Grondahl: 50 years ago, Union College starred in Streisand-Redford hit ‘The Way We Were’
Barbra Streisand, who plays Katie Morosky, a strident anti-war activist and Marxist Jew,
walks across the Union College campus with security and assistants during filming of
“The Way We Were” in September 1972.
Provided by Union College
Schenectady college celebrates its role as backdrop for scenes in 1973 drama that features students as extras
By Paul Grondahl, Columnist
Updated Oct 12, 2023 2:55 p.m.
This column was originally published in 2023.
SCHENECTADY — The stars aligned in the fall of 1972 to bring Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford, two of that era’s biggest entertainers, to Union College to film several key scenes of “The Way We Were.”
“It was a really exciting time on campus and we were in awe that those two huge stars were in our midst,” recalled Gail Goodman Snitkoff, a 1974 Union graduate and one of numerous students hired as extras for $15 a day.
“That was a ton of money to a college student back then. It covered two weeks of groceries,” said Snitkoff, 71, of Albany, a retired faculty member at the Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.
The bittersweet romantic drama was released 50 years ago this month, including at a special preview screening for the Union College community on Oct. 12, 1973, at the former Cinema 7 in Colonie.
A view of still images from the filming of the movie “The Way We Were” shot in the fall of 1972.
Movie theater tickets to a preview of the movie at a cinema in Colonie.
A Columbia Pictures shooting call sheet, and a schedule for shooting the movie.
These items are in the Special Collections and Archives department in Schaffer Library.
Paul Buckowski /Union College
“I love the movie and watched it many times. It was the experience of a lifetime,” recalled Jim Tedisco, a 1972 Union graduate hired as a wardrobe manager with Bob Pezzano, his roommate and basketball team co-captain. Both graduated three months before filming began, but lived locally and took the assignment.
Their former coach Gary Walters tapped them for the $50-a-day job. “We felt rich,” said Tedisco, now a Republican state senator who represents Schenectady and Saratoga counties.
“It was exciting and something I’ve never forgotten,” said Pezzano, 73, a retired high school teacher. “Jim and I like to tell people we have Hollywood connections.”
“Redford was a wonderful guy, very friendly, and joked around with us,” Tedisco said.
Pezzano remembered that Redford tossed a football or Frisbee with student extras during breaks from filming, unlike Streisand, who seemed aloof and went back to her trailer during downtime on the set.
Streisand could seem intimidating. “We were always on edge when she wanted something from wardrobe,” Tedisco said of vintage costumes depicting the 1930s.
“The Way We Were” opened to mixed reviews from critics, but received six Academy Award nominations, was a box office hit and earned a place as a beloved classic. The American Film Institute regularly places it on an annual list of Top 10 movie romances. The lush, nostalgic theme song topped the Billboard Hot 100 list, won an Oscar and became a signature tune for Streisand. It was written by Marvin Hamlisch, with lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman.
“The Way We Were” is enjoying a golden anniversary moment. Special screenings are planned around the country, including at the Addy Theatre at Proctors on Oct. 19. The 50th milestone spawned the recent publication of two books: “The Way We Were: The Making of a Romantic Classic” by Tom Santopietro and Robert Hofler’s “The Way They Were: How Epic Battles and Bruised Egos Brought a Classic Hollywood Love Story to the Screen.”
In an Oct. 7 Vanity Fair excerpt from Streisand’s forthcoming memoir, “My Name Is Barbra” (due Nov. 7 from Penguin Random House), she laid out the backstory of how she and director Sydney Pollack wore down a reluctant Redford — who passed on the part multiple times, in part because he considered Streisand too controlling.
“Give him anything he wants,” Streisand told Pollack, who hired two writers to give Redford’s character more substance and additional scenes. Producer Ray Stark was almost ready to offer the male lead to Ryan O’Neal. “The negotiations went down to the wire … He (Redford) finally said yes. And I was so thrilled,” Streisand wrote. She is now 81 and Redford is 87.
None of the insider intrigue mattered to the Union students as filming captivated campus life for two weeks in September 1972.
