THEThe book is called My Name is Barbra and in those thousand pages that flow as if they were ten, an iconic artist tells his life, including music, films and loves. At 81 years old the Brooklyn actress, singer and director Barbra Streisand reached the pinnacle of entertainment with 250 million records sold, 10 Grammys, five Emmys, a Tony and two Oscars, gives fans a rich autobiography of details, a front row seat over a six-decade career.
My Name is Barbra, all the lives of Barbra Streisand
“I want the truth to be known and this book is my legacy,” Streisand told CBS in an interview on the eve of the publication of this book which took 25 years to finish. One of the underlying themes is gender discrimination in Hollywood: «A man is strong, a woman is an climber. He shows leadership, she lords it over. If he acts, produces and directs he is defined as a talent with many faces, she is simply vain and selfish”, writes the diva of Yentl And How we wereaddressing how women are treated differently than men in the film industry.
Between discriminations…
And so we read about the stories of those who they felt threatened by his presence on set, like Sydney Chaplin and director Frank Pierson. But also of those who were fascinated by his personality, such as Omar Sharif and even Prince Charles.
Barbra Streisand talks about herself, the memoir between music, films and loves is released (Getty)
And loves
The book then also explores Streisand’s relationships with men even though, says the actress, she would have preferred to avoid it but the publisher did not allow her private life to not be included in the book. And so we read the diva’s different love stories, including that of her with the Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, actors Don Johnson And Ryan O’Neal and the star of tennis Andre Agassi. To get to her current husband Josh Brolin with whom she says she is completely satisfied.
Family and talent to spare
Streisand also talks about her family, her father who died early and her mother whose lack of affection allowed her to emerge from a young age, «at five years old I already knew I had a voice». And manager Marty Ehrlichman also understood it immediately when one evening, hearing her singing at Bon Soir, a club in the Village, he offered a contract with Columbia Record to a 19-year-old girl with talent to spare.
Barbra Streisand icon and legend
The rest is the story of a living legend, a woman who in a career spanning sixty years has excelled in every area of entertainment: among the few EGOT winners (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony), Grammy nominated 46 times and became with Yentl the first woman to write, produce, direct and star in a major motion picture. The book is, like the artist herself: frank, funny, opinionated and very very charming.
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