Meryl Streep, Barbra Streisand and others mourn actor Robert Redford

LOS ANGELES – American actress Meryl Streep called him a lion. Oscar-winning deaf actress Marlee Matlin said he was a genius. To American film-maker Ron Howard, he was a tremendously influential cultural figure.

After news broke on Sept 16 of the

death at age 89 of Robert Redford

– the Oscar-winning actor, director and producer who also nurtured the independent film movement through his Sundance Film Festival – tributes from his Hollywood friends and colleagues flooded in.

The testimonies celebrated not only Redford’s commitment as a film-maker and an activist, but also his loyalty as a friend and a mentor.

Barbra Streisand, 83

Streisand said in a statement on Instagram that when she and Redford starred together in the film The Way We Were (1973), which won two Oscars, every day on set was “exciting, intense and pure joy”.

In many ways, they were opposites, she said, but a friendship grew.

“Bob was charismatic, intelligent, intense, always interesting – and one of the finest actors ever,” she said. “He was one of a kind, and I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with him.”

The last time she saw Redford, Streisand said, they chatted about art over lunch, deciding to send each other their drawings.

Jane Fonda, 87

Fonda, a frequent Redford collaborator, starring with him in films including The Chase (1966), Barefoot In The Park (1967) and Our Souls At Night (2017), said in a statement that Redford’s death had hit her hard.

“I can’t stop crying,” she said. “He meant a lot to me and was a beautiful person in every way. He stood for an America we have to keep fighting for.”

Morgan Freeman, 88

Freeman recalled that when working with Redford in Brubaker, a crime drama from 1980, the two actors “instantly became friends”.

“There were certain people you know that you’re going to click with,” Freeman said on social media. Referring to another drama released in 2005, he added: “Working with him again in An Unfinished Life was a dream come true.”

Meryl Streep, 76

Streep, who starred with Redford in Out Of Africa (1985), the period drama set in 20th-century colonial Kenya that won seven Oscars, called Redford a “lovely friend”. In a brief statement, she added that “one of the lions has passed”.

Jane Alexander, 85

Alexander, who also worked with Redford in Brubaker, as well as in the Watergate drama All The President’s Men (1976), said in a statement that Redford was nothing less than a giant.

“There is no one I worked with that I admired more than Bob Redford. He made All The President’s Men possible and approved my being in it, which was the beginning of a long friendship.”

She also pointed to Redford’s work outside Hollywood.

“Most of all, he did more for environmental causes than anyone I knew through the Natural Resources Defence Council,” she said. “We bonded on that, a love of the West and chocolate.”

Elizabeth McGovern, 64

When the Redford-directed Ordinary People premiered in 1980 – and went on to win four Oscars – McGovern had few acting credits. But, she recalled in a statement, Redford took a shot on her.

“His intelligence, empathy and understanding, not only as a film-maker, but also as a person have been difficult to match,” she said. “When we shot Ordinary People, he did my scenes on the weekend so that I could attend the Juilliard School during the week. This was the kind of caring person he was. I revered him then; I revere him now.”

Timothy Hutton, 65

Hutton, another Ordinary People star who was beginning a career when the film was made – and he would win an Oscar for the role – said in a statement: “To a 19-year-old who was just learning to find their way, Robert Redford held quite a light.”

“This is a very big loss to me and all who loved him,” he went on, adding that Redford was a “deeply thoughtful person who moved through every moment with enormous care and piercing perception”.

Ron Howard, 71

Howard said on social media platform X that Redford’s creative choices as an actor, director and producer – and his cultivation of the Sundance Film Festival – had made Redford a “tremendously influential cultural figure”. Howard praised Sundance as having “supercharged America’s independent film movement”.

Marlee Matlin, 60

Matlin, the deaf actress and activist, said on social media that Coda (2021), which she starred in and which won three Academy Awards in 2022, credited the Sundance festival with bringing the film to the attention of Hollywood.

“A genius has passed,” she said. NYTIMES