LOS ANGELES – Jane Fonda, speaking on camera at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party following the 98th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood, publicly questioned why Barbra Streisand was selected to deliver an on-air tribute to the late actor and filmmaker Robert Redford during the ceremony’s In Memoriam segment.
“I want to know how come Streisand was up there doing that for Redford?” Fonda said in an interview with Entertainment Tonight. “She only made one movie with him; I made four! I have more to say.”
Streisand appeared on the Oscars telecast to honor Redford, who died in September 2025 at age 89, and performed a section of “The Way We Were,” the title track from Sydney Pollack’s 1973 romantic drama starring Redford and Streisand.
An Oscars tribute built around legacy-and a specific film
The In Memoriam tribute unfolded within a tightly choreographed broadcast overseen by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which controls the format and tone of the annual Oscars telecast under its formal rules of procedure and membership governance as a nonprofit arts organization. The Academy’s producing team, not individual presenters, determines which voices carry specific segments, including who introduces and musically anchors the on-air memorial.
In her onstage remarks, Streisand framed Redford’s public profile as extending beyond screen credits, pointing to causes and institutions he supported.
“Now, Bob had real backbone on and off the screen. He spoke up to defend freedom of the press, protect the environment and encouraged new voices at his Sundance Institute – some of whom are up for Oscars tonight, which is so great. He was thoughtful and bold. I called him an intellectual cowboy who blazed his own trail. … I miss him now more than ever, even though he loved teasing me.”
The use of “The Way We Were” anchored the segment in a specific, widely recognized title associated with both performers and positioned the tribute as a career marker rather than a general montage. For an Oscars broadcast, that kind of selection is also a production choice: the In Memoriam portion is time-limited, carefully staged, and designed for a mass audience that includes both industry professionals and casual viewers.
The 98th Academy Awards were hosted by Conan O’Brien, whose presence underscored the show’s blend of live entertainment and institutional ritual as the Academy navigates how it presents film history to a global audience.
Fonda’s claim: four films, and a longer working relationship
Fonda’s comments did not dispute Streisand’s connection to Redford; instead, they emphasized Fonda’s own decades-long collaboration with him and her view that the Academy telecast did not reflect that professional history. Her remarks landed as a pointed critique of how cultural institutions decide which creative partnerships become part of the official record in a live show watched worldwide.
Redford and Fonda co-starred in the following films:
- The Chase (1966)
- Barefoot in the Park (1967)
- The Electric Horseman (1979)
- Our Souls at Night (2017)
Redford also had an uncredited appearance as a basketball player in Fonda’s 1960 film Tall Story, a footnote that further illustrates the longevity of their professional overlap.
While the Oscars telecast did not include remarks from Fonda in the In Memoriam segment, she used her Vanity Fair Oscar Party interview to add her own statement of record about Redford’s impact and personal qualities.
“I was always in love with him,” Fonda said with a laugh. “The most gorgeous human being and such great values. And he did a lot for movies, he really changed movies, lifted up independent movies.”
Two public tributes after Redford’s death
Following Redford’s death, both Fonda and Streisand issued public statements via Instagram that reflected different entry points into his legacy: Fonda through their repeated collaborations over decades, and Streisand through their work on The Way We Were and their personal relationship.
“Bob made a real difference in all good ways,” Fonda wrote in part. “He represented an America we must now fight to protect. He revolutionized independent film making and made us swoon in so many movies. I am very sad today. Cried all morning. But luckily I can think back on so many joyful, laughter-filled moments when his practical jokes would crack me up. I feel so lucky to have made one of his first big movies with him, Barefoot in the Park (I fell madly in love with him on that one) and his last (the aforementioned Souls at Night).”
Streisand’s post addressed the working rhythm of their 1973 production and described a later, off-set encounter, placing emphasis on the continuity of their relationship beyond the film’s release.
“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.”
How institutional memorials shape public memory
Awards shows remain one of the few mass-viewed entertainment platforms where an industry institution can confer public recognition in real time. Within the Academy Awards format, the In Memoriam segment functions as an editorially curated tribute: it is a public record assembled under strict time constraints, staged for television, and carried by choices that inevitably elevate some narratives over others.
Under the Academy’s bylaws and production guidelines, the ceremony is not merely a showcase for individual stars but an annual exercise in institutional self-definition, determining which careers, collaborations and causes are foregrounded for a global broadcast audience. In practice, those decisions influence which stories about a figure like Redford become canonical in mainstream memory and which remain in side conversations, interviews and social posts.
Streisand’s speech explicitly referenced Redford’s advocacy and his support of emerging filmmakers at the Sundance Institute, tying the memorial to ongoing pipelines of talent and prestige within the motion picture business. That institutional framing-linking a legacy figure to new work in the room-can also serve as an implicit reminder that a career’s influence may be measured not only in roles and box office, but in the infrastructure and opportunities left behind.
Fonda’s response, delivered in a post-ceremony media setting rather than on the telecast itself, highlighted a different measure of legacy: sustained collaboration over multiple decades and projects, including a late-career reunion in Our Souls at Night. Her pointed question about why she was not chosen to deliver the televised tribute underscores a recurring tension between personal artistic history and the institutional choices that define how that history is presented to the public.
The 98th Academy Awards ceremony has concluded at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood, but the debate Fonda sparked over whose voice is elevated in moments of official remembrance adds a coda to a night that, for the Academy, is as much about controlling narrative as distributing trophies.