Hollywood legend Robert Redford, who died Tuesday in his Utah home at age 89, was known for iconic roles and films like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President’s Men, as well as launching the now-famous Sundance Film Festival. But before he hit it big in show business, Redford had quite a different gig, far from the bright lights of Hollywood, working for a brief time at Yosemite National Park. He said he was inspired to work there after a chance visit as a child, when his mother took him on a trip there to aid in his recovery from a life-threatening illness.
“It all started when I was about 11, growing up in Los Angeles,” Redford said in a 2016 interview with Smithsonian magazine. “I had a mild case of polio—not enough to put me in an iron lung, but enough to keep me bedridden for weeks. As I came out of it, my mom wanted to do something for me. She realized that, growing up in the city, I’d missed out on a lot of nature.”
Redford said his mother drove him to Yosemite—an over four-hour trip—in 1949, when the National Park Service was just 33 years old. The experience proved transformative for the future Oscar winner. “So she drove me to Yosemite. If you’re coming from Fresno, you go through a mile-long tunnel, and when we came out the other side, I was blown away,” Redford said. “We stopped to look at the view, and when I went to the edge—well, I said to myself, ‘I don’t want to look at this. I want to be in this.'”
According to the Smithsonian, Redford returned to Yosemite years later and spent two summers working at Camp Curry, which is now called Curry Village, and Yosemite Valley Lodge—but he would nurture his love of nature throughout his career. The actor, who grew up in a working-class family in Santa Monica, spent decades as a vocal climate activist, founding The Redford Center, dedicated to raising awareness for environmental causes, with his late son James in 2005. In 1961, Redford began investing in real estate in Utah, where he led initiatives to protect the state’s natural beauty and the broader American West.
The connection between his childhood Yosemite experience and later work remained strong throughout his life. In 2016, to commemorate the National Park Service’s centennial, Redford narrated an IMAX film called “National Parks Adventure.” The project allowed him to advocate for protecting America’s natural treasures for future generations.
Redford died peacefully “at his home at Sundance in the mountains of Utah—the place he loved, surrounded by those he loved,” according to his publicist Cindi Berger.
For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
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