Barbra Streisand celebrated Robert Redford, her “The Way We Were” co-star who died last year, at the Academy Awards on Sunday, ending her remembrance by singing a few bars from that movie’s theme song.
Streisand and Redford played diametrically opposite college friends who fall in love in “The Way We Were” (1973), which won Oscars for best song and best score, and was the impetus for their decades-long friendship.
She recalled that Redford initially turned down the role because the character “had no backbone.” Citing the actor’s real-life political activism and work on behalf of independent filmmakers through the Sundance Institute, Streisand said: “He was thoughtful and bold. I called him an intellectual cowboy who blazed his own trail.”
Then Streisand broke into the strains of “The Way We Were” as Redford’s words were projected onstage: “The glory of art is that it cannot only survive change, it can lead it.”
Redford, who preferred his home in Utah instead of the glitz of Hollywood, was 89 when he died in September. He was nominated for only one acting Oscar, for his lead performance in “The Sting” (1973), about Depression-era grifters.
Redford won a best director Oscar for his debut feature, “Ordinary People” (1980), about a family death that reflected his own childhood. In 2002, Streisand presented Redford with an honorary Academy Award for his work as a director, producer and champion of independent filmmaking, namely through the Sundance Film Festival.
Sunday night’s In Memoriam segment, which recognizes people in the film industry who have died in the past year, also honored Rob Reiner and Diane Keaton.
Michaela Towfighi is a Times arts and culture reporter and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for early career journalists.
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