Barbra Streisand
Barbara Joan "Barbra" Streisand (/ˈstraɪsænd/ STRY-sand; born April 24, 1942) is an American singer, actress, songwriter, film and television producer, and director. With a career spanning over six decades, she has achieved success in multiple fields of entertainment and is among the few performers awarded an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony (EGOT).
"Streisand" redirects here. For her tour, see Streisand (concert tour). For the phenomenon named after her, see Streisand effect.
Barbra Streisand
April 24, 1942
- Singer
- actress
- filmmaker
- songwriter
- Jon Peters (1973–1982)
- Richard Baskin (1983–1987)
- Roslyn Kind (half-sister)
- Adam Streisand (second cousin)
- Josh Brolin (stepson)
Vocals
1960–present
Streisand's career began in the early 1960s when she started performing in nightclubs and Broadway theaters. Following guest appearances on various television shows, she signed to Columbia Records—insisting that she retain full artistic control and accepting lower pay in exchange, an arrangement that continued throughout her career[1]—and released her debut, The Barbra Streisand Album (1963), which won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Throughout her recording career, Streisand has topped the US Billboard 200 chart with 11 albums—a record for a woman until 2023[2]—including People (1964), The Way We Were (1974), Guilty (1980), and The Broadway Album (1985).[3] She also achieved five number-one singles on the US Billboard Hot 100—"The Way We Were", "Evergreen", "You Don't Bring Me Flowers", "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)", and "Woman in Love".
Following her established recording success in the 1960s, Streisand ventured into film by the end of that decade.[4] She starred in the critically acclaimed Funny Girl (1968), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.[5] Additional fame followed with films, including the extravagant musical Hello, Dolly! (1969), the screwball comedy What's Up, Doc? (1972), and the romantic drama The Way We Were (1973). Streisand won a second Academy Award for writing the love theme from A Star Is Born (1976), the first woman to be honored as a composer.[6] With the release of Yentl (1983), Streisand became the first woman to write, produce, direct, and star in a major studio film.[7] The film won an Oscar for Best Original Score and a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Musical. Streisand also received the Golden Globe Award for Best Director, becoming the first (and for 37 years, the only) woman to win that award. Streisand later produced and directed The Prince of Tides (1991) and The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996).
With sales exceeding 150 million records worldwide, Streisand is one of the best-selling recording artists of all time.[8][9] According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the second-highest certified female artist in the United States, with 68.5 million certified album units.[10] Billboard ranked Streisand as the greatest solo artist on the Billboard 200 chart and the top Adult Contemporary female artist of all time.[11][12] Her accolades include two Academy Awards;[13] 10 Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and the Grammy Legend Award;[14] five Emmy Awards; four Peabody Awards;[15] the Presidential Medal of Freedom;[16] the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award[17] and nine Golden Globes.[18]
Early life
Family
Streisand was born on April 24, 1942, in Brooklyn, New York City, to Diana Ida (née Rosen; 1908–2002)[19] and Emanuel Streisand (1908–1943). Her mother had been a soprano in her youth and considered a career in music, but later became a school secretary.[20] Her father was a high school teacher at the same school, where they first met.[21] Streisand's family is Jewish.[22][23][24] Her paternal grandparents emigrated from Galicia (modern-day Poland and Ukraine) in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and her maternal grandparents from the Russian Empire, where her grandfather had been a cantor.[25][26]
In August 1943, a few months after Streisand's first birthday, her father died at age 34 from complications from an epileptic seizure, possibly the result of a head injury years earlier.[27]: 3 The family fell into near poverty, with her mother working as a low-paid bookkeeper.[28] As an adult, Streisand remembered those early years as always feeling like an "outcast", explaining, "Everybody else's father came home from work at the end of the day. Mine didn't."[27]: 3 Her mother tried to pay their bills but could not give her daughter the attention she craved: "When I wanted love from my mother, she gave me food," Streisand says.[27]: 3
Streisand recalled that her mother had a "great voice" and sang semi-professionally on occasion. In a 2016 interview with Rosie O'Donnell, Streisand recounted that when she was 13, she and her mother recorded some songs on tape during a visit to the Catskills. That session was the first time Streisand ever asserted herself as an artist, which also became her "first moment of inspiration."[29]
She has an older brother, Sheldon, and a half-sister, singer Roslyn Kind,[30][31][32] from her mother's remarriage to Louis Kind in 1950.[33][34]
Education
Streisand began her education at the Jewish Orthodox Yeshiva of Brooklyn when she was five.[35] She was considered bright and inquisitive; however, she lacked discipline, often shouting answers to questions out of turn.[36][27]: 3 She next attended Public School 89 in Brooklyn, and during those early school years began watching television and going to movies. "I always wanted to be somebody, to be famous... You know, get out of Brooklyn."[27]: 3
Streisand became known by others in the neighborhood for her voice. She remembers sitting on the stoop in front of their apartment building with the other kids and singing: "I was considered the girl on the block with the good voice."[27]: 3 That talent became a way for her to gain attention. She would often practice her singing in the hallway of her apartment building, which gave her voice an echoing quality.[37]
She 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. 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 13, 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".[27]: 4
Becoming an actress was her main objective. That desire was made stronger when she saw her first Broadway play, The Diary of Anne Frank, when she was 14. The star in the play was Susan Strasberg, whose acting she wanted to emulate.[27]: 4 Streisand began spending her spare time in the library, studying the biographies of various stage actresses such as Eleanora Duse and Sarah Bernhardt. In addition, she began reading novels and plays and studying the acting theories of Konstantin Stanislavski and Michael Chekhov.[27]: 4
In 1956, she attended Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, where she became an honor student in modern history, English, and Spanish. She also joined the Freshman Chorus and Choral Club, where she sang with another choir member and classmate, Neil Diamond.[38] Diamond recalls, "We were two poor kids in Brooklyn. We hung out in the front of Erasmus High and smoked cigarettes." The school was near an art movie house, and he recalls that she was always aware of the films they were showing.[39] She had a crush on 15-year-old US Chess Champion and fellow student Bobby Fischer, whom she found to be "very sexy".[40][41]
During the summer of 1957, she landed her first stage experience as a walk-on at the Playhouse, in Malden Bridge, New York. That small part was followed by a role as the kid sister in Picnic and as a vamp in Desk Set.[27]: 4 In her second year, she took a night job at the Cherry Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village, helping backstage. When she was a senior, she rehearsed for a small part in Driftwood, a play staged in a midtown attic space.[27]: 5
She graduated from Erasmus Hall in January 1959 at age 16, and despite her mother's pleas that she stay out of show business, she set out trying to get roles on the New York City stage.[27]: 5 After renting a small apartment on 48th St. in the heart of the theater district, she accepted any job she could involving the stage, and at every opportunity, she "made the rounds" of the casting offices.[27]: 5
Autobiography
Streisand's writing of her autobiography stalled at various stages,[222] and Viking Press announced in May 2015 that they anticipated publishing her long-awaited memoir in 2017, spanning Streisand's entire life and career.[223]
Upon the release of My Name Is Barbra on November 7, 2023,[224][225] her BBC interview concluded with Streisand claiming she wanted "to have more fun" in life.[226]