Gay Icons - The Divas: Barbra Streisand (part 3)

Hello, my friends! In 1983, Barbra Streisand took another big gamble. Having already conquered the musical and romantic comedy genres, she went for really serious stuff. This time she was not only the movie star, the singer, and the producer. She was also the director, as well as one of the screenwriters.

Barbra's film was based on a story by Nobel-winning Isaac Bashevis Singer called "Yentl, the Yeshiva Boy". The story was first turned into a stage play called Yentl that was produced for Broadway. It starred Tovah Feldshuh, opened at the Eugene O'Neill Theater on October 23, 1975, and ran for 223 performances.

When Barbra decided to make the film, Hollywood told her she was crazy, on the irrefutable logical ground that a woman in her 40s can hardly be expected to be convincing as a 17-year-old boy. Streisand persisted. She worked on this movie four years, as producer, director, co-writer, and star. And she has pulled it off with great style and heart. She doesn't really look like a 17-year-old boy in this movie, that's true. We have to sort of suspend our disbelief a little. But she does look 17, and that's without a lot of trick lighting and funny filters on the lens, too. And she sings like an angel.

For this film, Barbra Streisand became the first woman ever to win the Golden Globe for Best Director. The movie won one Oscar, for Best Song Score - and was nominated for four more: two of the songs, Art Direction-Set Decoration, and Amy Irving for Supporting Actress. Amy Irving became the first actress to be nominated for an Academy Award and a Razzie for the same performance. The Razzies honor the year's worst performances. She won neither.

Steven Spielberg called the film "the best directorial debut since Citizen Kane (1941)". Two years later, Spielberg got married to Amy Irving.

You may have noticed that there was no Oscar love for Barbra. Not as a producer, not as an actress, not as a writer, and not as a director. Barbra was not happy about it. In an interview for Variety, she said: "It was strange. I didn't mind it for one reason: It really showed the sexism. I thought by not being nominated, I put a spotlight on the issue. I thought, 'Wow. This is so transparent.'"

Some 34 years later, the barriers that Streisand broke through - as the first woman to juggle duties as the star, director, producer and co-writer of a single studio movie - are at the forefront of everyone's mind in Hollywood. "I didn't know it was a glass ceiling," she says about her decision to step behind the camera. "I just thought, they don't believe in a woman's capacity to handle finances or to be the businessman. Years ago, I was told, 'You want control? A woman wants control? That's crazy!'"

The Oscar-winning song score was written by Oscar veterans (and friends of Streisand) Michel Legrand (music) with Alan and Marilyn Bergman handling the lyrics. The Oscar-nominated, Papa, Can You Hear Me? is my favorite song from this film:

This live version was recorded in 1987:

The Way He Makes Me Feel was also Oscar-nominated:

Another good song from Yentl was A Piece of Sky:

Before we go on with the music, here's a short update of Barbra's personal life in the 1980s: Jason Gould, Barbra's son with Elliott Gould, came out as gay to his parents in the 1980s. In 1985 Barbra and Jon Peters separated as friends. Then there was a brief love affair with Miami Vice's Don Johnson and a few years later, Barbra again rocked the boat: she dated tennis champion, Andre Agassi. Writing about the relationship in his 2009 autobiography, Agassi said: "We agree that we're good for each other, and so what if she's twenty-eight years older? We're simpatico, and the public outcry only adds spice to our connection. It makes our friendship feel forbidden, taboo - another piece of my overall rebellion. Dating Barbra Streisand is like wearing Hot Lava."

Emotion, Barbra's first "proper" studio album in 4 years, was released in 1984 and became a top 20 hit in the US and in most of Europe (including the UK). Jim Steinman wrote the album's lead single, Left in the Dark. It only just made the US top 50:

Barbra paired with Kim Carnes for Make No Mistake, He's Mine. Even so, it was a slightly lesser hit than her not-so-successful previous single:

The title track was the album's third single. Even though the Pointer Sisters helped with backup vocals, the single was even less successful than the previous two. It was becoming clear that Barbra was no longer a singles' artist.

