperfection, yet also capable of evolving over decades into something like the deep friendship he now shares with Van Wagenen.
His acknowledgment of her as his greatest love after all these years reveals something rarely seen from celebrities: genuine reflection and emotional honesty. Not a carefully crafted PR statement, but the raw admission of a man looking back on his life and recognizing what was most authentic. “We didn’t make it, and that’s on me in a lot of ways,” he said, a statement that suggests he has had decades to reflect on what went wrong and his own role in the dissolution of that foundational relationship. The timing of this confession, coming as he approaches his nineties and after the shared grief of losing their son James, speaks to a man trying to make peace with the unfinished emotional business of his life.
There’s a poignancy to Redford at 88, still wrestling with the ghost of a love that ended almost forty years ago, still trying to understand what it means for all that came after. The young Redford who rose to fame in the 1960s and 1970s was consumed with ambition, with crafting an image, with seizing every opportunity that Hollywood offered him. The older Redford seems more concerned with authenticity, with honest connection, with coming to terms with the choices he has made. Despite the heartbreak and the public scrutiny, Redford has managed to maintain meaningful connections with both of the women who have shared his life.
His continued friendship with Van Wagenen, especially as they navigated the tragic loss of their son together, speaks to a man who values the depth of history over the bitterness of breakups. And his enduring partnership with Szaggars demonstrates that second acts in life can be rich and fulfilling, even if they’re different from what came before. In recent public appearances, Redford has appeared content, a man at peace with his legacy, both as an artist and as a human being. His brief return to acting in early 2025 with a cameo in Dark Winds surprised many, but friends say it reflects his current approach to life: doing what brings him joy, connecting with creative people who inspire him, and no longer feeling the need to prove anything to anyone.
Whether or not Redford and Van Wagenen ever shared romantic feelings again after their divorce, and all evidence suggests they did not, his acknowledgment of her singular place in his heart represents a kind of closure. By naming what has perhaps always been true for him, he has freed himself from the weight of an unspoken regret. And in doing so, he has perhaps finally become ready to embrace all chapters of his life with complete honesty: the triumphs and the failures, the loves found and the loves lost.
