My Name Is Barbra

After Streisand’s father dies when she is just one year old, Streisand, her mother Diana, and her older brother Sheldon move into their grandparents’ one-bedroom apartment on Pulaski Street. Streisand is a bright student, yet she is criticized for her conduct and strong will. On her block, she is known as both the girl without a father and the girl with the good voice; she sings for her friends on her stoop in Brooklyn. Her mother marries a man named Lou Kind and they quickly have a daughter named Roslyn. Lou seems to resent Streisand and is rude to Diana. Streisand laments not having a proper family; her mother never even tells her about her father. As a child, Streisand often internalized her emotions, leading to “psychosomatic illness” (31) and an impactful noise in her ears later diagnosed as tinnitus.

When Streisand is 14, she sees her first Broadway show, The Diary of Anne Frank (1955), leading her to fall in love with theater and the play’s titular role. She also frequently goes to the movie theater, where she falls in love with films, especially those with tragic endings. Streisand is very independent as a teenager; at 14, she lies about her age to become an apprentice at a theater program.

From an early age, Streisand has known that she wants to act and be a star. As a child, she records a short album with her mother. As a teenager, she hangs around theaters to meet and observe the actors, where she becomes friends with her mentors Anita and Allan Miller. She graduates early from high school to start auditioning for roles in Manhattan.

Streisand gets a job at a printing company and moves to Manhattan, near an acting class she is taking with Allan Miller. After her first public performance for this class, Streisand asks what her mother thought of her performance, but her mother only tells her, “[Y]our arms are too skinny” (64). In one of her early plays, Streisand meets Barry Dennen, who introduces her to music from movies and musicals—an art form that combines her interest in acting with music. She starts listening to more music in different genres, and Barry records her singing and encourages her to sing at a contest. At the contest, the audience is shocked into silence before erupting in cheers; this performance leads to Streisand landing a gig at a Greenwich Village nightclub called the Bon Soir.

For her engagement at the Bon Soir, Streisand gravitates toward show tunes, which allow her to combine her passion for acting with her talent for singing. Streisand is frequently told that if she wants to make it in show business she should change her name and get a nose job, but she refuses, thinking her talent should speak for itself. Streisand has never liked her given name, “Barbara,” but also does not want to change it, so she drops an “a” and changes her name to “Barbra” to be more unique. After her first performances at the Bon Soir, Streisand is unable to internalize the praise she receives and focuses primarily on the criticism; however, her original two-week booking is extended for several more weeks.

Despite doing well at the Bon Soir and getting an agent, Streisand has trouble booking more jobs. She sings at nightclubs in Detroit and St. Louis, and makes her first television appearance in 1961, before returning to the Bon Soir, where she meets her long-time manager Marty Erlichman. Later that year, Streisand performs in her first Broadway show, which closes the day after it opens. However, she soon auditions for and gets the role of Miss Marmelstein in I Can Get It for You Wholesale (1962), the part that launches her theatrical career at 19.

On the first day of rehearsals for I Can Get It for You Wholesale, Streisand meets and befriends her future husband and the star of the show, Elliott Gould. However, early on, she butts heads with director Arthur Laurents, who is not afraid to ridicule her in front of the rest of the more experienced cast. Right before opening night, Laurents tells her, “You’re never going to make it, you know. Never! You’re too undisciplined” (127). Despite this, Streisand is nominated for a Tony Award and receives great reviews, unlike the mixed reviews received by Gould, now her partner. Streisand becomes bored with the play, returning to the Bon Soir after shows to enjoy creative control and the ability to play a different character in every song.

Jule Styne, the composer of the musical Funny Girl, advocates for Streisand to be cast in the show’s leading role of Fanny Brice. Meanwhile, Streisand signs a contract with Columbia Records, agreeing to less money up front on the condition that she gets the creative freedom she wants. Wholesale closes after nine months, and Streisand finally feels free and has the time to record her first album.

Streisand records her album The Barbra Streisand Album, with arrangements by Peter Matz, in 1963. Arthur Laurents writes her a letter criticizing the album in detail, and she writes back to him, validating and expanding on his criticism; despite these opinions, she later wins a Grammy Award for it. Marty Erlichman arranges for Streisand to tour; she and Gould are invited to perform in London, but Gould encourages her to go on tour instead and proposes to her before he leaves for London. Streisand records two more albums during the tour.

Auditions for Funny Girl continue. Director and choreographer Jerome Robbins worries Streisand is not mature enough for the role, but Streisand gets the lead. Streisand and Gould elope in Nevada and honeymoon at a motel during her tour. She is invited to perform on the TV show of one of her idols, Judy Garland, but when the show airs, the press suggests that there is a rivalry between the two women. This is false: Streisand and Garland would go on to become good friends. Streisand continues to tour, performing for bigger crowds, but regrets how busy she becomes once rehearsals for Funny Girl begin.

As Streisand researches the historical comedian Fanny Brice, she becomes more connected to the character on an artistic level. She also gets close with Sydney Chaplin, the actor playing opposite her as the gambler Nick Arnstein. The production is chaotic, with blocking and directors frequently changing. When Jerome Robbins returns to the project and changes it drastically into its final form, Streisand finally feels seen. However, after opening night, Streisand feels disillusioned by what she knows will be a monotonous run; her straightforward acknowledgement of this leads her critics to say she is ungrateful. Streisand and Chaplin begin an affair, but when she ends it, he acts vindictively and manipulatively toward her on stage, giving her stage fright and making her ill until he leaves the show.

The song Streisand is perhaps most known for, “People” from Funny Girl, is almost cut from the show by one of the early directors. A slightly different version of the song is released as a single before the show premieres, and Streisand also uses it as the title song of her next album. She will never get bored of singing this song because of its timeless meaning.

In 1965, after about a year in Funny Girl, Streisand has her first television special called My Name is Barbra. Erlichman negotiates for her full creative control. She thinks of the special as “a little play” (237) and adds her signature theatricality to the seemingly standardized genre. Though she receives great reviews and works with a team she loves, Streisand also wants to hear from her critics. The special and her subsequent albums briefly distract her from the monotony she feels performing the same show every night on stage.

Columbia Records asks Streisand to do an album in French for a European audience, which she records in the middle of the night after performances of Funny Girl. Becoming more interested in this project than her collaborators, Streisand writes her own song in French for the album. Released as Je m’appelle Barbra, it is one of her least successful albums, but still reaches the number five spot on the Billboard Albums chart.

Streisand is desperate to finish her run in Funny Girl, yet her last performance is emotional and reminds her of how much she appreciates the show. She records her next TV special, Color Me Barbra, with a focus on many of her favorite things, such as art and animals. Color Me Barbra is such a success that the company that sponsors it sends Streisand and her friends on a European vacation to get inspiration for another special. Afterward, she does a brief run of Funny Girl in London, which sells out before it even begins. Immediately after opening night, Streisand discovers she is pregnant. She worries because she has another TV special, a tour, and the Funny Girl movie coming up. Though the delivery has complications, Streisand feels “transcendent” (279) after giving birth to her son Jason.