Barbra Joan Streisand (born Barbara Joan Streisand /ˈstraɪsænd/; April 24, 1942) is an American singer, actress, writer, film producer, and director. She has won two Academy Awards,eight Grammy Awards,five Emmy Awards including one Daytime Emmy, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Kennedy Center Honors award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who has won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award.

 

She is one of the most commercially and critically successful entertainers in modern entertainment history, with more than 71.5 million albums shipped in the United States and 140 million albums sold worldwide.She is the best-selling female artist on the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) Top Selling Artists list, the only female recording artist in the top ten, and the only artist outside of the rock and roll genre.Along with Frank Sinatra, Cher and Shirley Jones, she shares the distinction of being awarded an acting Oscar and also recording a number-one single on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart.
 

According to the RIAA, Streisand holds the record for the most top-ten albums of any female recording artist – a total of 32 since 1963.Streisand has the widest span (48 years) between first and latest top-ten albums of any female recording artist. With her 2009 album, Love Is the Answer, she became one of the rare artists to achieve number-one albums in five consecutive decades.According to the RIAA, she has released 51 Gold albums, 30 Platinum albums, and 13 Multi-Platinum albums in the United States.

 

Early life

Barbara Joan Streisand (see name change) was born on April 24, 1942, in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Diana (née Ida Rosen) and Emanuel Streisand. Her mother was at one time a singer and her father was a respected high school teacher. Her family was Jewish; her paternal grandparents immigrated from Galicia and her maternal grandparents from Russia. Fifteen months after Streisand's birth, her father died of a cerebral hemorrhage and the family fell into near-poverty.She has an older brother, Sheldon, and a half-sister, the singer Roslyn Kind, from her mother's re-marriage, to Louis Kind, in 1949.Kind is nine years younger than Streisand.

 

Streisand first attended the Jewish Orthodox Yeshiva of Brooklyn, giving a solo performance at the age of seven.She later attended Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn and joined the Freshman Chorus and Choral Club.Streisand recollects, "I'm so glad I came from Brooklyn—it's down to earth."Streisand became a nightclub singer while in her teens. She wanted to be an actress and appeared in summer stock and in a number of Off-Off-Broadway productions, including Driftwood (1959), with then-unknown Joan Rivers. (In her autobiography, Rivers wrote that she played a lesbian with a crush on Streisand's character, but this was later denied by the play's author.) Driftwood ran for only six weeks.When her boyfriend, Barry Dennen, helped her create a club act—first performed at The Lion, a popular gay nightclub in Manhattan's Greenwich Village in 1960—she achieved success as a singer. While singing at The Lion for several weeks, she changed her name from Barbara to Barbra. Afterward she appeared at other New York nightclubs, including the Bon Soir and the Blue Angel. One early appearance outside of New York City was at Enrico Banducci’s hungry i nightclub in San Francisco.In 1961, Streisand appeared at the Town and Country nightclub in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, but her appearance was cut short; the club owner did not appreciate her singing style.Streisand appeared at Baker's Keyboard Lounge in Detroit in 1961.Streisand's first television appearance was on The Tonight Show, then hosted by Jack Paar, in 1961, singing Harold Arlen's "A Sleepin' Bee".Orson Bean, who substituted for Paar that night, had seen the singer perform at a gay bar and booked her for the telecast. (Her older brother Sheldon paid NBC for a kinescope film so she could use it in 1961 to promote herself. Decades later the film was preserved through digitizing and is available for viewing on a website.)Later in 1961, Streisand became a semi-regular on PM East/PM West, a talk/variety series. PM East was hosted by Mike Wallace and Joyce Davidson.PM West was hosted by Terrence O'Flaherty. Westinghouse Broadcasting, which aired the television show in a select few cities (Boston, New York, Baltimore, Washington DC, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago and San Francisco), wiped all the videotapes soon after broadcasting them.Audio segments from some episodes, which were saved by Streisand's fans, are part of the compilation CD Just for the Record, which went platinum in 1991. The singer said on 60 Minutes in 1991 that 30 years earlier Mike Wallace had been "mean, very mean" to her on PM East/PM West.He countered that she had been "totally self-absorbed." (Her response: "You invited me on your show to talk about subjects that interested me, and you dare to call me self-absorbed?") 60 Minutes included the audio of Streisand saying to him in 1961, "I like the fact that you are provoking. But don't provoke me."

