Billy Crystal kicked off an extended In Memoriam segment at this year’s Oscars with a tribute to his friend Rob Reiner and the latter’s late wife, Michele Singer, followed by Rachel McAdams paying teary tribute to Diane Keaton and Catherine O’Hara and, finally, Barbra Streisand honoring Robert Redford with a rendition of “The Way We Were.”
“To the millions who have enjoyed his films all these years, I want you to know, here and around the world, how many times Rob told me that it meant everything to him that his work meant something to you,” Crystal said. “For us who had the privilege of working with and knowing him and loving him, all we can say is, ‘Buddy, what fun we had storming the castle.’”
After his speech, Crystal was joined on stage by a number of Reiner’s other past collaborators, including Crystal’s “When Harry Met Sally…” co-star Meg Ryan and Kathy Bates, who won an Oscar for her performance in Reiner’s 1990 Stephen King adaptation “Misery.”
In addition to Ryan and Bates, the actors who joined Crystal in honoring Reiner were: Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, Jerry O’Connell, Wil Wheaton, Fred Savage, Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Carol Kane, Billy Crystal, Kiefer Sutherland, Demi Moore, Kevin Pollak, Annette Bening, John Cusack and Daphne Zuniga.
After Reiner’s lineup of collaborators exited the stage, “Send Help” star Rachel McAdams stepped into the spotlight to honor late female screen icons like Diane Ladd, Catherine O’Hara and Diane Keaton. McAdams co-starred alongside the latter in both 2005’s “The Family Stone” and 2010’s “Morning Glory.”
McAdams was followed by Oscar winner Barbra Streisand, who took to the Academy Awards stage to pay tribute to her “The Way We Were” co-star, the late Robert Redford. “I miss him now more than ever, even though he loved teasing me. He’d call me ‘Babs,’ and I’d say, ‘Bob, do I look like a ‘Babs’?” Streisand remembered. “But the way he said it made me laugh.”
Streisand recalled a phone call she had with Redford in which he told her he loved her dearly and always would. “The last note I ever wrote to Bob, I ended it with, ‘I love you, too,’ and I signed it, ‘Babs,’” Streisand emotionally shared. She went on to sing a small portion of the Oscar-winning theme song for “The Way We Were.”
This year’s In Memoriam segment was given a longer runway than usual due, unfortunately, to the sheer number of artists who have tragically passed away since last year’s Oscars. Among those recognized this year were late legends like Keaton, Reiner, O’Hara and Redford, as well as David Lynch, Val Kilmer, Claudia Cardinale, Robert Duvall and others.
