Robert Redford , the actor and Academy Award-winning director, died Sept. 16 at the age of 89.

Redford became “the most sought-after actor in town” when The Way We Were and The Sting were released while he was filming The Great Gatsby , TIME reported in 1974.

Two years later, the hit film All the President’s Men came out, inspired by the true story of how Washington Post investigative reporters Bob Woodward (played by Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) uncovered details about the Nixon administration’s involvement in the Watergate scandal, leading President Richard Nixon to become the first U.S. president to resign.

But the movie almost didn’t happen. It took a long time for The Washington Post to trust Redford to tell its story. Here’s a look at how the film

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