 

In 1962, after several appearances on PM East/PM West, Streisand first appeared on Broadway, in the small but star-making role of Miss Marmelstein in the musical I Can Get It for You Wholesale. Her first album, The Barbra Streisand Album, won two Grammy Awards in 1963. Following her success in I Can Get It for You Wholesale, Streisand made several appearances on The Tonight Show in 1962 and 1963. Topics covered in her interviews with host Johnny Carson included the empire-waisted dresses that she bought wholesale and her "crazy" reputation at Erasmus Hall High School.As is the case with Mike Wallace, only audio survives from small portions of her telecast conversations with Carson. It was at about this time that Streisand entered into a long and successful professional relationship with Lee Solters and Sheldon Roskin as her publicists with the firm Solters/Roskin (later Solters/Roskin/Friedman).
 

Streisand returned to Broadway in 1964 with an acclaimed performance as entertainer Fanny Brice in Funny Girl at the Winter Garden Theatre. The show introduced two of her signature songs, "People" and "Don't Rain on My Parade." Because of the play's overnight success, she appeared on the cover of Time. In 1966, she repeated her success with Funny Girl in London's West End at the Prince of Wales Theatre. From 1965 to 1967 she appeared in her first four solo television specials.

 

Acting

Her first film was a reprise of her Broadway hit, Funny Girl (1968), an artistic and commercial success directed by Hollywood veteran William Wyler. Streisand won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Actress for the role,sharing it with Katharine Hepburn (The Lion in Winter), the only time there has been a tie in this Oscar category.Her next two movies were also based on musicals, Jerry Herman's Hello, Dolly!, directed by Gene Kelly (1969), and Alan Jay Lerner's and Burton Lane's On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, directed by Vincente Minnelli (1970), while her fourth film was based on the Broadway play The Owl and the Pussycat (1970).

 

During the 1970s, Streisand starred in several screwball comedies, including What's Up, Doc? (1972) and The Main Event (1979), both co-starring Ryan O'Neal, and For Pete's Sake (1974) with Michael Sarrazin. One of her most famous roles during this period was in the drama The Way We Were (1973) with Robert Redford, for which she received an Academy Award nomination as Best Actress. She earned her second Academy Award for Best Original Song as composer (together with lyricist Paul Williams) for the song "Evergreen", from A Star Is Born in 1976.

 

Along with Paul Newman, Sidney Poitier and later Steve McQueen, Streisand formed First Artists Production Company in 1969, so the actors could secure properties and develop movie projects for themselves. Streisand's initial outing with First Artists was Up the Sandbox (1972).

 

From a period beginning in 1969 and ending in 1980, Streisand appeared in the annual motion picture exhibitors poll of Top 10 Box Office attractions a total of 10 times, often as the only woman on the list. After the commercially disappointing All Night Long in 1981, Streisand's film output decreased considerably. She has acted in only six films since.

 

Streisand produced a number of her own films, setting up Barwood Films in 1972. For Yentl (1983), she was producer, director, and star, an experience she repeated for The Prince of Tides (1991) and The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996). There was controversy when Yentl received five Academy Award nominations, but none for the major categories of Best Picture, Actress, or Director. The Prince of Tides received even more Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, but the director was not nominated. Streisand also scripted Yentl, something she is not always given credit for. According to New York Times Editorial Page Editor Andrew Rosenthal in an interview (story begins at minute 16) with Allan Wolper, "the one thing that makes Barbra Streisand crazy is when nobody gives her the credit for having written Yentl."

 

In 2004, Streisand made a return to film acting, after an eight-year hiatus, in the comedy Meet the Fockers (a sequel to Meet the Parents), playing opposite Dustin Hoffman, Ben Stiller, Blythe Danner and Robert De Niro.

 

In 2005, Streisand's Barwood Films, Gary Smith, and Sonny Murray purchased the rights to Simon Mawer's book Mendel's Dwarf. In December 2008, she stated that she was considering directing an adaptation of Larry Kramer's play The Normal Heart, a project she has worked on since the mid-1990s In 2009, Andrew Lloyd Webber stated that Streisand was one of several actresses (alongside Meryl Streep and Glenn Close) who were interested in playing the role of Norma Desmond in the film adaptation of Webber's musical version of Sunset Boulevard.

