Robert Redford: The man, the non-myth

A co-worker pointed out the other day that I get a little hyped up about the various things I'm interested in. Mark always says I completely immerse myself in those subjects when my interest flares up. Both admittedly are true. Some are fleeting, some can spring up at any moment. Robert Redford has always been the latter -- and not just because I have a cat named Brubaker who sleeps on my chest.

He's an inspiration, not just as an actor and not just as a director, but as a person. Although he's an artist in the public eye, he's done so much with that fame beyond lining his pockets. He created something from nothing with Sundance, nurturing other creative forces who might not have gotten a voice through the Hollywood system. He's always been concerned with the environment as well, and even at age 79, he goes the extra mile on that front. More on that later.

So it was with great excitement that I went to my first event as a card-carrying member of the Paley Center. "An Evening with Robert Redford" -- the proverbial dream come true.

Now it's impossible to capture the life and times of Robert Redford in a 90-minute session, but I enjoyed every single moment. The session, moderated by Pat Mitchell, began with discussion of how the artist became an actor sort of by accident. Redford said he was going to school for art and when he expressed interest in becoming an art director, he was told he should take some classes in acting. I don't quite see that connection, but it certainly worked out for the entertainment industry.

So even when he was doing his early television work, he wasn't quite certain that it was what he wanted to do with his life. Much of his early work is available in the Paley Center archives, and we got a quick peek at the likes of Playhouse 90 ("In the Presence of Thine Enemies"); Perry Mason ("The Case of the Treacherous Toupee"); The Untouchables ("The Snowball"); The Virginian ("The Evil That Men Do"); The Dick Powell Theatre ("The Last of the Big Spenders"); Bus Stop ("The Covering Darkness)" and Alcoa Premiere ("The Voice of Charlie Pont)." And, of course, two of his better-known early efforts, The Twilight Zone ("Nothing in the Dark") and Alfred Hitchcock Presents ("The Right Kind of Medicine").

With the lights down, you could almost feel Redford shifting uncomfortably in his seat as we watched the clip reel. But he was happy not to have a clip from the Merv Griffin show, Play Your Hunch, which he detested being a part of -- and didn't even get paid in real money for appearing on. But as he explained, television did teach him a lot about the craft and the industry from the wide array of talent in front of and behind the camera. He recounted a very poignant story about Lee J. Cobb from The Virginian. After a heart attack, the veteran actor told Redford he appreciated his efforts, but not to work so hard in trying to make a connection happen on screen, because he was worn down and out.

Even after becoming a hot property in the industry on television and three subsequent movies, Redford wasn't sure he wanted to make acting his career. Art was still foremost in his mind, and he took a year off and went to Europe. There he sketched people living their lives, and on the other side of the page, he would imagine what discussions might have been going on in front of him. His powers of observation eventually led to something that did connect his talent for acting with his predilection for art -- directing.

Along the way he was making invaluable and treasured friendships, like with Natalie Wood, whom he co-starred with in two of his first three big pictures. And Paul Newman, who went to the mat to get him in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. We got to hear the now-infamous tale of escalating pranks between Redford and Newman. If you don't know the story, Redford introduced Newman to racing and got so tired of the latter's obsession with it that he had a junked sports car wrapped up in a bow and delivered to Newman's house. Newman never made mention of it, but sometime later, Redford found a huge box in his hallway filled with the pieces of that junked car. But that wasn't the end of the tale, because Redford had those pieces melted down and made into a "bad" sculpture that he left in Newman's garden. The pair never made mention of it privately.

Redford's interest in Watergate led to the making of All the President's Men, which Redford thought would be a landmark moment in the field of journalism. Which it was, but as he said, media's credibility dropped off precipitously not too long after that. This led to discussion of his latest work, Truth with Cate Blanchett, which professes to tell the story of Dan Rather and producer Mary Mapes' battles against CBS in regards to then-President George Bush's military service and eventually led to the anchor's departure. It was a little jarring to see Redford as Rather, particularly since some of the clips we saw were interviews Rather conducted with Redford on environmental concerns.

There was limited time to talk about how Redford built Sundance in Utah, starting as an institute that gave burgeoning talents time and space to work on their craft. That evolved into the Sundance Film Festival, a cable channel and more options than the industry would have ever created on its own. But we did get to see his eyes light up at the introduction of his wife, artist Sibylle Szaggars.

And it would be right back to business for Redford, who was flying to Paris the next day to take part in the Climate Summit on behalf of the National Resources Defense Council. Because, like I said, he's not just an artistic inspiration, he's a man who makes you rethink your own aspirations as a human being in this world.