Gay Icons - The Divas: Barbra Streisand (part 1)

Hello, my friends! Today's Diva is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and filmmaker. In a career spanning six decades, she has achieved success in multiple fields of entertainment and has been recognized with two Oscars, ten Grammy Awards including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and the Grammy Legend Award, five Emmy Awards including one Daytime Emmy, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Kennedy Center Honors prize, four Peabody Awards, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and nine Golden Globes. She is among a small group of entertainers who have been honored with an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award, and is one of only two artists in that group who have also won a Peabody. Even if you didn't read today's title, I'm sure that by now you have realized that we're talking about the one and only Barbra Streisand.

Barbara Joan Streisand was born on April 24, 1942, in Brooklyn, New York, to Emanuel and Diana (Rosen) Streisand. Her father was a high school English teacher who died when Streisand was only fifteen months old. Her mother raised Barbara and her older brother, Sheldon, by working as a secretary in the New York City public school system. Her mother remarried in the late 1940s.

Here's how Barbra describes her childhood to Oprah:

Oprah: When did you know you had the voice?

Barbra: When I was maybe 5 or 6 years old, the neighborhood girls would sit on the stoop and sing. I was known as the kid who had a good voice and no father.

Oprah: I read that you resented your father for many years because he wasn't there.

Barbra: I wouldn't say resent, but maybe subconsciously. He died when I was 15 months old.

Oprah: Didn't your mother talk about him? 

Barbra: No. Later in life, I said, "Why didn't you ever tell me about my father?" She said, "I didn't want you to miss him."

Oprah: Were you angry? 

Barbra: Maybe. I just didn't know I was angry. 

Oprah: Did your mother remarry? 

Barbra: Yes, and my stepfather didn't like me. Maybe because he had three kids from another marriage who didn't live with us. I tried to make him like me for a while. I tried calling him Dad and got him his slippers at night when he came in. I'd get down on my belly and crawl so I didn't walk in front of the TV while he watched wrestling. But did he like me? No way.

Oprah: Why not? 

Barbra: Good question. When I was 7 or 8, my mother sent me away to a camp where I couldn't stand the food. I was throwing potatoes down to the other end of the table. She came to visit, and I said, "You're not leaving without me." I was a very powerful kid. I had no reins on me. I said, "I'm packing my bags and going home with you." Little did I know, the guy with her in the car was my new stepfather. My mother never actually told me she had remarried. And later, she didn't tell me she was pregnant, either. I'm convinced this is why I cannot stand to be lied to. I can take any truth; just don't lie to me.

Oprah: Who did you think he was? 

Barbra: I didn't know. At the time, my mother, brother, and I were living with my grandparents. My grandmother and grandfather slept in one room, and my mother and I slept in another with my brother sleeping next to us on a cot. We didn't have a living room, so we didn't have a couch, which is probably why I love couches now. When we drove back from that camp, we pulled up to a new apartment in a project.

I remember once riding in my stepfather's Pontiac with him and my friend Roslyn Arenstein. My mother had told me he was color-blind, so I was saying things like "Oh, what a pretty red light that is," thinking he doesn't see the red and the green, thinking I'm helping. My stepfather said to me, "Why don't you be more like your friend - quiet?"

Oprah: Your stepfather really did a number on you, but what about your mom? 

Barbra: I remember one Christmas when I was doing Funny Girl, she went nuts. With tears running down her face, she closed her eyes and said, "Why is Barbra getting all the presents? Where are my presents?" That's when I realized she wanted to be famous, too. She had a beautiful coloratura, a soprano voice. 

Barbra made her singing debut at a PTA assembly, where she became a hit to everyone but her mother, who was mostly critical of her daughter. Young Streisand was invited to sing at weddings and summer camp, along with having an unsuccessful audition at MGM records when she was nine. By the time she was thirteen, her mother began supporting her talent, helping her make a four-song demo tape, including Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart, and You'll Never Know. This is You'll Never Know:

Streisand graduated from high school when she was sixteen years old and moved to Manhattan in New York City, where she shared an apartment with friends. At this time Streisand changed the spelling of her first name to "Barbra." Her main focus at the time was acting - and she worked in several small plays during this time.

She took a job as an usher at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater for The Sound of Music, early in 1960. During the run of the play, she heard that the casting director was auditioning for more singers, and it marked the first time she sang in pursuit of a job. Although the director felt she was not right for the part, he encouraged her to begin including her talent as a singer on her résumé when looking for other work.