Barbra Streisand's abandonment of Broadway was the worst thing that happened to the theater in the '60s. Her retreat from theater music on record was less of a loss, if only because she had tended to focus on second-rank composers and obscure songs by first-rate ones, while practically ignoring, for example, Stephen Sondheim. When she returned to show songs in 1985, she reversed these failings. Now, the singer who had never done much with Rodgers & Hammerstein, Frank Loesser, George Gershwin, or Jerome Kern finally felt confident enough to take on If I Loved You from Carousel, Adelaide's Lament from Guys and Dolls, Can't Help Lovin' That Man from Showboat, and a medley from Porgy and Bess, and she did them well. Even better, on seven tracks with Sondheim's name on them, she proved the perfect interpreter of the most contemporary and intellectual of Broadway's writers, whether singing his lyrics over the music of Leonard Bernstein (another composer she'd largely neglected) from West Side Story or making the most of material drawn from shows like Company, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, and Sunday in the Park With George. Sondheim collaborated with Streisand, penning special lyrics for songs like Putting It Together and even his standard, Send in the Clowns. The result was an album that repositioned some of Broadway's best in a pop context and showed that Streisand was still at her best when presenting the dramatically satisfying story songs of the theater. Apparently, many longtime fans agreed: At sales over three million, The Broadway Album was Streisand's most commercially successful album in five years and an easy #1 in the US.

Putting It Together is where the album begins:

Somewhere was the album's first single and it almost made the US top 40 (#43):

Send In the Clowns was another highlight:

I also like what she did with three songs from The King And I: I Have Dreamed/We Kiss in a Shadow/Something Wonderful:

For her first live recording in more than 14 years, One Voice (1987), (a benefit held in her backyard with tickets at $5,000.00 dollars a throw that was held to raise money for Democratic Senate candidates), Barbra Streisand reviewed her work in the interim, singing her chart-topping themes from the movies The Way We Were and A Star Is Born and choosing material from such memorable projects as Guilty (for which Barry Gibb got up and sang along):

She also found room for a great version of Over the Rainbow:

In 1987, she also starred and wrote the score for a film called Nuts. Two People was the movie's theme song:

Barbra Streisand's first album of new studio material in four years, Till I Loved You was led by its title song, a duet with Streisand's current flame, actor Don Johnson, on a tune from a Columbia Records pet project, a studio musical called Goya, written by Maury Yeston (composer of the Broadway show Nine), that the label was encouraging its artists to promote. The song was released as a single - and returned Barbra to the US top 40 (#25) for the first time in five years:

All I Ask of You, from the musical The Phantom Of The Opera, was the next single, but it wasn't a hit:

Streisand recalled that on the set of Yentl, which took 14 years to make, she was greeted with open arms by her overseas crew. "Europe had a queen," she said. "Europe had a woman prime minister. They totally respected me, accepted me, as a first-time director."

The experience was drastically different on her second movie, The Prince of Tides, which was shot in the United States. She recalls how one day, she told her co-star Nick Nolte that he couldn't change the words in his scene. "When I cut, they have to match," she told him. "And he said, 'No, no, you don't see my mouth from over there.' He starts talking to the camera guy. And he says, 'You don't see my mouth moving, do you?' The guy says no. I have my monitor right over there. I look back, and of course, you can see his mouth. I go over to the camera operator, and I say, 'Why did you just lie to him?' He says, 'It's the boys' club.' Can you imagine? They were protecting him."

Another memory of that shoot still bothers her. She wanted everyone to stay a little late because Nolte was in a headspace where she thought he could nail a scene that called for his character to be tired. But the camera operator and the crew banded together and told her they wanted to go home. Nolte took their side (although he called her later that night to apologize). "So I had to walk off the set. It would have literally taken 10 minutes, but they were fucking with me." The next morning, Nolte needed 17 takes to get it right because he was too rested. "Today I wouldn't ask the question," Streisand said. "I would tell them. And if you don't want to do it, don't bother to come back to work tomorrow. I wouldn't be afraid of that. But then, I was afraid of it."

