Robert Redford did not have any publicly known chronic disease before his death in September 2025. He had a mild case of polio as a child at age 11, but it did not cause lasting damage. He died peacefully in his sleep at the age of 89 with no reported illness. However, his son James Redford suffered from a liver disease called primary sclerosing cholangitis and later died of bile- duct cancer in 2020.