Robert Redford's green streak runs deep ( barf )

Los Angeles Times ^ | May 16, 2008 | TINA DAUNT

[george76]

At Ron Burkle's mansion...

ON A BALMY evening this week, the crowd at billionaire Ron Burkle's Beverly Hills estate was a mixture of high-level academia and high-level Hollywood, none higher than Robert Redford, actor, director, Sundance guru and the industry's über-environmental activist.

Serious gatherings like this at Burkle's begin with a Champagne reception in the foyer, an intimately lavish space where presidents, generals, senators and Los Angeles' moneyed elite mingle and discuss the pressing issues of the day.

(Half the town has portraits of themselves with former President Bill Clinton there.)

When Redford entered the foyer from the inner sanctum of Burkle's library (call it America's best-appointed green room), members of Pitzer College's presidents' council had been chatting for an hour, munching on the estate's trademark mini-cheese burgers and bite-sized salads on a cracker.

After chatting in the foyer, Redford made his way down a windowed gallery, just past the Renoir. He was stopped briefly by a fan who wanted to chat about his onetime interest in auto racing.

"What do you drive now?" someone asked. He laughed. A Prius, and two Lexus hybrids. Then he whispered: "Sometimes I'll put on a mask and drive the [Porsche] Boxster."

After all, this is a man who played Jay Gatsby.

Inside Burkle's soaring, wood-paneled living room, with two Hockneys brightening the walls, Redford found a corner seat on one of two plush suede couches near the fireplace.

[A_perfect_lady]

You know, I have to give the author of this piece credit: whether it’s deliberate or not, she really shows the hypocrisy when she carefully describes all the plushy comforts these people enjoy, and the star-struck goofiness of the attendees.