The Prince of Tides was released in 1991 and was nominated for 7 major Oscars, none of which for Streisand. Hollywood wasn't ready to accept Barbra the director just yet. Her son in real life, Jason Gould, appeared in the movie, as... her son. Places That Belong to You was the movie's theme song:

In 1996 Barbra repeated the Broadway tunes' experiment to great success. Her album Back To Broadway debuted at #1 in the US, and gave her the title of "only female artist to have a number one album in four different decades." The album sold 189,000 copies in the first week and has been certified 2× Platinum in the US, her fifth album to do so.

With One Look originated in the musical Sunset Boulevard:

Also from the same musical, As If We Never Said Goodbye:

My favorite from this album is her version of Sondheim's Children Will Listen:

The Concert (1994), a live album that was certified platinum, included Streisand's version of The Man That Got Away, from Judy Garland's version of A Star Is Born:

Streisand's last movie as a director was 1996's The Mirror Has Two Faces, a romantic comedy in which she starred alongside Jeff Bridges. The movie was nominated for two Oscars, Best Supporting Actress for the fabulous Lauren Bacall and Best Song for I Finally Found Someone, a duet with Bryan Adams. The song was released as a single and returned Streisand to the top 10 in the US and the UK, earning a gold certification in the process:

Higher Ground (1997), her first studio album of mainstream pop material in nine years, is something of an oddity. Instead of devoting herself to Broadway standards or a set of radio-oriented pop tunes, Streisand has crafted a record that she intended as a tribute to the power of music as prayer. It's an ambitious project, but for the most part, it works, achieving a surprising grace. Higher Ground was her eighth #1 album in the US and has sold more than 5 million copies worldwide, surely aided by the success of Streisand's duet with Celine Dion, called Tell Him. Surprisingly, it wasn't released as a single in the US, but it was a top 5 hit everywhere else:

Everything Must Change was a beautiful album track:

On July 1, 1998, Barbra married her second husband, James Brolin, an actor whom I remember as an attractive young doctor opposite Robert Young on the hit TV series Marcus Welby, M.D. He also starred alongside Jill Clayburgh in a movie called Gable and Lombard (1976), detailing the romance and marriage of Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. Unfortunately, the movie wasn't well received. His son from a previous marriage is formidable actor Josh Brolin. Barbra and James continue to be happily married, 20 years later.

Her next album, A Love Like Ours (1999) was a love album, a soundtrack to Streisand and Brolin's wedding. I've Dreamed of You was the album's first single:

The next single was the Richard Marx-penned If You Ever Leave Me, which she sings with Vince Gill:

Another concert album followed in 2000 and then a Christmas album called Christmas Memories followed in 2001. Barbra Streisand makes a point of noting that she completed this, her second Christmas album, before the tragic events of September 11, 2001, even going so far as to list the recording dates (July 19-September 7, 2001). And listening to the disc, you can see why. If great artists sometimes demonstrate an uncanny ability to take the temperature of the times with their work, this one can be said to have anticipated the dramatic change in mood that the terrorist attacks occasioned.

The 59-year-old singer had assembled a group of songs that look back on Christmases past from a mature perspective that very much takes loss into consideration, beginning with one of those war songs, dating from the World War II era when families were separated and feared they might not be reunited, I'll Be Home for Christmas:

On two occasions, she has prompted lyricists to rewrite their songs, having Dean Pitchford alter the words to Closer, a new song submitted to her, to reflect the death of her friend Stephan Weiss (husband of fashion designer Donna Karan):

Duets (2002), collected all her older duets, plus two new tracks. The Richard Marx- Barry Manilow penned I Won't Be The One To Let Go, a duet with Barry Manilow:

... As well as All I Know of Love, a duet with Josh Groban:

The idea of Barbra Streisand making an album of movie songs was a no-brainer; she had already recorded over 50 songs written for motion pictures on her 59 previous albums. In fact, the only real challenge may have been a marketing one for Columbia Records, since potential customers simply might assume this was a compilation of some of her previous performances. The Movie Album (2003) was not. Rather, it was a newly recorded collection of songs chosen and arranged in Streisand's inimitable style.

