Robert Redford marries German girlfriend at luxury hotel in Hamburg

Robert Redford marries German girlfriend

HAMBURG — Robert Redford married his partner, a 51-year-old German artist, over the weekend, a German church said Wednesday.

Renate Massfeller of the St. Catherine Church in Hamburg said that Pastor Frank Engelbrecht presided over the wedding of the 72-year-old U.S. actor and artist Sibylle Szaggars at the luxury Louis C. Jacob Hotel.

The Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper said 30 friends and family members attended the service.

Szaggars, born in Hamburg, is an abstract artist whose work has been exhibited in Britain, Germany, the United States and elsewhere. She moved to Sundance, Utah — where Redford’s Sundance Institute is based — in the 1990s, according to her Web site.

A message seeking comment from Redford’s publicist in New York was not immediately returned.

Redford has starred in dozens of films, including “The Sting” and “The Natural.” He won the Academy Award for best director for the 1980 film “Ordinary People.”

In 1981 he founded the Sundance Institute to create what its Web site called “an environment designed to foster independence, discovery and new voices in American film.”

Since then, it has grown to encompass the Sundance Film Festival, one of the world’s premier film festivals that focuses on independent film but also has become known for its parties and celebrities.