She never gave up, did she?
Hollywood icon Barbra Streisand revealed that she struggled to get Robert Redford to star of their 1973 film “The Way We Were.”
Streisand, 81, makes the stunning claim in her upcoming memoir “My Name Is Barbra,” which is ready to hit bookstores Nov. 7.
“Bob is that rare combination… an mental cowboy… a charismatic star who can also be one in all the best actors of his generation,” Streisand wrote in an excerpt published by Vanity Fair. “But like my husband, he’s almost apologetic about his looks, and I liked that about him.”
“So I wanted Redford for Hubbell. But he turned it down,” continued the “Funny Girl” star, adding that she turned to director Sydney Pollack, a Redford pal, for help.
“I actually have to provide Sydney credit,” confessed the singing sensation. “He was as persistent as I used to be, because we each felt that only Redford would make the image work.”
The Post reached out to reps for Streisand and Redford, 87, for comment.
Streisand also reveals that Redford’s onboarding process was demanding.
“Bob was concerned that the script was so focused on Katie that Hubbell’s character was underdeveloped,” wrote the “A Star is Born” actress.
“Bob asked Sydney, ‘Who is that this guy? He’s just an object… He doesn’t want anything. What does this guy want?’ In Bob’s opinion, he was ‘shallow and one-dimensional. Not very real.’ ‘A pin-up girl in reverse,’ as Sydney put it.”
In response to the “Yentl” star, she advisable Pollack, who died in 2008 on the age of 73, give Redford what he wanted.
“Give him anything he wants,” Streisand advised. “Write more scenes to strengthen his character. Make it equal.”
“So Sydney hired two excellent writers, David Rayfiel and Alvin Sargent, to beef up Bob’s part and go deeper, beneath that golden-boy exterior. And I told Ray to pay him whatever he wanted. But Bob’s answer was still no. I used to be heartbroken,” she continued.
As contract negotiations got here all the way down to the ultimate stretch, Redford finally agreed to star within the film.
“I used to be in the course of filming ‘Up the Sandbox’ in Africa, and someday I got a telegram from Sue Mengers that simply said: ‘Barbra Redford!’” Streisand recalled.
“That’s once I knew he’d finally said yes… and I used to be so thrilled! The courtship had been tough, but Bob’s reluctance had an enormous influence on the script and ultimately resulted in a richer, more interesting character.”
Within the 2023 book “The Way They Were: How Epic Battles and Bruised Egos Brought a Classic Hollywood Love Story to the Screen” by Robert Hofler, Redford’s hesitancy to simply accept the part was blamed on the status of the “Hello Dolly” icon.
“She has never been tested,” Redford told Pollack about Streisand. “Her status is as a really controlling person. She is going to direct herself. It’ll never work.”
Redford was also reportedly concerned that Streisand would sing, and he didn’t “want her to sing in the course of the movie.”
The critically acclaimed romantic film, about opposites Katie Morosky and Hubbell Gardiner, went on to win two Academy Awards, for Best Original Dramatic Rating and Best Song, and be named one in all the highest movies of 1973.