 

In December 2010, Streisand appeared in Little Fockers, the third film from the Meet the Parents trilogy. She reprised the role of Roz Focker alongside Dustin Hoffman.

 

On January 4, 2011, the New York Post reported that Streisand was in negotiations to produce, direct, and star in a new film version of Gypsy. In an interview with the New York Post, Arthur Laurents said: "We've talked about it a lot, and she knows what she's doing. She has my approval." He said that he would not write the screenplay.The following day, the New York Times reported that Arthur Laurents clarified in a telephonic interview that Streisand would not direct the film "but playing Rose is enough to make her happy."Streisand's spokesperson confirmed that "there have been conversations".After Laurents' subsequent death there was no official word on the status of the film for months, until it was announced on March 13, 2012 that Gypsy was moving forward, with Julian Fellowes writing the screenplay for the project.

 

On January 28, 2011, The Hollywood Reporter announced that Paramount Pictures has given the road-trip comedy My Mother's Curse the green light to begin shooting, with Streisand and Seth Rogen playing mother and son. Anne Fletcher is slated to direct the project with a script by Dan Fogelman. Lorne Michaels and John Goldwyn will produce it with Evan Goldberg. Executive producers include Streisand, Rogen, Fogelman, and David Ellison, whose Skydance will co-finance the pic. Shooting began in spring of 2011 and wrapped in July. In August the Internet Movie Database began listing the film with the new title Guilt Trip. This was eventually altered to "The Guilt Trip" The film is set for a Christmas 2012 release (originally it was slated to release in March 2012 and later scheduled for November 2012).

 

Personal life

Marriages and family

Streisand has been married twice. Her first husband was actor Elliott Gould, to whom she was married from 1963 until 1971. They had one child, Jason Gould, who appeared as her on-screen son in The Prince of Tides. Her second husband is actor James Brolin, whom she married on July 1, 1998. While they have no children together, Brolin has two children from his first marriage, including Academy Award-nominated actor Josh Brolin, and one child from his second marriage. Both of her husbands starred in the 1970s conspiracy sci-fi thriller Capricorn One. Jon Peters' daughters, Caleigh Peters and Skye Peters, are her god-daughters.

 

Name

Streisand changed her name from Barbara to Barbra because, she said, "I hated the name, but I refused to change it."Streisand further explained, "Well, I was 18 and I wanted to be unique, but I didn't want to change my name because that was too false. You know, people were saying you could be Joanie Sands, or something like that. [My middle name is Joan.] And I said, 'No, let's see, if I take out the 'a,' it's still 'Barbara,' but it's unique."A 1967 biography with a concert program said, "the spelling of her first name is an instance of partial rebellion: she was advised to change her last name and retaliated by dropping an “a” from the first instead."

 

Politics

Streisand has long been an active supporter of the Democratic Party and many of their causes. Streisand said, "The Democrats have always been the party of working people and minorities. I've always identified with the minorities."

 

In 1971, Streisand was one of the celebrities listed on President Richard Nixon's infamous Enemies List. She also was romantically and politically linked to Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

 

Streisand is a supporter of gay rights, and in 2008 helped raise funds in an unsuccessful attempt to defeat Proposition 8 in California.

 

Philanthropy

Streisand has personally raised $25 million for organizations through her live performances. The Streisand Foundation,established in 1986, has contributed over $16 million through nearly 1,000 grants to "national organizations working on preservation of the environment, voter education, the protection of civil liberties and civil rights, women’s issues and nuclear disarmament."

 

In 2006, Streisand donated $1 million to the William J. Clinton Foundation in support of former President Bill Clinton’s climate change initiative.

 

In 2008, Streisand gifted $5 million to endow the Barbra Streisand Women's Cardiovascular Research and Education Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's Women's Heart Center. In September that year, Parade magazine included Streisand on their Giving Back Fund's second annual Giving Back 30 survey, "a ranking of the celebrities who have made the largest donations to charity in 2007 according to public records", as the third most generous celebrity. The Giving Back Fund claimed Streisand donated $11 million, which The Streisand Foundation distributed.

 

At Julien’s Auctions in October 2009, Streisand, a long-time collector of art and furniture, sold 526 items with all the proceeds going to her foundation. Items included a costume from Funny Lady and a vintage dental cabinet purchased by the performer at 18 years old. The sale’s most valuable lot was a painting by Kees van Dongen.In December 2011 she agreed to sing at a fundraising gala for Israel Defence Forces charities.