Streisand's age was reflected in her choices, too. She frequently went for lyrics about mature love such as The Second Time Around, and she sounded more convincing singing them, giving the words the emphasis they deserved. Here it is:

As she herself notes, You're Gonna Hear from Me, which closes the album, is reminiscent of the assertive songs she sang in her youth, such as Don't Rain on My Parade, and that makes it all the more notable that she sings it in such a mellow way, as a fond memory rather than an upstart declaration. It makes a fitting closer.

Guilty Pleasures (2005), wasn't simply the belated sequel to Guilty, Barbra Streisand's 1980 collaboration with Barry Gibb. It's the best mainstream pop album she's made since that multi-platinum, chart-topping hit. Gibb, who wrote (along with a handful of other collaborators) and produced (along with John Merchant) the entire album, along with playing guitar and providing backup vocals, not only doesn't attempt to update his signature sound, but proudly sticks to unfashionable pop styles like the early-'80s anthemic soft rock of Stranger in a Strange Land, the mellow Latin-tinged Hideaway, and the disco of Night of My Life.

Yet instead of sounding like the work of a duo stuck in the past, Guilty Pleasures sounds as if Gibb has constructed a set of 11 songs that play to his strengths as a pop craftsman and Streisand's strengths as an interpreter. This may be firmly within both of their comfort zones, but despite the record's decidedly low-key vibe, neither Barry nor Barbra sounds lazy, nor do they sound like they have something to prove as if they're consciously trying to live up to the standard their first collaboration set. They sound relaxed and quietly assured, which makes this album far more charming than it might initially appear to be.

This is Stranger in a Strange Land:

This is Hideaway:

Night of My Life peaked at #2 on the US Dance chart:

Another live album followed in 2007 - and in 2009 came Love Is the Answer. Even before their first session together, Barbra Streisand and collaborator Diana Krall designed Love Is the Answer as a deeply emotional record: "each song an exploration concerning matters of the heart." And with the arrangements of maestro Johnny Mandel simply drawing occasional shading around Streisand's expressive voice - and often leaving her voice as the only instrument - the album goes well beyond the usual saloon-song tropes to become a heart-wrenching experience with virtually every song. Additionally, although much was made of the collaboration, Krall's piano stays in the background, and Streisand's is the only voice heard. But the song choices also were tailored to maximize the emotional impact of Love Is the Answer, and Streisand's incomparable voice. Nearly every song is a classic of tender balladry, despite the fact that none had been put on album by Streisand before during her long career.

The album received critical acclaim and became Streisand's record-breaking ninth #1 album on the Billboard 200. This resulted in making Streisand the only artist to have a number one album in America in five different decades. The album was certified Gold, giving Streisand her 51st Gold record in the US. It was also a #1 album in the UK. Not bad for a 65-year-old girl...

Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most opens up like a flower akin to some of her best performances:

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, a classic of the American songbook also proved itself irresistible to the Streisand treatment:

Over the course of 50 years, Barbra Streisand has enjoyed a special relationship with Alan and Marilyn Bergman. All three are Brooklyn-born (in the same hospital, no less) and Streisand describes their relationship not only as a friendship but as a love affair. Produced by Streisand herself, What Matters Most (2011) presents ten of the Bergmans' songs that she had never sung before - which makes this not a set of re-recordings but a living document, and not just a tribute from a friend, but a set of great songs sung by a great singer.

The album opener is one of my favorite songs of all-time, with amazing lyrics, The Windmills of Your Mind:

Barbra never moves into swing - not even when singing Nice 'n' Easy, which Frank Sinatra made the centerpiece and opener of his 1960 LP of the same name:

In 2013, Barbra guested on Il Divo's album A Musical Affair. The song they presented was The Music of the Night from The Phantom of the Opera:

Also in 2013, Barbra recorded a duet with her son Jason Gould. Here's what Jason has to say about it:

"You know, it was very meaningful, in a lot of ways.  It was like a full circle moment in a sense because I think a part of me was afraid to open my mouth - in front of anyone, but particularly, I think, in front of my mother. So to have that experience with her is really very healing - I think it sort of shocked her. I don't think she quite knew… listen… I'm not gonna brag about my singing. I don't think I'm the greatest singer in the world, but I don't know that she knew I could sing. [...] (The performing piece of this began a gift for my mother, but also) a gift to the little boy in me that was always afraid to have his own voice. And that's very meaningful. I think a lot of us gay kids… we have to face this fear: are we going to be accepted? Are we good enough?"

