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nationally, would go on. “I checked him out,” says Deep, “and I judged him to be a brilliant national cultural asset who was really, worryingly disorganized. The reason I joined was his energy, which reminded me of Mike Dukakis’s. He was very holistic, very universal in his approach to culture and politics. I understood quickly that he was overcommitted with the movies and what he then called ‘the Sundance entities.’ It was a complicated situation that covered national environmental awareness, local energy issues in Utah, fund-raising for his nonprofit arts institute and all the other bits and pieces of commercial endeavor in retail catalogs, farm produce, the resort, et cetera. It seemed unmanageable, but he wanted help to simplify it. There was no grand plan. It was all in motion. He asked me how I saw it, and I said, ‘It’s all about reprioritization.’ He liked that. We agreed that was a great place to start.”

The employment of Deep, Ted Wilson felt, cast the mold for all future activism. “He basically said, ‘From now on I’ll fight the battles by proxy. I’ll support the key congressional movers, I’ll debate in the op-eds, but I’ll do it at one point remove. Stop thinking of me as an elective candidate. I’m a moviemaker.’ ” Redford was supporting NRDC’s campaign to block Congress from exempting nuclear reactors from the provisions of the Clean Air Act, activism that brought him close to Julie Mack, another new assignee. Mack was the prime organizer of the Utah Clean Air Coalition, which he had joined in the highway-planning dispute. She became his environmental spokesperson, aligning Sundance with the newly formed Utah Wilderness Coalition to help draft a Citizens’ Proposal Bill, to counteract a wilderness-limiting Republican proposal that was in the offing. Logan-born Mack professed herself “shocked” by Redford’s preparedness for the fight. “When I came for the job interview, he was disorganized. There was a fat file of issues spilling onto the floor. But he had done his research. He didn’t want to be a figurehead. He wanted to be in the action, anatomizing the legislation, analyzing the court judgments, dismembering government. He would constantly cite his belief in grassroots political action. He would say, ‘The little fight is as important as the heavyweight bout. We can’t let precedent steamroll the people. We have to rewrite legislation.’ He made it very clear to me and Joyce that this was a new, fighting Sundance.”

Stormy waters lay ahead. Within months, Weil was gone. A major investigative feature by Peter Biskind in Premiere magazine charged Beer with mismanagement and Redford with naïve neglect. According to Biskind, Sundance, in Redford’s absence, had become a fiscally compromised embarrassment. Wilhite, said Biskind, failed because, despite innovative creativity, he didn’t click with Redford. Weil did, but, wrote Biskind, she failed because she followed Beer’s example of rudderless extravagance. According to Gary Burr, resort manager Brent Beck’s assistant, Beer “charged the institute for flowers and catering expenses for parties,” incurring entertainment bills of $200 to $300 per night, two or three nights a week. His expenses often approached $20,000 monthly, said Burr. “By the time the summer [programs] came around, there wasn’t enough money for [the institute] to pay for food and housing. Gary didn’t understand that he was working for a nonprofit, and that the people around him were working for almost nothing.”

“I never abused the institute finances,” says Beer in his defense. “But I was the sitting target because, after Sterling Van Wagenen, I came to oversee all the different areas at the same time. That was one hell of a juggling act, and I defy anyone to string together all the different cultures of L.A., the studios, the Beltway, the politicos, the trust funds—and not spend money. Also, whatever I did, I did with Bob’s and [lawyer] Reg Gipson’s full support.” Gipson believes that “blaming Gary was cheap and mean-spirited, because there were so many complicated aspects concerning the seeking of grants,