 

References in popular culture

In television

On the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, in the recurring skit "Coffee Talk", character Linda Richman, played by Mike Myers, hosts a talk show dedicated to, among other things, the adoration of Streisand. Streisand, in turn, made an unannounced guest appearance on the show, surprising Myers and guests, Madonna and Roseanne Barr. Mike Myers also appeared as the Linda Richman character on stage with Streisand at her 1994 MGM Grand concert, as well as a few of the 1994 Streisand tour shows.

 

Streisand is mentioned in the sitcom Will & Grace, particularly by the character Jack McFarland. Songs made famous by Streisand, such as "Papa, Can You Hear Me?" from Yentl and "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" from The Broadway Album are reproduced by characters in the show. Also, in the episode "Fagmalion", Will and Jack who are making over their "gay-in-training" Barry, make him recite "Judy, Liza, Barbra, Bette, these are names I shant forget", as part of his "gay" affirmations.

 

At least four episodes of the animated sitcom The Simpsons refer to Streisand. Outside Springfield Elementary School, announcing Lisa's jazz concert and noting tickets have been sold out, is an advertisement for a Streisand concert in the same venue for the following day, with tickets still on sale. In "Fear of Flying", after Marge undergoes therapy, she informs the therapist that whenever she hears the wind blow, she'll hear it saying "Lowenstein", Streisand's therapist character in The Prince of Tides, even though Marge's therapist is named Zweig. Another reference comes in "Sleeping with the Enemy" when Bart exclaims after seeing Lisa make a snow-angel in a cake on the kitchen table, "At least she's not singing Streisand", in reference to Nelson Muntz singing "Papa Can You Hear Me?" from Yentl earlier in the episode. In "Simple Simpson", a patriotic country singer says that Streisand is unpatriotic and could be pleased by spitting on the flag and strangling a bald eagle.

 

Another enduring satirical reference is in the animated series South Park, most notably in the episode "Mecha-Streisand", where Streisand is portrayed as a self-important, evil, gigantic robotic dinosaur with a terrible singing voice about to conquer the universe before being defeated by Robert Smith of The Cure. On another occasion, the Halloween episode "Spookyfish" is promoted for a week as being done in "Spooky-Vision", which involves Streisand's face seen at times during the episode in the four corners of the screen. At the end of the feature film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, her name is used as a powerful curse word, a gag repeated in the episode "Osama bin Laden Has Farty Pants". The Mecha-Streisand character made a return in the Season 14 episodes "200" and "201", as one of several celebrities the show had lampooned over the years.

 

In the Family Guy episode "Mind Over Murder", Lois sings a cabaret act with "Don't Rain on My Parade"—originally sung by Streisand in Funny Girl—only slowed down and jazzier, as an act of defiance to Peter. In "Stewie Kills Lois", Peter receives life insurance after Lois' apparent death, and claims that he has more money than Streisand. This was followed by a cut scene showing Streisand blowing money out of her nose. In "Wasted Talent", Streisand and husband James Brolin are shown sitting together at the dinner table, with Streisand remarking "I'm glad I married a regular person and not a celebrity".

 

Streisand is referenced frequently on the Fox TV musical series Glee. The character Rachel (Lea Michele) mentions that Streisand refused to alter her nose in order to become famous in the show's third episode "Acafellas". Also, in the mid-season finale of Glee, Rachel sings the Streisand anthem "Don't Rain on My Parade". In the episode "Hell-O", she says that she will be heartbroken for life, "Like Barbra in The Way We Were." In the same episode, Jesse St. James (Jonathan Groff) criticizes Rachel's performance of "Don't Rain on My Parade" by saying that she "lacked Barbra's emotional depth."

 

In the episode "Theatricality", Rachel is spying on the opposing team's dance rehearsal when the director, Shelby Corcoran (Idina Menzel), expresses dissatisfaction at the team's routine. She demonstrates how it's done with the title song from Funny Girl, and Rachel, sitting in the audience, whispers to her friend, "Exactly what I would have done—Barbra. I could do it in my sleep." In the episode "Grilled Cheesus" Rachel sings Barbra's famous song from the movie Yentl—Papa, Can You Hear Me?—to help support Kurt's (Chris Colfer) dad Burt after undergoing a heart attack. Rachel sang it in a park with Finn sitting at her side/in Burt Hummel's hospital room. She told Finn that she "wanted nothing to come between her and God, and Yentl sang it outside in the movie."  On the episode Born This Way Barbara is mentioned when Rachel is debating whether or not to get a nose job, Kurt Hummel and the rest of the glee club set up a "Barbra-vention" of a flashmob to the popular hit "Barbra Streisand" by Duck Sauce.

