When Robert Redford was promoting the movie The Candidate in 1972, he went on a mock whistle-stop tour through Florida, drawing larger crowds than actual presidential candidates got that year.
The actor would emerge from the back of the train, flash a “V” for victory sign and, in a Bill McKay way, tell them, “I have absolutely nothing to say.”
The satire not withstanding, Redford, who died Tuesday morning at the age of 89, did have a lot to say. He devoted much of his career to environmental activism, perhaps rivaling or exceeding the time and energy he put in to his film career and independent cinema, in a way that called attention to issues struggling to get headlines.
Among other things, he served as a trustee for the Natural Resources Defense Council for five decades, and the organization Tuesday presented a timeline of his work, ranging from the protection of public lands in the 1970s to sounding the alarm on climate change.
Unlike many of his contemporaries or co-stars, Redford delved into politics his own way, largely avoiding the partisan fray of a political campaign or polarizing spotlight of protest.
“He kind of had his own compass,” said Ron Brownstein, author of The Power and the Glitter, the landmark book on the Hollywood and Washington connection.
“He had a really good sense of what was right for him and what was not, which is not always the case for celebrities.”
Brownstein said that Redford “wasn’t comfortable in that visible role, and he had a different one.” Redford seemed to embrace the notion that “your fans let you into their lives because they enjoyed you as an actor. But he was leery of how far he could take that relationship.”
In The Power and the Glitter, Redford told Brownstein, “The fact that you have a built-in platform because of your visibility doesn’t mean it is easily convertible into votes or persuasion.”
That was a contrast to his friend and co-star Paul Newman, who campaigned for Eugene McCarthy in 1968 and was a delegate to the Democratic Convention that year. Even later in life he canvassed for candidates, including John Kerry in 2004.
Redford’s The Candidate spoke to a somewhat cynical view of the political process, and Redford instead devoted much of his time to less flashy causes, some struggling to get a headline.
Back in the 1970s, as Redford was ramping up his involvement, he took part in local issues in Utah, including an effort to stop a rural freeway, and when it came to politics, he accepted a position on the Provo Canyon Sewer District Committee. Per Time magazine, the actor said, “I’m honored, but I’m having a hard time picking a cabinet.”
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Through the years, Redford did testify on Capitol Hill on issues like arts funding, but when it came to Washington, he became clear eyed about the city’s inertia.
Brownstein said that when he interviewed Redford for the book in 1989, the actor recalled how earlier in his career he would travel to Washington to meet lawmakers and journalists to pursue his causes, carrying an index card as he checked off each appointment one by one. Redford had a great feeling of accomplishment by the end of the day. But after a few trips, Redford said that he realized “that all he had really accomplished was to check boxes on an index card.”
“You get caught up in kind of a false energy,” Brownstein said.
That didn’t dissuade Redford from pursuing other approaches. In the mid-1970s, Brownstein noted, he fought the construction of a power plant project in Utah that was to be built near national parkland, and he used his fame to get 60 Minutes to do a story. The project was eventually abandoned.
In the 1980s, Redford, as chairman of the Institute for Resource Management, spearheaded a major global warming summit, drawing scientists and political figures from around the world including the Soviet Union. The event turned out to be a forerunner to the UN Earth Summit. In Michael Feeney Callan’s biography of Redford, John Adams, founding director of NRDC, said, “It was an amazing feat of diplomacy in which Bob applied every trick of his iconography and every social and political skill to bring so many different people to the same table.”
In 2015, Redford traveled to Paris for climate talks, where he called for international support and action.
The flood of comments from major political and media figures on Tuesday reflected Redford’s influence, at times out of the spotlight.
Bob Woodward credited him with being the driving force behind All the President’s Men, even urging him and Carl Bernstein “to tell the Watergate story through the eyes and experiences of our reporting and the relations between the two of us.”
“He will be remembered as one of the great storytellers in our country’s history,” Woodward wrote. “He elevated stories beyond the mainstream. He not only cared about the environment, but he took all conceivable actions to protect it.”
Al Gore wrote on X that Redford’s “passion for independent film and documentaries played a historically crucial role in transforming them into powerful tools for change. And most significantly, he used his skills and extraordinary popularity to focus public attention on the fate of humanity and our planet.”
Utah’s governor, Spencer Cox, a Republican, wrote, “He cherished our landscapes and built a legacy that made Utah a home for storytelling and creativity. Through Sundance and his devotion to conservation, he shared Utah with the world.”
The White House did not issue any formal statement, but an example of how Redford managed to avoid becoming a polarizing figure may have been in President Donald Trump‘s reaction when speaking to reporters.
Redford was diametrically opposed to Trump on many issues, and in 2017 fought a Trump administration plan to build a coal mine near Bryce Canyon National Park. The president, who tends to remember which celebrities have been critical of him, told reporters, “He had a series of years where there was nobody better. … There was a period of time when he was the hottest. I thought he was great.”
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