Barbra Streisand was determined to get Robert Redford to star opposite her in The Way We Were, as detailed in her upcoming memoir, My Name Is Barbra, out on Nov. 7.

“Bob is that rare combination… an intellectual cowboy… a charismatic star who is also one of the finest actors of his generation,” Streisand wrote in an excerpt in Vanity Fair. “But like my husband, he’s almost apologetic about his looks, and I liked that about him.”

She added, “So I wanted Redford for Hubbell. But he turned it down.”

Streisand turned to director Sydney Pollack, a close friend of Redford, for help.

“I have to give Sydney credit,” she confessed. “He was as persistent as I was, because we both felt that only Redford would make the picture work.”

It wasn’t easy.

“Bob was concerned that the script was so focused on Katie that Hubbell’s character was underdeveloped.