That suggestion prodded Streisand to think seriously about a singing career, in addition to acting. She asked her boyfriend, Barry Dennen, Pontius Pilate in Jesus Christ Superstar, to tape her singing, copies of which she could then give out to possible employers. Dennen had acted with her briefly in an off-Broadway play but had no reason to think she had any talent as a singer, and she never mentioned it. Nevertheless, he agreed and found a guitarist to accompany her. This was his reaction:

"We spent the afternoon taping, and the moment I heard the first playback I went insane... This nutty little kook had one of the most breathtaking voices I'd ever heard... when she was finished and I turned off the machine, I needed a long moment before I dared look up at her."

Dennen grew enthusiastic and he convinced her to enter a talent contest at the Lion, a gay nightclub in Manhattan's Greenwich Village. She performed two songs, after which there was a "stunned silence" from the audience, followed by "thunderous applause" when she was pronounced the winner. She was invited back and sang at the club for several weeks. This was Barbra's first introduction to "Gay Icon" status.

Dennen now wanted to expose Streisand to his vast record collection of female singers, including Billie Holiday, Mabel Mercer, Ethel Waters, and Édith Piaf. His effort made a difference in her developing style as she gained new respect for the art of popular singing. She also realized she could still become an actress by first gaining recognition as a singer. According to biographer Christopher Nickens, hearing other great female singers benefited her style, as she began creating different emotional characters when performing, which gave her singing a greater range.

Feeling more self-confident, she improved her stage presence when speaking to the audience between songs. She discovered that her Brooklyn-bred style of humor was received quite favorably. During the next six months appearing at the club, some began comparing her singing voice to famous names such as Judy Garland, Lena Horne, and Fanny Brice. Her conversational ability to charm an audience with spontaneous humor during performances became more sophisticated and professional. Theater critic Leonard Harris, in one of his reviews, could already envision her future success: "She's twenty; by the time she's thirty she will have rewritten the record books."

While appearing at Blue Angel, theater director and playwright Arthur Laurents asked her to audition for a new musical comedy he was directing, I Can Get It for You Wholesale. She got the part of secretary to the lead actor businessman, played by then-unknown Elliott Gould. They fell in love during rehearsals and eventually moved into a small apartment together. The show opened on March 22, 1962, at the Shubert Theater, and received rave reviews. Her performance "stopped the show cold," wrote Nickens, and she became Broadway's most exciting and youngest new star.

Streisand received a Tony nomination and New York Drama Critics' prize for Best Supporting Actress. The show was recorded and it was the first time the public could purchase an album of her singing. From this play, here is Miss Marmelstein:

Streisand's first television appearance was on The Tonight Show. She sang Harold Arlen's A Sleepin' Bee. During her appearance, Phyllis Diller, also a guest on the show, called her "one of the great singing talents in the world." This is A Sleepin' Bee:

In May 1962, Streisand appeared on The Garry Moore Show where she sang Happy Days Are Here Again for the first time. Her sad, slow version of the 1930s upbeat Democratic Party theme song became her signature song during this early phase of her career. This was Streisand's first commercial single, released in November 1962:

My Coloring Book was her second single:

In 1963 her first album was released, called The Barbra Streisand Album. It peaked at #8 on the US albums chart and was certified gold. Streisand opens with Julie London's signature torch song, Cry Me a River, setting off a thermonuclear explosion:

Also in 1963, Liberace invited her to Las Vegas, Nevada, to perform as his opening act at the Riviera Hotel, introducing Barbra to Western American audiences. The following September during her ongoing shows at Harrah's Hotel in Lake Tahoe, she and Elliott Gould took time off to get married in Carson City, Nevada. With her career and popularity rising so quickly, she saw her marriage to Gould as a "stabilizing influence."

A month earlier, her 2nd album, simply called The Second Barbra Streisand Album, was released. Another gold record for her, the album peaked at #2 in the US. Here, she is most impressive on Down With Love, a 1937 song with a lyric by E.Y. Harburg that lampoons the love songs of other writers of the period. Never given to singing the Gershwins and other classic pop writers, Streisand relishes the chance to condemn them, and she sings with a vengeance:

The Third Album was released 6 months later. Her third gold album in a row, it peaked at #5. From this album, this is the Arlen-Mercer composition I Had Myself a True Love:

Streisand returned to Broadway in 1964 with an acclaimed performance as entertainer Fanny Brice in Funny Girl at the Winter Garden Theatre. Because of the play's overnight success, she appeared on the cover of Time. In 1964 Streisand was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical but lost to Carol Channing in Hello, Dolly!. Streisand received an honorary "Star of the Decade" Tony Award in 1970. The original cast album was also certified gold, peaking at #2 in the US and at #8 in Australia. The show introduced two of her signature songs, People and Don't Rain on My Parade. This is the latter:

Barbra re-recorded People using a different arrangement and released it as a single, as well as including it on her next album, which was also called People. It's one of the best songs she ever recorded - and it was greatly appreciated by the public: the single peaked at #5, US - her only US top 10 single for the 1960s, while the album was her first US #1, as well as her first platinum album. This is People:

