Robert Redford had to fight off some of Hollywood’s most famous women, including Jane Fonda and an “infatuated” Barbra Streisand.
Even Meryl Streep admitted to having a “huge crush” on Redford while they filmed “Out of Africa.”
Indeed, the screen legend, who died Tuesday at 89 at his home in Utah, made everyone fall in love with him — as evidenced by a stream of doting tributes from his leading ladies, including Demi Moore and Michelle Pfeiffer.
Streisand has said she took it upon herself to persuade Redford to star with her in the 1973 classic “The Way We Were” and was “infatuated” with the heartthrob according to writer Robert Hofler.
But Redford reportedly wore “two athletic supporters” to “protect himself” while filming “The Way We Were” with Streisand, who was rumored to have had romances with her co-stars over the years.
He also pushed the star to wear a bikini for their intimate scenes to make sure the shots were “pretty G-rated.”
Still, Redford had an image to maintain. During one of their sex scenes, he reportedly refused to say the line, “It will be better this time.”
“Redford was never bad in bed,” and so his character could never be either, Hofler wrote in his book, “The Way They Were: How Epic Battles and Bruised Egos Brought a Classic Hollywood Love Story to the Screen.”
One Streisand insider even believes there was at least an off-screen flirtation between the two, but says the singer will never spill the beans.
After his death, Streisand posted on Instagram: “Every day on the set of ‘The Way We Were’ was exciting, intense and pure joy.
“We were such opposites: he was from the world of horses; I was allergic to them! Yet, we kept trying to find out more about each other, just like the characters in the movie.”
Meanwhile, Fonda told The Post, “It hit me hard this morning when I read that Bob was gone. I can’t stop crying. He meant a lot to me and was a beautiful person in every way. He stood for an America we have to keep fighting for.”
The pair starred in five movies together, including playing young newlyweds in 1967’s “Barefoot in the Park,” the big-screen version of Neil Simon’s Broadway play.
During a 2015 interview with The Guardian, Fonda, now 87, said, “I was always in love with Robert Redford…and nothing happened because I was married and he was married.”
His response, several years later: “I didn’t know she was in love with me!”
At the Cannes Film Festival in 2023, Fonda went on to reveal, “He did not like to kiss … And he’s always in a bad mood, and I always thought it was my fault. He’s a very good person. He just has an issue with women.”
She never specified what she thought the issue might be.
But Redford made it clear that he adored Fonda during the 2018 press tour for their final movie together, “Our Souls at Night,” in which they played a widower and widow who lean on each other as they grapple with their grief.
“It’s easy,” Redford said of working with Fonda. “Things just kind of fell into place between us, and there wasn’t much more to think about.”
Streep was not immune to Redford’s charms, especially during an “Out of Africa” scene in which he tenderly washes her hair by a river while reciting lines from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”
“It’s a sex scene in a way, because it’s so intimate,” the 75-year-old actress said at Cannes last year. “We’ve seen so many scenes of people f—ing, but we don’t see that loving touch, that care.”
Despite the fact they were warned about wild animals in the water, Streep laughed, “By take five I was so in love! I didn’t want it to end that day, even in spite of the hippos.”
Streep admitted, “I developed this huge crush on him, which made it easier to do the love story” — broke down exactly what made him so irresistible.
“He has an unusual quality for a man — he has a very receptive way about him and is an incredibly good listener,” she said. “That’s an attribute people usually associate with women. So for women, he’s very easy to talk to.”
Two decades later, the pair reunited when he directed her in 2007 thriller “Lions for Lambs.”
“One of the lions has passed. Rest in peace my lovely friend,” Meryl said in a statement Tuesday.
Redford was married to historian Lola Van Wagenen from 1958 to 1985, and they shared four children together, sons James and Scott (who died of SIDS in 1959) and daughters Amy and Shauna.
He wed German artist Szaggars, 20 years his junior, in 2009.
