Jane Fonda came to open the 17th Annual TCM Classic Film Festival Thursday night at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, but her purpose was to honor her late co-star Robert Redford. The fest chose to open this year’s four day splash of cherished movies from the past with her 1967 Neil Simon comedy with Redford, Barefoot In The Park preceded by an on stage conversation with Fonda and TCM host Ben Mankiewicz. She wasted no time confessing that she was smitten with Redford right from the start when they met for the first time and made 1966’s The Chase. “I met him on The Chase and we were both married, and I asked him, ‘do you ever have affairs?’, and he said, ‘well if I was gonna have an affair it would be with somebody like a hooker’.  We actually bonded over the film. I think The Chase maybe was his first movie,” she said. On Barefoot she had total recall of certain scenes in the bedroom. “’I remember being in the bed and he would rub up against me. I had such a crush on him, it was painful,” she laughed.

Fonda may not realize it but actually, according to iMDB, Redford’s first feature film was an uncredited role as a basketball player in 1960’s Tall Story which just happened to be the leading movie debut of none other than Jane Fonda and he made a few other films before finally formally meeting Fonda on the set of The Chase which starred Marlon Brando. The next year in 1967 they reteamed in Barefoot In The Park. “He wasn’t a big star then. We made the movie on the Paramount lot and I remember walking  down the corridor and I noticed every secretary ogling him and thinking. ‘He’s gonna be a big star!’,” she recalled.  “He was the most gorgeous human being I have ever met. He was really smart, and really funny. He loved practical jokes.  He was reckless also, not so reckless that he would have an affair with me.”

Fonda talked about her deep admiration for what he accomplished in his career, particularly in starting Sundance and providing a haven for future filmmakers. .  “He could have built an empire and instead he built a nest for artists.  He could have asked Hollywood for money and he never did . He paid out of his own pocket every year,” she said.

Fonda did note it wasn’t always idyllic making movies with Redford. She said he was chronically two or three hours late all the time. On their 1978 film, The Electric Horseman she said that bad habit sent the movie’s planned two month shoot into six months. On their fourth and final co-starring film, 2017’s Our Souls At Night, she was a bit less forgiving. “I knew I had grown up because when he would show up two hours late and I got angry,” she recalled.

But tardiness aside, Fonda still has a crush on the guy as evidenced all the way up to this year’s Oscar show and In Memoriam tribute to Redford with his The Way We Were co-star Barbra Streisand getting that spotlight to honor him and share memories. “I did four movies with him and I would have done a lot more if I had the chance.. I loved him and I deeply respected him.  They didn’t ask me to do the Oscars,” she lamented. “By the way Barbra came on to honor Bob, and I was on the press line and thought I was being funny and said, ‘well why did they ask her when I made four movies with him’, but actually I thought it was fabulous that they had Barbra out there because that was such an iconic movie  and the song is so incredibly beautiful. Bob would have liked it. “ Fonda mentioned also her personal favorite Redford movie is The Way We Were, and also The Natural. “I hated it when he kissed Glenn Close!,” she laughed.

Invoking Redford’s name, Fonda also didn’t mince words when mentioning the current planned takeover of Warner Bros by Paramount, the very studio for which she and Redford made Barefoot In The Park. “He mattered. When  I look at what’s  happening to the town. When I look at the impending merger for example, if that goes through we are going to lose what we are trying to do. We have to fight. I want to fight in the spirit of Robert Redford. “

The TCM Classic Film Festival continues all this weekend through Sunday.