Oscars: Barbra Streisand Pays Tribute to Robert Redford & Sings 'The Way We Were’

Barbra Streisand closed out the 2026 Oscar in memoriam by honoring her friend and co-star Robert Redford.

She said that Robert was the only person she could imagine playing Hubbell Gardiner in their 1973 film “The Way We Were,” but revealed that he initially turned down the role!

Streisand shared, “He said the character had no backbone, he doesn’t stand for anything, and he was right, so — many drafts later — he agreed to do it.”

Barbra called him a “brilliant, subtle actor,” and shared, “We had a wonderful time playing off each other because we never quite knew what the other one was going to do in a scene.”

She pointed out the Sydney Pollack film was "about a dark time in our history. The late '40s and early '50s, when people were informing on each other and subject to loyalty oaths.”

Streisand praised Robert, saying he had a “real backbone on and off the screen.” She said he would “defend the freedom of the press, protect the environment” and called him “thoughtful and bold.”

The star went on, “I called him an intellectual cowboy who blazed his own trail… and I miss him now more than ever.”

She recalled one of their much later conversations where he told her, “Babs, I love you dearly, and I always will,” and how in the last note she wrote to Bob, she told him, “I love you, too.”

Streisand then sang a portion of “The Way We Were” in honor of Redford. 

Redford died in September 2025 at 89 years old.

At the time, Streisand wrote on Instagram, "Every day on the set of 'The Way We Were' was exciting, intense and pure joy. We were such opposites: he was from the world of horses; I was allergic to them! Yet, we kept trying to find out more about each other, just like the characters in the movie. Bob was charismatic, intelligent, intense, always interesting — and one of the finest actors ever. The last time I saw him, when he came to lunch, we discussed art and decided to send each other our first drawings. He was one of a kind and I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with him."