Jane Fonda wants to know why Barbra Streisand performed the Robert Redford tribute at the 2026 Oscars ceremony, joking to Entertainment Tonight, “I want to know how come Streisand was up there doing that for Redford.”
Fonda, 88, went on to make a playful comment, stating, “She only made one movie with him, I made four!”
She went on to state she had “more to say” about Redford, revealing, “I was always in love with him,” and calling him “the most gorgeous human being” who had “such great values.”
The Way They Were: Barbra Streisand Pays Tribute to Robert Redford
Streisand stepped up to pay tribute to Redford during the In Memoriam section of the Oscars ceremony, recalling their time spent working on the seminal film “The Way We Were,” Variety reports.
“After I read the first script of ‘The Way We Were’, I could only imagine one man in the role and that was Robert Redford. But he turned it down because he said the character had no backbone, he doesn’t stand for anything — and he was right,” she told the audience.
“So many drafts later, Bob finally agreed to do it. He was a brilliant, subtle actor, and 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 praised Redford’s legacy as an advocate, calling him “thoughtful and bold.”
“I called him a little intellectual cowboy who blazed his own trail,” she revealed. “I miss him now more than ever.”
Streisand concluded the tribute with a performance of the song ‘The Way We Were,’ which won Best Song at the 46th Academy Awards in 1974.
‘He Meant a Lot to Me’: Jane Fonda’s Heartbreaking Tribute to Redford
GettyRedford passed away in September 2025, aged 89. Fonda was among many of his co-stars who paid tribute at the time, saying in a statement, “I can’t stop crying. He meant a lot to me and was a beautiful person in every way. He stood for an America we have to keep fighting for.”
Redford and Fonda starred in multiple projects together, making their first onscreen appearance together in the 1960 film “Tall Story.” They went on to star in “The Chase,” “Barefoot in the Park” and “The Electric Horseman.”
The pair also starred in the 2017 Netflix film “Our Souls at Night,” which was one of Redford’s final roles before retiring from the industry.
The reason they didn’t ask you Jane Fonda, is that you would have made it all about you. So they went with class and had Barbra Streisand do the presentation. It was fantastic! Thank you Barbra!