Tribune Editorial: Robert Redford left Utah better than he found it

Robert Redford didn’t have to live in Utah.

Born and raised in Southern California, he broke into acting in New York City and, as one of the biggest movie stars of the 1960s and 1970s, traveled to locations all over the world. He could have lived comfortably anywhere he wanted.

But as was the case with so many others, Redford was drawn to this naturally beautiful state. As few others could, he put down considerable and influential roots. Utah is immeasurably the better for it.

He died here, Tuesday, at the age of 89.

Redford appreciated the beauty of Utah, and of Provo Canyon particularly. The ski resort he developed there was dedicated to preserving that beauty.

He became a leading environmental activist. He successfully opposed development that would have spoiled the scenic Provo River and helped to block construction of a power plant that had been planned for what is now the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

He donated some 1,200 acres to conservation easements, permanently protecting from development the land near Mount Timpanogos Wilderness. Contributions from others grew that set-aside to 65,000 acres around Utah through Utah Open Lands.

Redford also gave Utah, and the world, the Sundance Institute and the Sundance Film Festival. Both were envisioned to give a voice, an audience — and, sometimes, multi-million dollar distribution deals — to creative directors, screenwriters and actors who otherwise might never be heard from.

It was a great gift to Utah. But some of us were not entertained.

A few, including some elected officials, saw Sundance’s four-decade run in Park City as too much of a platform for LGBTQ filmmakers or for pictures that told stories of the marginalized from many cultures around the world.

Such empathetic storytelling, of course, is exactly what art is for. It is what film, with its wide appeal, can do better than almost any other medium.

Redford and other Sundance leaders were too polite to admit it, but the right-tilting political climate of Utah may well have been a factor in the decision to move the annual festival — though not the institute — to Boulder, Colorado, after the 2026 edition.

Even without the annual festival, Redford’s impact on Utah will live on.

There can be little doubt that Redford’s presence here, his environmentalism and the showcase he built for independent filmmaking, helped shift our state’s image from that of a place for digging up rocks, drilling oil wells and driving trucks to a trendy, even sexy, place that has since attracted the industries of the future.

The growth here of high-tech, medical and other 21st century businesses, those that build relatively clean office buildings and seek to operate on renewable energy, was much less likely to have happened without the Sundance Kid.

As the many of us concerned about the rapid population growth hereabouts well know, attracting new residents to a beautiful place doesn’t always leave it beautiful.

Not all of us leave a place better than they found it.

Robert Redford did.

Editorials represent the opinions of The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board, which operates independently from the newsroom.