Streisand plays Katie Morosky, a student in 1937 at fictional Wentworth College. Morosky is Marxist, Jewish and a passionate anti-war activist who serves as secretary of the campus Young Communist League. Like star-crossed lovers, she is attracted to Redford’s character, Hubbell Gardiner, a dashing big man on campus, a track and field champion who wears a white letterman’s sweater that matches a dreamy smile and perfectly coiffed blond hair.
Redford’s Gardiner is a louche WASP partyer for whom things come too easily and who squanders a talent for writing fiction. Streisand’s Morosky works part-time as a waitress to pay for tuition and leads campus rallies with a nerdy sidekick, played by a young James Woods.
Gardiner and Morosky go their separate ways after college, but years later have a chance encounter in New York City — he’s a Navy officer and she works at a radio station — as World War II is winding down. They marry and move to Hollywood where Gardiner adapts his novel into a screenplay against the backdrop of McCarthyism and Hollywood blacklist. They end up divorcing and she raises their daughter.
I rented the movie and watched it on YouTube Sunday night, the first time I saw the entire film. To my surprise, it aged gracefully and held up fairly well due to Streisand and Redford’s undeniable star power, as well as Pollack’s deft direction and a strong supporting cast. Its handling of the political divide seems heavy-handed, but the charismatic stars develop a convincing chemistry. The thrill was seeing Union’s campus transformed by Hollywood magic in the early parts of the film, beginning with Redford’s character running through Jackson’s Garden in the opening credits and Streisand’s character delivering an impassioned anti-war speech in front of Nott Memorial to a large audience of extras portraying students. Hale House, Old Chapel and Alumni Gymnasium are featured and the Chester Arthur statue makes a cameo.
The Chester Arthur statue on the Union College campus makes a cameo appearance
in a scene from “The Way We Were,” which has spawned two books and special screenings
for the 50th anniversary of its release in October 1973.
Photograph provided by Union College
Union was not the first choice. After Cornell University and Williams College did not pan out, partly due to worries about disruption to classes, Union President Harold C. Martin signed on. Union did not get paid a rental fee, but producers reimbursed the college about $6,000 for campus security officers’ overtime, building materials and landscaping costs. Those items are among a trove of memorabilia from the filming, along with never-published photographs, in Union’s special collections. The college plays up “The Way We Were” connection in its guidebooks. A scene shot in Ballston Spa at the former Medbery Hotel, a 19th-century village landmark now run as an inn and day spa, is touted on the village’s website.
Snitkoff relished her time as an extra, getting to wear a long skirt, tucked-in blouse and hair curled in a ’30s style. The excitement was lost on Lou Snitkoff, her boyfriend at the time, whom she married in 1976.
“I was finishing pre-med coursework and applying to medical school, so I had other things on my mind beside some movie being made on campus,” recalled Snitkoff, 71, of Albany, a 1973 Union graduate. He is a retired internist and former chief medical officer of CapitalCare Medical Group. As a car buff, the vintage automobiles on campus caught his attention.
Snitkoff and his wife watched the film on campus last year at her husband’s 50th reunion event.
“I still get teary when I watch it,” his wife said. “It brings back wonderful memories.”
Proctors will host a 50th anniversary screening of “The Way We Were” on Oct. 19 at 7 p.m. in its Addy Theatre. Tickets are $9 for general admission and $6 for seniors and students with I.D. proctors.org to reserve a ticket.
Correction: Hubbell Gardiner's name was misspelled in a previous version of this story
Paul Grondahl is the Opalka Endowed Director of the New York State Writers Institute at the University at Albany and a former Times Union reporter. He can be reached at grondahlpaul@gmail.com
COLUMNIST
Paul Grondahl is a former staff writer at the Times Union, where he worked from 1984 to 2017 and won numerous local, state and national writing prizes for in-depth projects.
He left to become director of the New York State Writers Institute at the University at Albany and continues to contribute a weekly human-interest column for the Times Union.
He is the author of several books, including political biographies of Theodore Roosevelt and Albany Mayor Erastus Corning 2nd.
He teaches a freshman writing workshop at UAlbany and mentors young journalists. You can reach him at grondahlpaul@gmail.com.
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