Her next single, although titled Funny Girl, is not from the musical Funny Girl. It almost made the US top 40 (#44):

An album containing many of the songs used in Barbra Streisand's Emmy Award-winning TV special of the same name, My Name Is Barbra was released in 1965. The album was certified gold and peaked at #2 on the US charts. Best song on the album was Streisand's reading of My Man, Fanny Brice's signature song, though it had not been used in Funny Girl, the Broadway show:

This album had a sequel; My Name Is Barbra Two was released a few months later - another gold record for Barbra. From this album, Second Hand Rose, a song associated with Fanny Brice, became Streisand's second US Top 40 hit (#32):

All of the songs on Color Me Barbra (1966) were featured on Barbra Streisand's second TV special of the same name. One of the album's best songs was Where Am I Going? from the hit Broadway show Sweet Charity:

Je M'Appelle Barbra (1966) is an album of songs with a French orientation, either because they are actually sung, at least in part, in French, or because they originated in France before having English lyrics added. This album, which also made the US top 5 and was certified gold, is notable primarily for marking her first collaboration with Michel Legrand, who arranged and conducted. Once Upon a Summertime was one of his songs:

After three albums related to television specials and one of French songs, Simply Streisand was Barbra Streisand's first "regular" new album since People three years earlier and her first new release of any kind in a year. (Before, her albums came regularly every six months.) By now, the music scene had moved heavily into rock, which made this a perfunctory set and one released into an indifferent climate; unlike her previous eight albums, Simply Streisand missed the US Top Ten (#12). It was certified gold anyway. From this album, this is The Boy Next Door:

Her next album, released in October 1967, was called A Christmas Album. The album is one of Streisand's best-selling albums and is ranked as one of the best-selling Christmas albums of all time. On May 5, 1999, A Christmas Album was certified Quintuple Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for shipments of five million copies in the United States. From this album, this is Gounod's, Ave Maria:

Her first film was a reprise of her Broadway hit, Funny Girl (1968), an artistic and commercial success directed by Hollywood veteran William Wyler (12 Oscar nominations, 3 wins). Barbra Streisand and co-star Omar Sharif had an affair that lasted for the duration of the production. This would contribute to the end of her marriage to Elliott Gould. Director William Wyler, who knew about the affair, tried to channel their real-life chemistry into their performances.

The film received 8 Oscar nominations, its only win being Streisand for Best Actress, sharing it with Katharine Hepburn (The Lion in Winter), the only time there has been a tie in this Oscar category. This led to a controversy: you see, Streisand had been made a member of the Academy at the time of the film's release. Since this was her first film, her anointment as a voting member was highly unusual, considering that movie people are ordinarily asked to join the Academy after they make a name for themselves in the craft. When she found she was nominated, she, like any member nominated, voted for herself. If she hadn't, she wouldn't have tied with Katharine Hepburn for the year's Best Actress Oscar.

Anyway, history was written, the first (and so far only) Best Actress tie occurred and Barbra became one of a very few actresses to win an Oscar in her film debut. Her first line in this movie is "Hello, gorgeous". When Streisand won her Oscar for this film at The 41st Annual Academy Awards, she repeated the line to her statuette. This is Barbra at the Oscars:

The soundtrack, certified platinum, is featured in Billboard Greatest albums of all time. This is the song People, as is heard in the movie:

Her next movie was also based on a musical, Jerry Herman's Hello, Dolly!, directed by Gene Kelly (1969). Ironically, she "stole" the part from Carol Channing, who, a few years back, had beat her at the Tony Awards. Channing won for Hello, Dolly!, while Barbra was nominated for Funny Girl.

Barbra wasn't sure if she was the right choice to play the matchmaker Dolly Levi. "I said, 'Why don't you hire an older woman?'" Streisand recalls. "I thought I was totally miscast. I tried to get out of it. So many people love that movie. In fact, Ryan Murphy said to me, 'I watch it every Christmas.'" She's not as enamored. "I think it's so silly," she says. "It's so old-time musical."

This is the film's most famous song, the title track, performed by Barbra and legendary Louis Armstrong:

This is the full version, but it's just audio:

From the same film, this is Before The Parade Passes By:

What About Today? Barbra Streisand's first new studio album in two years and her last for the 1960s was her initial, slightly awkward encounter with the pop music revolution of the 1960s. The album became her least successful album of the decade.

Buffy Sainte-Marie's Until It's Time for You to Go is one of the album's more interesting covers:

The end of the 1960s marks the end of the first part of our story. It was a great decade for Barbra indeed, but so were the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s. I'll tell you all about it next time...