Billy Crystal remembered his best friend, Rob Reiner, in an extended and emotional in memoriam at the Oscars on Sunday, and legend Barbra Streisand honoured her friend and co-star Robert Redford by singing a snippet from their film The Way We Were.
Canadian actor Rachel McAdams paid tribute to “fellow Canadian” Catherine O’Hara and her The Family Stone co-star Diane Keaton in a heartfelt speech.
Although the Oscars selectively expanded certain in memoriam segments for this year’s ceremony, they still didn’t manage to accommodate everyone the entertainment industry lost between last year’s ceremony and this year’s broadcast.
The in memoriam segment, honouring notable figures from the film industry who have died over the last year — held at every Academy Awards ceremony — did not include James Van Der Beek, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Robert Carradine, George Wendt, Richard Chamberlain, Eric Dane and Brigitte Bardot, among others.
Dawson’s Creek and Varsity Blues star Van Der Beek died on Feb. 11 at the age of 48, just over a year after being diagnosed with Stage 3 colorectal cancer. Dane, the celebrated actor best known for his roles on TV shows Grey’s Anatomy and Euphoria and who later in life became an advocate for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) awareness, died on Feb. 19 at the age of 53, less than a year after he announced his diagnosis. He starred in movies like Valentine’s Day, Marley & Me and Burlesque.
Robert Carradine, who starred in Lizzie McGuire and Revenge of the Nerds, died at the age of 71 on Feb. 23, his family announced. Carradine’s family confirmed his death in a statement to Deadline, noting that the actor “struggled for two decades with Bipolar Disorder.”
Warner, an ’80s and ’90s television star best known for playing the role of Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show, died at the age of 54 on July 20. The actor drowned while on a family vacation in Costa Rica. He had 19 movie roles over his career.
Wendt, who played the affable, beer-loving barfly Norm on the hit 1980s TV comedy Cheers and later crafted a stage career that took him to Broadway in Art, Hairspray and Elf, died on May 20 at the age of 76. He appeared in more than two dozen movies.
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Chamberlain, who starred in the 1960s television series Dr. Kildare and was an award-winning “king of the miniseries,” died of complications following a stroke on March 29 at the age of 90.
Bardot, the French 1960s sex symbol who became one of the greatest screen sirens of the 20th century and later a militant animal rights activist and far-right supporter, died on Dec. 28 at the age of 91.
Although the stars were skipped during the broadcast, they were included on the Oscars’ in memoriam website.
Crystal opened the Oscars’ in memoriam segment with his tribute to Reiner. The pair first met in 1975 when he guest-starred on All in the Family.
“And it went so well, Rob said, ‘It was so much fun playing your best friend, why don’t we keep it going?’” Crystal recalled. “And it was a thrill seeing him evolve from a great comic actor to a master storyteller.”
Crystal recounted such Reiner films as The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, A Few Good Men, Say Anything and This is Spinal Tap. The segment ended with more than a dozen stars from those films, including Meg Ryan, Kiefer Sutherland, Fred Savage, Demi Moore, John Cusack and Ione Skye, standing together on stage.
Reiner, an actor-director, and his wife, photographer Michele Singer Reiner, both in their 70s, were found stabbed to death in their Los Angeles home last December. Their son, Nick Reiner, has been charged in the deaths of his parents and has pleaded not guilty.
Following up Crystal, Streisand, who at 83 has largely retired from touring and live performances due to her well-known stage fright, made an exception to remember Redford.
“He was a brilliant, subtle actor,” she said. “We had a wonderful time playing off each other because we never knew what the other was going to do or say.”
Streisand described Redford as “thoughtful and bold,” saying, “I called him an intellectual cowboy who blazed his own trail.”
Redford died in September at age 89. In 1981, he won a best director Oscar for Ordinary People. He and Streisand made one movie together, The Way We Were, in 1973.
McAdams then paid tribute to women who had died, singling out O’Hara and Keaton.
“Believe me when I say there isn’t an actress of my generation who was not inspired by and enthralled with her absolute singularity,” she said of Keaton.
McAdams recited a Girl Scout song and poem Keaton used to say on film 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.”
The Academy has not made any public comment regarding the omitted celebrities.
— With files from The Associated Press
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