Barbra Streisand Details Her Struggle To Get Robert Redford On Board ‘The Way We Were’

Bruce Haring
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Barbra Streisand was determined to get Robert Redford to star opposite her in The Way We Were, as detailed in her upcoming memoir, My Name Is Barbra, out on Nov. 7.

“Bob is that rare combination… an intellectual cowboy… a charismatic star who is also one of the finest actors of his generation,” Streisand wrote in an excerpt in Vanity Fair. “But like my husband, he’s almost apologetic about his looks, and I liked that about him.”

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She added, “So I wanted Redford for Hubbell. But he turned it down.”

Streisand turned to director Sydney Pollack, a close friend of Redford, for help.

“I have to give Sydney credit,” she confessed. “He was as persistent as I was, because we both felt that only Redford would make the picture work.”

It wasn’t easy.

“Bob was concerned that the script was so focused on Katie that Hubbell’s character was underdeveloped. (He was right.) Bob asked Sydney, ‘Who is this guy? He’s just an object… He doesn’t want anything. What does this guy want?’ In Bob’s opinion, he was ‘shallow and one-dimensional. Not very real.’ ‘A pin-up girl in reverse,’ as Sydney put it.”

Streisand told Pollack, “Give him anything he wants.”

“‘Write more scenes to strengthen his character. Make it equal,'” she wrote. “So Sydney hired two excellent writers, David Rayfiel and Alvin Sargent, to beef up Bob’s part and go deeper, beneath that golden-boy exterior. And I told Ray to pay him whatever he wanted. But Bob’s answer was still no. I was heartbroken.”

Time was running out to cast the part. So Pollack and Streisand asked for another week to try to convince Redford.

“The negotiations went down to the wire. I was in the middle of filming Up the Sandbox in Africa, and one day I got a telegram from Sue Mengers that simply said: ‘Barbra Redford!'” Streisand recalled. “That’s when I knew he’d finally said yes… and I was so thrilled! The courtship had been tough, but Bob’s reluctance had a big influence on the script and ultimately resulted in a richer, more interesting character.”

In Robert Hofler’s 2023 book, The Way They Were: How Epic Battles and Bruised Egos Brought a Classic Hollywood Love Story to the Screen, Pollack revealed an added hurdle in Redford’s casting — he was also very concerned about his potential costar.

“She has never been tested,” Redford told Pollack. “Her reputation is as a very controlling person. She will direct herself. It’ll never work.” Redford had another concern — “She’s not going to sing, is she? I [don’t] want her to sing in the middle of the movie.”

In the end, it all turned out well. The Way We Were became a hit.

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