Jane Fonda Says Women Throwing Themselves at Robert Redford Made Him ‘So Uncomfortable’
Jane Fonda Says Women Throwing Themselves at Robert Redford Made Him ‘So Uncomfortable’
Victoria Edel, Scott HuverFri, May 1, 2026 at 9:18 PM UTC
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Robert Redford in 1975's 'Three Days of the Condor'Credit: Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty -
Jane Fonda said that Robert Redford was 'so uncomfortable' when women threw themselves at him
She said Redford, who died in September at 89, had a hard time being a movie star
Fonda starred with Redford in four films
Jane Fonda thinks Robert Redford had a tough time being a star.
Fonda reflected on Redford, her four-time costar and longtime friend, at the 2026 TCM Classic Film Festival Opening Night screening of Barefoot in the Park on Thursday, April 30, at the TCM Chinese Theater in Hollywood. Fonda, 88, and Redford starred in that film in 1967. She spoke to TCM's Ben Mankiewicz in a pre-screening Q&A.
Fonda and Redford, who died in September 2025 at the age of 89, first starred together in 1966's The Chase before reuniting for Barefoot in the Park the next year. The Chase, which also starred Marlon Brando, saw Redford play Bubber, who escapes from prison, and Fonda play his wife. Barefoot in the Park, meanwhile, adapted a play by Neil Simon. Redford played a conservative lawyer who marries Fonda, a free spirit. Once they're married, their relationship is tested, including by their fifth-floor walk-up apartment.
Robert Redford (left) and Jane Fonda in 'Barefoot in the Park'Credit: Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty
“He wasn't yet a big star, but we filmed that on the Paramount lot, and I remember walking down the corridor,” Fonda said of Redford. “. . . And I noticed every secretary would open her door and look, watch him,” she said, imitating their facial expressions. “And I thought, ‘Well, he's going to be a big star!' ” she said with a laugh.
“He was meant to be in movies,” Fonda said during the conversation. “He was a brilliant movie star. He was the most gorgeous human being I had ever been with. He was very smart, and he was really funny. And he loved practical jokes.”
She remembered their third movie together, 1979's The Electric Horseman. Redford played a former rodeo star who runs away with a horse after he learns it's being abused. She joked that he was always “two or three hours late,” so though the movie was supposed to take two months, it took “six months.”
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“And a lot of that was spent in Vegas. And women would see him and, I mean, run to him and faint at his feet,” Fonda remembered. “And it was incredible. I had never seen anything like it, and it made him so uncomfortable.”
The Grace and Frankie star said, “It was hard for him to be a movie star, but he liked the power it gave him because he was able to do Sundance, which changed movies.” In 1978, he co-founded the Sundance Institute and the Sundance Film Festival, with the goal of showcasing American-made films and highlighting the potential of independent film.
Robert Redford (left) and Jane Fonda in 2017Credit: TIZIANA FABI/AFP via Getty
Redford's many other films included 1969's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1972's The Candidate and Jeremiah Johnson, 1973's The Way We Were and The Sting, 1976's All the President's Men, 1984's The Natural, 1985's Out of Africa, 1992's Sneakers, 1995's Quiz Show and 2014's Captain America: The Winter Soldier. In 1980, he won an Oscar for directing Ordinary People.
Fonda and Redford reunited one more time, 2017's Our Souls at Night, about a widow and widower who have been neighbors for decades and bond as they struggle to sleep alone.
Back in November, reflecting on the death of Redford as well as Gene Hackman and Diane Keaton, she told PEOPLE, “It's been a tough year. . . . You get to be old and everybody is dying around you.” Hackman died in February at 95, and Keaton, who starred with Fonda in 2018's Book Club and its 2023 sequel, died in October at 79.
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Source: “AOL Entertainment”
