Show HOLD ON to your chloroflnorocaifronj: Robert Redford Mr Clean Air himself is not an He occasionally nses Styrofoam caps and likes to drive his three cars at speeds hole-io-the-ozo- oe eco-mani-ac gas-gozzli- ng am not a fanatic” Redford explains one evening after a long day making his He dashes to the kitchen of his next movie in the heat of Santo Domingo Caribbean hotel suite for a cold beer ignoring the carton of milk on his dinner tray Asked about ocher ecological transgressions in his life Redford has to think hard He spends so much time trying to save the environment it’s tough for him to consider how he may be hurting it His beer bottle gives off a little pop as he opens it and filially Redford thinks of something It may not spell ecological ruin but it’s all he can add to the list “In terms of what I eat I’m a complete hypocrite” he confesses “I try to eat things that are good for me but now and then I go on a total junk food binge Twinkies three things of chocolate ice cream — I’m a complete dessert freak” So the news is out The golden-haire- d silver-scresuperstar at 53 arguably the USA’s most enduring heartthrob is not While trying to spare the e Eartn of man’s junk he ingests his own Redford also is one of the USA’s most famous environmentalists though these days he has stiff competition from the likes of Meryl Streep Kevin Costner lane Fonda and Barbra Streisand all of whom will appear on The Earth Day Special a two-hoentertainment show to air Sunday (9 pm EDTPDT ABC) Redford who chooses not to observe Earth Day publicly still stands out President Bush asked him to the Oval Office to talk environment Outside magazine calls him a “serious player” and recently he received the prestigious Audubon Medal “We absolutely consider him a heavyweight” says a National Audubon Society spokesman “The fact that a super-st- ar like Robert Redford would be involved for as long a time as intensively and as publicly in favor of environmental room-servi- ce en co-perf- ur protection is a big deal” Redford has been fighting on behalf of the planet since he was in In his words “1969 was the beginning of a long and rocky path bell-botto- By Carol Clurman Photographed by Jean Pagliuso 4 USA WSEXJBND April 20-2- 2 1990 “It was such an uphill trek for so long Suddenly the environment became an issue almost overnight” Tetri ef icthrisa — aal critidsa Twenty yean ago while his Hollywood peen were busy making love and not war Redford was attending public hearings and organizing forces in nis new neighborhood Utah to block a power plant or construction of a four-lahighway In the process Redford has taken some hard knocks Some resented a big star meddling in local issues and cast him as the Bad Guy Once townspeople burned him in effigy State transportation officials have varied opinions of Redford says a spokesman “Some of them you couldn’t print in a family newspaper” And last fall The Wall Street Journal ran an irreverent front-pag- e story under the headline “The Sundance Kid Gets little Respect Around Sundance” his home The story quotes someone calling Redford a “jerk” After decades in the environmental fray Redford is quick to defend himself against bad reviews He calls opposition an inevitable backlash “But is that going to affect what you do? No” ne His hone is his eco-cast- le Redford’s activism starts at home an elegantly rustic spread that made Architectural Digest last year His house is solar-powerthough it has an elaborate energy-sapping security system Redford calls an unfortunate necessity “You have to ensure a certain amount of privacy and that can be not exactly energy efficient” If there’s one thing he’d give up to be a better citizen he says it would be his cars: a Jeep an Audi and a Porsche For now Redford has the Porsche but Too many speeding not out of eco-gutickets “That’s a greater environmental hazard” he jokes of his driving Redford’s known to discuss environmental issues over dinner with his three children Shauna 30 Jamie 28 and Amy 20 when they visit Likely to be on the table: vegetables from the organic garden ed dry-dock- ed iit fish from a nearby stream milk and butter livestock from Sundance’s chemical-fre- e about He’s serious teaching his kids about nature and conservation “When we’re in the country I spend a lot of time educating them about the environment” But Redford is more of an action guy “I don’t spend a lot of time talking about it You get on a horse and understand what the horse is You travel on the horse and see wildlife and you explain what the wildlife is The more you see the wildlife and how it behaves the more (his chilIt’s dren) understand nature by nature all part of the education" Creatiif bis nri eniroiaeit In Utah Redford is master of his own environmentally correct universe He is not only the owner he is the resident guru at Sundance a remote complex he hopes is for the ages an But does building Sundance brand Redeco-Ed- en ford with a scarlet letter D for developer? “If I didn’t have it it would have been gone a long time ago” to less environmentally scrupulous developers he responds Only 65 of his 5000 mountain acres are developed and those are dotted with recycling stations organic gardens and newly planted trees Beyond Redford’s house Sundance enski resort a film incompasses a low-ke- y stitute and the Institute for Resource Management (IRM) “It seemed to me since industry really controlled the show and there had to be a countervailing force for the environment” says Redford explaining why he started the IRM 10 years ago “If there could be a way to get industry and the environmentalists together ana really come to grips with hard issues and realize that they are all in it together that there was something to be gained from coming to some agreement rather than fighting with each other that would be the contribution I could make” Some have called the IRM’s good intentions naive Barry Flamm the Wilderness Society’s chief forester attended a Sundance conference on forest planning: “They were writing off the fact that some environmental concerns couldn’t be dealt with that easily” Redford concedes the IRM hasn’t always gotten hard results but counters “The IRM was not just talk All of our conferences were designed to find that seed of agreement At the end of every conference is always a plan of action” |