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Both artists in their own right, the pair met in the late ’90s at Redford’s Sundance Mountain Resort, which he founded in 1968 along with theSundance Film Festival. The legendary actor and the multimedia artist went on to wed in 2009 and have been together ever since.
Redford and Szaggars are also both environmental activists, and they have spent much of their relationship working alongside each other to protect the environment and advocating for environmental change through Szaggars' nonprofit, for which Redford serves as the vice president.
When it comes to their personal life, the couple are deeply private, and Redford rarely discusses their relationship publicly. However, in his 2011 cover story forAARP The Magazine, he said Szaggars, who is 20 years his junior, was a “very special person” and gave him a “whole new life.”
She’s a multimedia artist
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Szaggars has been a visual artist for over forty years, channeling her passion for the environment through mediums such as oil painting, photography and performance art, according to herwebsite. Her work has been displayed worldwide, including in Europe, Monaco, Peru, Singapore, Japan and the United States.
In the mid-’90s, she painted a Buffalo series that depicted the environmental threats to the American Buffalo’s wellbeing.
“I used the American Buffalo as a symbol for vanishing life,” she toldBig 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
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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 toAARP 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, perBig 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 theYoungArts Salonin 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.
She and Redford have been married since 2009
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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
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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 toldBig Life Magazine. “I was more than aware that Western or ‘modernized’ cultures had moved away from paying attention to all of this.”
Environmentalism is an important cause to Redford as well. In a 2020 PEOPLE feature, the actor spoke about how an early trip to Utah with his mother sparked hislove for the natural worldand 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 non-profit
In 2015, Szaggars foundedThe Way of the Rain, a non-profit 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 non-profit was named after a performance art piece of the same name that Szaggars debuted in 2013, and Redford serves as the vice president.
She’s a stepmom to Redford’s children
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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 diedat age 58 from liver cancer in October 2020.
James was an activist and filmmaker, much like his father. In 2005, James and Redford foundedThe Redford Center,a non-profit dedicated to producing environmental impact films.
source: people.com
