Billy Crystal remembered his best friend, Rob Reinerin an extended and emotional memorial in The Oscars on Sunday and legend Barbra Streisand honored her friend and co-star Robert Redford singing an excerpt from their film The way we were.
Canadian actor Rachel McAdams paid tribute to “fellow Canadian” Catherine O’Hara and she The Family Stone co-star Diane Keaton in a heartfelt speech.
Although the Oscars selectively expanded certain memoriam segments for this year’s ceremony, they still failed to accommodate all the entertainment industry that was lost between last year’s ceremony and this year’s broadcast.
The in memoriam segment, honoring notable figures from the film industry who have died in the past 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 Bardotamong others.
Dawson’s Creek AND Varsity Blues star Van Der Beek died on February 11 at the age of 48, a little more than a year after giving birth diagnosed with Stage 3 colorectal cancer. Dane, the popular actor best known for his roles in television shows Grey’s Anatomy AND EUFOR and who later in life became an advocate for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) awareness, died on February 19 at the age of 53less than a year after him announced his diagnosis. He acted in films like Valentine’s Day, Marley and me AND Burlesque.
Robert Carradine, who starred in Lizzie McGuire AND Revenge of the Nerds, died aged 71 on February 23his family announced. Carradine’s family confirmed his death on a statement about the Termnoting that the actor “struggled for two decades with it Bipolar Disorder.”
Warner, an 80s and 90s TV star best known for playing Theo Huxtable in The Cosby Show, died aged 54 on July 20. The actor drowned while on a family vacation in Costa Rica. He had 19 film roles during his career.
Wendt, who played the suave, beer-loving Normal in the 1980s TV comedy Cheers and later established a stage career that took him to Broadway in Art, Hair spray AND Elf, died on May 20 at the age of 76. He appeared in more than two dozen films.
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Chamberlain, who starred in the 1960s television series Dr. Kildare and was an award-winning “miniseries king”, died of complications after a stroke on March 29 at the age of 90.
Bardot, the French sex symbol of the 1960s 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 December 28 at the age of 91.
Although the stars were overlooked during the broadcast, they were included in the Oscars’ on the memorial page.
Crystal opened the Oscars memorial segment with his tribute to Reiner. The pair first met in 1975 when he guest starred 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?'” recalls Crystal. “And it was a thrill watching him evolve from a great comic actor to a master storyteller.”
Crystal showed such films of Reiner as The Princess Bride, When Harry met Sally, Some 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. were stabbed to death in their Los Angeles home last December. their son, Nick Reinerhas been accused of the death of his parents AND has pleaded not guilty.
After Crystal, Streisand, who at 83 has largely retired from touring and live performances because of her well-known stage fright, made an exception to remember Redford.
“He was a brilliant, subtle actor,” she said. “We had a great time playing against each other because we never knew what the other was going to do or say.”
Streisand described Redford as “thoughtful and courageous,” saying, “I called him an intellectual cowboy who blazed his own trail.”
Redford died in September aged 89. In 1981, he won an Oscar for best director Ordinary people. He and Streisand made a movie together, The way we werein 1973.
McAdams then paid tribute to the women who had died, singling out O’Hara and Keaton.
“Believe me when I say that there is not an actress of my generation who is not inspired and fascinated by her absolute singularity,” she said of Keaton.
McAdams recited a Girl Scout song and poem that Keaton used to say on the set of the movies: “Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, one is gold. A circle is round, there’s no end. So long I’ll be your friend.”
The Academy has not made any public comment regarding the overlooked celebrities.
– With file from the Associated Press
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