 

The characters of Kurt and Rachel also sang the "Get Happy/Happy Days are Here Again" duet originally heard during Streisand's 1963 appearance with Judy Garland on Garland's weekly TV series. In the season three episode "I Am Unicorn," Kurt sings Barbra Streisand's "I'm the Greatest Star" from the musical Funny Girl, stating "[He] has permission from the woman herself," actually meaning Rachel Berry. When Glee won the prize for "Best TV Series-Comedy Or Musical" at the 2010 Golden Globe Awards, creator Ryan Murphy quipped on stage, "Thank you to the Hollywood Foreign Press and Miss Barbra Streisand."

 

In the sitcom The Nanny, Streisand is viewed as a divine figure by Fran Fine throughout the sitcom's run. When asked by her boss who she would save if her mother and Streisand were drowning, Fran replies "I'd save Ma, Barbra can walk on water," Another example is in "The Passed-Over Story," when Fran hears that Barbra Streisand and James Brolin will be arriving at the airport, Fran runs towards the door yelling "It's the miracle of Passover, the Messiah is coming".

 

On film

In movies, Streisand is remembered as the favorite of the character Howard Brackett, played by Kevin Kline, who finally admits to being gay while standing at the altar in the 1997 romantic comedy In & Out. His unfortunate bride-to-be, played by Joan Cusack, cries out in frustration to family and friends present, "Does anybody here KNOW how many times I've had to sit through Funny Lady?" In an earlier scene, Howard is taunted by a friend during an argument at a bar with a jeering, "The studio thought that Barbra was too ol-l-ld to play Yentl." The film also mentions the album Color Me Barbra. Barbra's signature tune, "People", is played by a school orchestra in honor of teacher Howard as the story wraps at the end of the credits. This and similar references refer to her popularity among gay men.

 

In the 1996 comedy "The Associate", Whoopi Goldberg plays a business woman, Laurel Ayers, who creates a business associate, Robert S. Cutty, who is said to have known and dated Streisand. In addition to having an autographed picture of Streisand in her office, Ayers also has a cross-dressing friend who dresses up to resemble Streisand throughout the film.

 

The characters Carla and Connie, as aspiring song-and-dance acts in the 2004 comedy Connie and Carla, include four Streisand references. They sing "Papa, Can You Hear Me?" and "Memory" at an airport lounge and "Don't Rain on My Parade" onstage in a gay bar, and talk about the plot of Yentl at the climax of the film after they ask how many in their audience have seen the movie (everyone raised their hands).

 

In music

Sound clips of Streisand's heated exchange with a supporter of former U.S. president George W. Bush were sampled in the 2009 Lucian Piane dance song "Bale Out", making it sound as if she were arguing with actor Christian Bale (whose recorded outbursts during the filming of Terminator Salvation were the centerpiece of the song).

 

"Barbra Streisand" is a disco house song by American-Canadian DJ duo Duck Sauce. It was released on September 10, 2010. The song peaked at number one in Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Switzerland and Austria. It became a top ten hit in Australia, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy and the UK.

 

On stage

Daniel Stern's 2003 Off-Broadway play Barbra's Wedding was set against the backdrop of Streisand's 1998 wedding to James Brolin.

 

"Streisand effect"

In 2003, Streisand sued aerial photographer Kenneth Adelman for displaying a photograph of her Malibu, California, home, along with other photos of the California coastline. Her suit was dismissed under the anti-SLAPP provisions of California law.Mike Masnick of Techdirt coined the term "Streisand effect" in January 2005 to describe the publicity generated by Streisand's efforts to suppress the publication of the photograph.

 

Awards

In 1984, Streisand was awarded the Women in Film Crystal Award for outstanding women who, through their endurance and the excellence of their work, have helped to expand the role of women within the entertainment industry.She also received the National Medal of Arts in 2000 and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2008. She was inducted as an officer of France's Legion of Honour in 2007.
 

Streisand is the only woman to have an album reach #1 on the US charts and win the Academy Award for Best Actress.