Barbra Streisand has paid tribute to her friend and former co-star Robert Redford at the 98th Academy Awards in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
The actor and singer, 83, sang a portion of the title song from their 1973 romantic drama The Way We Were, directed by Sydney Pollack, after remembering the pair\u2019s respect and affection for one another.<\/p>\n
The film, she said, was \u201calso 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
She paid tribute to Redford\u2019s political courage, saying \u201che spoke up to defend the freedom of the press, protect the environment and encourage new voices\u201d at the Sundance institute.<\/p>\n
\u201cI called him an intellectual cowboy,\u201d she said, \u201cwho blazed his own trail.\u201d<\/p>\n
She concluded by saying that she had told Redford she loved him in her last note to him, before singing.<\/p>\n
Redford and Streisand in The Way We Were. Photograph: Allstar Picture Library Limited.\/Alamy<\/p>\n
Streisand\u2019s most recent appearance on the Oscars<\/a> stage was 13 years ago, when she performed the same song to honour its late composer, Marvin Hamlisch, as part of the ceremony\u2019s In Memoriam segment.<\/p>\n Redford won an Oscar for his directorial debut, Ordinary People (1980), as well as receiving an honorary Academy Award, which was presented to him by Streisand in 2002.<\/p>\n The film-maker, who also founded the Sundance festival, died<\/a> in September, aged 89. Streisand paid tribute to him then on Instagram, writing: \u201cEvery 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! Yes, we kept trying to find out more about each other, just like the characters in the movie.<\/p>\n \u201cBob was charismatic, intelligent, intense, always interesting \u2013 and one of the finest actors ever.\u201d<\/p>\n