The 98th Academy Awards paid tribute to some of the film industry luminaries who died in the last year in an extended In Memoriam segment Sunday.
Billy Crystal eulogized the late director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, who were killed Dec. 14. Crystal surveyed key entries in Reiner’s directorial filmography, including “Stand by Me,” “The Princess Bride” and “When Harry Met Sally.”
Crystal, who co-starred in “When Harry Met Sally” alongside Meg Ryan, told the audience in Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre: “My friend Rob’s movies will last a lifetime, because they’re about what make us laugh and cry, and what we aspire to be.”
He was then joined onstage by Ryan and a host of other performers who appeared in Reiner’s films, including “This Is Spinal Tap” co-writers and stars Christopher Guest and Michael McKean.
Rachel McAdams took the stage to pay tribute to Oscar-winning screen legend Diane Keaton, who died Oct. 11 at 79. (The two co-starred in “The Family Stone.”) McAdams described Keaton as an “icon” and “a legend with no end.”
“Believe me when I say there isn’t an actress of my generation who was not inspired by and enthralled with her absolute singularity,” McAdams said.
Keaton won the best actress Oscar for her title role in Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall.” She was nominated three more times for her roles in “Reds,” “Marvin’s Room” and “Something’s Gotta Give.”
McAdams treated the audience to a Girl Scout song she said Keaton used to sing on movie sets:
Make new friends, but keep the old.
One is silver, the other is gold.
A circle is round, it has no end.
That’s how long I will be your friend.
Then, after an In Memoriam video package, Barbra Streisand spoke at length about Robert Redford, who died Sept. 16 at 89.
Streisand praised Redford’s advocacy for freedom of the press, fostering rising artistic voices at his Sundance Institute in Utah and protecting the natural environment.
“I called him an intellectual cowboy who blazed his own trail and won the Academy Award for best director,” Streisand said. “Bob had real backbone on and off the screen.”
Redford won the best director Oscar for the family melodrama “Ordinary People” (1980), the first of his nine stints behind the camera. He also received an Academy Honorary Award in 2002.
Streisand capped her tribute by singing an excerpt from her song “The Way We Were,” the theme to the seminal 1973 romantic drama starring her and Redford.
“I miss him now more than ever, even though he loved teasing me,” Streisand said.
