Robert Redford was always around, but I never saw him, let alone met him. At every large Democratic gathering that I've attended in my career, he was a kind of ghost, a rumor, but a presence nonetheless.

Beyond his career as one of the last authentic matinee idols, a fine actor and director, and the creator of the Sundance Resort and Field Institute that revived independent film, Redford was a political actor for those causes he adopted, especially concerning the environment and, by extension, indigenous rights.

One of the lesser-known films on his CV is The Candidate, a shrewd examination of the birth of mass media politics in the 1970s. In it, Redford portrays Bill McKay, the activist son of a crafty former California governor, who runs against a veteran senator. As the campaign grin

See Full Page