Jane Fonda Revisits Robert Redford Crush Over 50 Years
jane fonda used the opening night of the TCM Classic Film Festival to do two things at once: praise Robert Redford as a movie star and reopen a comment she made about Barbra Streisand’s Oscars tribute. At the TCL Chinese gala, she said she had such a crush on Redford and said no one should have taken her Streisand remark too seriously.
TCL Chinese gala remarks
Fonda was the main attraction on the opening night event tied to a screening of 1967’s Barefoot in the Park, the film that placed her opposite Redford for one of their four collaborations. In the interview with Ben Mankiewicz, she called him “He was meant to be in movies.”
She went further in describing why he drew attention across a more than 50-year span of public conversation around their work together: “He was a brilliant movie star. He also was the most gorgeous human being I had ever been with. He was very smart and he was really funny. He loved practical jokes, and he was reckless. Not so reckless that he would have an affair with me…”
1966 meeting on The Chase
Fonda said she met Redford on The Chase in 1966, when both were married. She said she asked him, “Do you ever have affairs?” and repeated his reply: “Well, if I was gonna have an affair, it would be with somebody that was like a hooker.”
She also said they bonded over stones and had “a good time talking about stacking stones.” That detail matters because the festival appearance was not just nostalgia; it showed how the pair’s connection has remained part of the way their films are remembered, not only the films themselves.
Streisand Oscar tribute line
Fonda also revisited the line that drew attention after a recent Oscars telecast featured a tribute to Redford by Streisand. On a Vanity Fair red carpet, she said, “I want to know, how come Streisand was up there doing that for Redford?”
She added, “She only made one movie with him. I made four! I have more to say.” On Thursday, she said no one should have taken that comment too seriously. The practical reading is simple: Fonda is still treating Redford as a public touchstone, and the tribute conversation only sharpened interest in a partnership that already had four films behind it.
For anyone watching the festival as a film-history event rather than a fan gathering, that is the point. Fonda did not just revisit a crush; she used an honors-night conversation to remind the room that the Redford-Fonda pairing still carries enough history to turn an Oscar tribute into news.