Here are Barbra and Jason duetting on the classic How Deep Is the Ocean:

... And here they are discussing their collaboration:

The song was included in the album Partners (2014), a duets album that features the legendary vocalist performing songs associated with her storied career alongside a handful of handpicked guests. Partners topped the Billboard 200 with sales of 196,000 copies in the first week, making Streisand the only recording artist to have a number-one album in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s. Eventually, it sold 856,000 copies in the US alone and was certified gold in November 2014 and platinum in January 2015, thus becoming Streisand's 52nd gold and 31st Platinum album (she also has 7 Gold-certified singles to her credit), more than any other female artist in history. The album was nominated for Best Traditional Pop Vocal album at the 57th Grammy Awards. It Had to Be You was a duet with Michael Bublé:

In Evergreen, she paired with one of the album's producers, the illustrious Babyface:

The follow-up to 2014's Partners, Barbra Streisand's 2016 studio effort, Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway, finds the acclaimed vocalist duetting with high-profile guest singers on a set of well-curated Broadway compositions. The difference this time out is that rather than simply singing the songs, wherever possible Streisand also includes the dialogue that frames the songs in their respective musical productions. The result is an album that straddles the line between a traditional pop album and musical theater recording. Helping to achieve this theatrical balance are Streisand's guests, all of whom can sing, but who are primarily known as actors.

The album opens with At The Ballet from the musical A Chorus Line. She's accompanied by Anne Hathaway and Daisy Ridley:

Particularly impressive is Star Trek's Chris Pine, whose nuanced baritone melds perfectly with Streisand on the yearning medley I'll Be Seeing You/I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face, from Right This Way and My Fair Lady:

Barbra apparently will never stop working; just a few months ago she released another live album, to preserve her 2016 concert tour - her December 5, 2016 performance in Miami.

Streisand sees herself returning to the director's chair soon. Her hiatus has been due in part to her own choosiness. While some directors (Clint Eastwood, for example) barrel through projects, Streisand is highly selective. "Sometimes she gets a lot of flak for being an over-perfectionist," says Jeff Bridges, who acted opposite her in 1996's The Mirror Has Two Faces, the last movie she directed. "But when you get that perfection focused on you, it's wonderful."

Streisand is in negotiations to direct Skinny and Cat, based on a 1994 script about Life magazine photographer Margaret Bourke-White. She shopped it around five years ago with Cate Blanchett and Colin Firth attached. "No studio wanted it," she says. "I thought they were going to be fighting for it, and they all turned it down." Now she has most of the financing in place, though she has yet to hire a cast.

Streisand dismisses reports that she's in talks to co-star in Ryan Murphy's new Netflix TV series The Politician, but she can see herself in a role behind the camera, perhaps as a director or a producer. "If I'm not making a movie," she says. "I like the script."

The only roles she's interested in playing, she says, are that of French stage actress Sarah Bernhardt and Mama Rose in a big-screen adaptation of Gypsy, which has had some false starts.

What about a return to Broadway? "I still have stage fright," she says. "I'm not going to sing live again. Scott Rudin and Barry Diller wanted me to do Gypsy on Broadway and film it. I thought, 'Are you kidding me?'"

For the last three and a half years, Streisand has been writing her memoir, and it's been a slow, arduous process. "I just figured out my dedication for my book: 'For my mother and all she did for me.' You don't know if that's negative or positive." Streisand can't say how many words she's written so far or when the manuscript might be completed.

"It's so difficult because I don't want to relive my life," she says. "Once is enough."