By the time Brad Olch took office as mayor of Park City in early 1990, Robert Redford’s film festival was a burgeoning event on the international circuit and already seemed destined to stand among the elite festivals in the world.
It would not be renamed the Sundance Film Festival until the next year, but the event had started to bring a touch of glitz to Park City.
Redford, who died on Tuesday, was a Hollywood legend, and Sundance began to help define the community’s identity as both the festival and Park City rose in stature in the 1990s.
Olch served 12 years as the mayor, ending in early 2002, weeks before the Winter Olympics, and his time in office largely tracked with Sundance’s growth into the independent-film spectacle that it is today.
Sundance “really put Park City on the map, long before the Olympics came to town,” Olch said in an interview on Tuesday.
Olch met Redford as a member of the Park City Council in the 1980s, saying the two were at a reception at the Elks Building on Main Street during the festival one year. They went to a premiere screening at the Egyptian Theatre later that day, Olch said. They would work with each other repeatedly over the decades, with City Hall and Sundance having such an important relationship.
The Sundance founder had a highly visible presence at the festival and retained a leadership role within the organization through the decades, Olch recalled. He said Redford ensured Sundance’s success would continue as he prepared to eventually retire.
Olch noted Redford invested in Park City beyond the festival through the former Zoom restaurant that was along Main Street for years. Redford was an “important figure for Park City as well as the state of Utah,” Olch said.
“He was an icon in the movie business. He was an icon in Utah and, with Sundance, was an icon in Park City,” the former mayor said.