Hollywood elite pays Oscar memorial tribute to Rob Reiner, Robert Redford

Hollywood royalty paused for its customary memorial moment at the Oscars on Sunday, remembering stars who died over the past year, with special tributes to two towering figures who shaped cinema both in front of and behind the camera: Rob Reiner and Robert Redford.

The tributes formed one of the most emotional moments of the 98th Academy Awards. Reiner’s remembrance carried added weight because of the grim circumstances of his death. The filmmaker, 78, and his wife Michelle, 70, were found fatally stabbed in their West Los Angeles home on December 14. Their younger son, Nick Reiner, has been charged with their murders and has pleaded not guilty.

Films to ‘last a lifetime’
Reiner, who first gained fame on television before building a prolific filmmaking career, was honoured in a tribute delivered by Billy Crystal at the Dolby Theatre. Crystal, a nine-time Oscar host, co-starred in one of Reiner’s most beloved films, the romantic comedy ‘When Harry Met Sally.’
‘My friend Rob’s movies will last a lifetime because they were about what makes us laugh and cry and what we aspire to be, far better in his eyes, far kinder, far funnier and far more human,’ Crystal said.

He was soon joined on stage by his ‘When Harry Met Sally’ co-star Meg Ryan, along with more than a dozen actors who had appeared in Reiner’s films, including ‘The Princess Bride’, ‘The Sure Thing’ and ‘A Few Good Men’.

‘I want you to know how many times Rob told me that it meant everything to him that his work meant something to you,’ Crystal added.
The tribute opened the Oscars’ annual ‘In Memoriam’ montage honouring recently departed film personalities, from Diane Keaton, Diane Ladd and Catherine O’Hara to Val Kilmer, Graham Greene and Robert Duvall.
The segment concluded with Barbra Streisand, 83, taking the stage to honour Redford, her co-star in the 1973 romantic drama ‘The Way We Were’. Redford died in September at the age of 89. Streisand remembered him as ‘an intellectual cowboy who blazed his own trail’.

The way they were
In her first live Oscars performance in 13 years, Streisand sang a brief stanza from the theme song of ‘The Way We Were’. The film remains one of the most memorable works for both Streisand and Redford.
Redford, the striking Hollywood leading man who later became an Oscar-winning director, was also a champion of independent cinema and the founder of the Sundance Film Festival.

Streisand last performed at the Oscars in 2013 when she sang ‘The Way We Were’ in tribute to the song’s late composer, Marvin Hamlisch.

Redford became one of the industry’s most bankable stars, known especially for his collaborations with Paul Newman in ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ (1969) and ‘The Sting’ (1973). He also starred in romantic classics such as ‘Barefoot in the Park’, ‘The Way We Were’ and ‘Out of Africa’, and political dramas including ‘All the President’s Men’ and ‘The Candidate’.

Though he never won an Oscar for acting, his first film as director, the 1980 drama ‘Ordinary People’, won Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director.
Redford later used his success to establish the Sundance Institute and Festival in the 1970s, championing independent filmmakers long before such films gained mainstream attention.

From ‘Meathead’ to marriage equality
As an actor, Reiner was widely known for playing Mike ‘Meathead’ Stivic in the hit 1970s sitcom ‘All in the Family’. His character served as the liberal foil to Archie Bunker, the show’s bigoted working-class patriarch.
Reiner went on to become a celebrated director, beginning with the 1984 mockumentary ‘This Is Spinal Tap’, a cult favourite about a fictional rock band. Reiner himself appeared in the film as faux documentarian Marty DiBergi.

He eventually directed nearly two dozen films, including classics such as ‘Stand by Me’ (1986), ‘The Princess Bride’ (1987), ‘Misery’ (1990) and ‘A Few Good Men’ (1992).

Outside cinema, Reiner, the son of legendary comedy writer and actor Carl Reiner, was also an outspoken Democratic Party activist and donor.

Crystal also credited Reiner and his wife, a photographer and producer with whom he shared nearly 37 years of marriage, as a ‘driving force’ behind the political campaign that eventually led to the landmark US Supreme Court ruling legalising same-sex marriage nationwide.
Crystal recalled first meeting Reiner when he was cast as Meathead’s best friend in a 1975 episode of ‘All in the Family’.
‘I was thrilled to see him evolve from a great comic actor to a master storyteller,’ he said.