Barbra Streisand honors Robert Redford during tearful Oscars performance

Barbra Streisand had the Dolby Theatre successful tears erstwhile she performed a tribute to Robert Redford during the Oscars connected Sunday.

“I called him an intelligence cowboy who blazed his ain way and won the Academy Award for champion director. And I miss him present much than ever,” Streisand said.

Streisand sang “The Way We Were,” the rubric way to the 1973 movie she starred successful with Redford. The romanticist drama, directed by Sydney Pollack, is considered 1 of film’s top emotion stories.

Written by Alan and Marilyn Bergman and Marvin Hamlisch, “The Way We Were” won the Oscar for archetypal song. Streisand besides performed the opus to grant Hamlisch astatine the 2013 Oscars.

Streisand highlighted Redford’s “backbone, connected and disconnected the screen,” speaking astir his efforts to enactment the escaped press, support the situation and promote caller voices done his Sundance Institute based successful Utah.

“He was thoughtful and bold,” Stresiand said.

When Redford died successful September astatine 89, Streisand shared connected Instagram that helium was “one of a kind” and that she was “so grateful to person had the accidental to enactment with him.”

“We were specified opposites: helium was from the satellite of horses; I was allergic to them! Yet, we kept trying to find retired much astir each other, conscionable similar the characters successful the movie,” Streisand said. “Bob was charismatic, intelligent, intense, ever absorbing — and 1 of the finest actors ever.”

In Streisand’s 2023 memoir, “My Name Is Barbra,” she wrote that “Like the top movie stars, Bob understands the powerfulness of restraint.”

“Bob and I were genuinely funny astir each other, and I judge that’s what comes crossed connected the screen,” Streisand wrote successful the book, “He and I had a existent rapport and the assemblage could consciousness it.”

After “The Way We Were,” Redford went connected to triumph an Academy Award successful 1981 for his directorial debut, “Ordinary People.” He was nominated for 3 different Oscars and received an honorary Oscar successful 2002, which Streisand presented to him. When introducing Redford, she credited him with giving her “one of the astir breathtaking and memorable experiences” of her career.

“As an artist, I conscionable can’t deliberation of a amended beingness than the 1 that I’ve been blessed with,” Redford said successful his acceptance speech. “It’s conscionable a large ride, with galore fantastic relationships and experiences on the way.”