One of her self-myths is the claim that she became a singer because she was not wanted as an actress. It is documented that she made her first vocal recording in a studio in 1955, that she appeared on stage in the play “Driftwood” at the age of fifteen and was first praised in a 1960 newspaper article from “Gifted Young Comedian”. Barbara Joan Streisand had just dropped an A from her first name.
The so-called Streisand effect refers to information that is supposed to be suppressed and only then becomes aware. Like, “My manager, Marty, pointed out to me that I’d had number one albums in six decades. No, I don’t want any applause for that, it’s just a fact. And I was like, Gosh, have I really been at it that long?”
Absolute control from an early age
Nobody, not even Bob Dylan, has been around as long as Barbra Streisand. Her legendary manager, Marty Ehrlichman, negotiated a record deal that gave her total control, and 1962 saw the release of her first record, The Barbra Streisand Album, which Columbia Records wanted to call Sweet And Spicy Streisand, the artist later quipped. The nightclub singer had appeared on the “Tonight Show” a year earlier. Then she had her first role on Broadway, as Miss Marmelstein in “I Can Get It or You Wholesale” – a sensation. She married the leading actor Elliott Gould in 1962. In the same year “The Second Barbra Streisand Album” was released, “Second” underlined in red.
In 1963, she performed a duet on the Judy Garland television show. No one knew (except Streisand) that the torch of American entertainment was being passed here. Barbra Streisand has carried this torch for 60 years.
She was born on April 24, 1942 in Brooklyn-Williamsburg, daughter of the English teacher Emanuel and his wife Dinah. Father Emanuel suffered from epileptic seizures and died a year later at a summer camp in the Catskills – his breathing stopped after being injected with morphine. Barbara was alone with her mother and older brother Sheldon; later, the remarried Dinah gave birth to another daughter.
The fatherlessness and abandonment later made Streisand movens in “Yentl”; some may see a carryover in her liaisons with Sydney Chaplin, Omar Sharif, Kris Kristofferson and Barry Gibb. When asked herself what she was wearing to take the famous A Star Is Born cover photo, she replies, “Musk!”
Barbra Streisand and the Cinema
While filming her most popular film, The Way We Were, she gushed about Robert Redford: “That’s how all men should be!” The stoically silent Redford was less than taken with the talkative banger and withdrew with sandwiches during breaks in filming . So the relationship pretty much mirrors the relationship between her film characters, the communist activist Katie Morosky and the writer Hubbell Gardiner, who is like his country because everything comes his way. The last shot of the film is the most beautiful farewell scene in cinema (alongside “Casablanca”).
It’s incomprehensible that Barbra Streisand didn’t win an Oscar for this role. But she already had one for Funny Girl (1968), her first film role. She never tires of praising the great William Wyler, who taught her what she would use as a film director many years later.
She is brilliant in What’s Up, Doc? (1972), Peter Bogdanovich’s screwball comedy, in which Ryan O’Neal plays Cary Grant.
Streisand was a producer on A Star Is Born (1976). Casting the fantastically gifted but little-known songwriter Kris Kristofferson, she learned guitar for an instrumental piece that she eventually cut from the film (Krisstofferson hides his face behind his hand in the scene). The song was then given lyrics (by Paul Williams), titled “Evergreen” and the title track of “A Star Is Born”.
In 1977, Streisand and Williams won the Oscar for Best Motion Picture Song. Neil Diamond – who hails from Brooklyn and sang in the same school choir as Streisand – hinted in his introduction that only Streisand could win the award. It was like that in the end. Paul Williams thanked on behalf of all little people. After 50 years of Academy Awards, Barbra Streisand became the first woman to be honored in this category.
She was often first, but even more brilliant is Streisand’s sense of talent, adaptation and fad. With Donna Summer she sang the 1979 disco smash “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)” – a number one hit. Barry Gibb wrote the songs for Guilty in 1980, produced the album and sang with Streisand – their most successful album. In 1985, after many years, she recorded a record with Broadway plays, the record company complained about old “Show Tunes” – a number one album. Her 1972 song “Stoney End” became a fan favorite after decades.
A voice like liquid gold
Barbra Streisand’s singing is the subject of scholarly treatises. Antonio Banderas, a duet partner of the late years, says “velvet.” Others say: liquid gold. Her mature voice descends seamlessly into a register in which something steely flashes, a hard, hoarse edge. And immediately she takes it back. At her 2016 concert in Miami, she begins with “The Way We Were” with the audience just seated. She sings the famous lines (“Memories/ May be beautiful and yet/ What’s too painful to remember/We simply choose to forget/ So it’s the laughter/ The laughter we’ll remember”) casually, but sees her silver-eyed face looks like that of a madman. She always sings “The Way We Were,” but she sings it differently every time.
You’ll know you’re world famous when you call Joe’s during the intermission of your Miami concert and ask if the five batches of stone crab will be delivered in time for the end of the show. And the fried chicken pieces from the children’s menu, please. They’re delivered on time, the dog Sammie waits in the catacombs, and you eat the shrimp with your fingers and sprinkle whipped cream on the Key Lime Pie.
“And I’m on a diet!”
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