{"id":162983,"date":"2025-09-17T10:48:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T10:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/162983\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T10:48:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T10:48:15","slug":"philanthropist-and-environmentalist-robert-redfords-legacy-goes-far-beyond-hollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/162983\/","title":{"rendered":"Philanthropist and environmentalist Robert Redford\u2019s legacy goes far beyond Hollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"

CNN
\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n While Robert Redford<\/a> made his mark with Hollywood films such as \u201cAll the President\u2019s Men,\u201d \u201cBarefoot in the Park\u201d and \u201cButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,\u201d the lifelong environmentalist and philanthropist was also committed to sparking change, protecting the earth and supporting up-and-coming filmmakers.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI\u2019m an actor by trade, but I\u2019m an activist by nature, somebody who\u2019s always believed that we must find the balance between what we develop for our survival and what we preserve,\u201d Redford said in his address to the UN General Assembly\u2019s High-Level Meeting on Climate Change<\/a> in 2015.\n <\/p>\n

\n In 2002, Redford received an honorary Academy Award. He was a Kennedy Center honoree in 2005 and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016. The accolades celebrated his on-screen performances and his contributions beyond Tinseltown.\n <\/p>\n

\"Actor<\/p>\n

\n Redford\u2019s love of nature<\/a> began early.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cAt some point I divided my life into my two greatest interests, which were art and nature. I grew up respecting nature because what happened to Los Angeles. It was a city, as a child during the end of the Second World War, that I loved, and it was a beautiful city. And the air was clean. And then what happened after the war was suddenly there was skyscrapers and there was pollution and there were freeways. \u2026 It felt like the city that I loved as a child was taken away from me. So, I moved away from that, in sadness,\u201d Redford said in a news conference at the United Nations in 2015.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cAnd then I discovered the Sierra Nevadas, and I went to work at Yosemite National Park. And when that happened, I was introduced to the beauty of raw nature. And that\u2019s when I decided I want this to be part of my life, whatever I do. I want this to be part of my life, because it had a kind of a soulful impact on me.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"SAN<\/p>\n

\n Robert Redford co-founded The Redford Center<\/a> with his son, James, in 2005 specifically to support environmental filmmakers and storytellers.\n <\/p>\n

\n Some of The Redford Center\u2019s work includes producing documentaries and short films, and providing financial sponsorships.\n <\/p>\n

\n James Redford died at the age of 58<\/a> in October 2020. The center said<\/a> it continues to \u201cwork in honor of everything that James stood for and all he envisioned for the future.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

Sundance and filmmaking<\/p>\n

\n In 1981, Redford founded the Sundance Institute<\/a>, which describes itself as a non-profit that \u201cprovides and preserves the space for artists in film, theater, film composing, and digital media to create and thrive.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"PARK<\/p>\n

\n Sundance is headquartered near Park City, Utah. The state was a special place for Redford. He fought to preserve over 1.7 million acres of Utah wilderness to protect it from development until it became a protected site by presidential decree in 1996.\n <\/p>\n

\n The actor and his first wife, Lola Van Wagenen, even built their home in Utah themselves.\n <\/p>\n

\n Every January, the Sundance Institute hosts the Sundance Film Festival in Park City. The festival is an opportunity to present the work of independent emerging filmmakers to a global audience.\n <\/p>\n

\n The institute also hosts programs in the United States and abroad to inspire, connect and spotlight independent filmmakers.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CNN \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 While Robert Redford made his mark with Hollywood films such as \u201cAll the President\u2019s Men,\u201d \u201cBarefoot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,88],"class_list":["post-162983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}