Barbra Streisand leads emotional tribute to Robert Redford at 2026 Oscars

Months after the death of her "The Way We Were" costar Robert Redford, Barbra Streisand is honoring him at the Academy Awards.

Streisand, who played the neurotic, political firebrand Katie Morosky opposite Redford's WASPy Hubbell Gardiner in the 1973 romantic drama, performed a song and delivered a speech honoring him during the Oscars' In Memoriam segment.

Streisand treated audiences to a short snippet of "The Way We Were," the melancholic title track from the Sydney Pollack film. It followed an emotional tribute to Redford, a giant of the entertainment industry.

"Bob had a real backbone on and off the screen," Streisand said, calling him an "intellectual cowboy who blazed his own trail" and revealing she could not have imagined anyone else in the role. "I miss him now more than ever," she said.

Redford died at 89 on Tuesday, Sept. 16, at his Sundance home in the mountains of Utah. A titan of cinema, Redford was known not just for his presence in front of the camera but also for his work behind the camera, and as the brains behind the now-legendary Sundance Film Festival.

Streisand, whose memoir "My Name is Barbra" was released in 2023, wrote in the book that Redford had a singular talent, and that, when he was originally reluctant to take on the role in "The Way We Were," she pushed script-writers to make his character richer and more developed.

"What intrigued me most about Bob was his complexity. You never quite know what he's thinking, and that makes him fascinating to watch on screen," she wrote. "Like the greatest movie stars, Bob understands the power of restraint. You're never going to get it all … and that's the mystery … that's what makes you want to keep looking at him."

"Bob's reluctance had a big influence on the script and ultimately resulted in a richer, more interesting character," Streisand said in her memoir about "The Sting" and "All the President's Men" actor.

Streisand described Redford as an attentive listener who loved to tease her and inspired her to learn how to ski. He was also "kind of a loner," she said, and they purposefully didn't spend much time together at the start of filming so they could find their chemistry in character as Katie and Hubbell.

Contributing: Patrick Ryan, USA TODAY