You’ve in all probability heard by now that Barbra Streisand’s new memoir, My Name is Barbra, is 992 pages lengthy, and that the audiobook model clocks in at 48 hours. Because the Hollywood legend informed The New York Times this week, “I wished two volumes. Who desires to carry a heavy ebook like that of their arms?” So, sure, it’s a beast of a ebook, however let’s be clear: If there’s anybody whose life warrants that form of exhaustive chronicle, it’s Babs.
The place else would you be capable to discover such thrilling tales of on-set drama and amorous affairs spanning six many years of fame as an EGOT-winning singer, actress, and director? Or learn somebody’s anecdotes about brushing shoulders with everybody from Nelson Mandela and Princess Diana to Bob Dylan and Beyoncé?
Certainly, Streisand’s Bible-sized memoir is a treasure trove of tales and secrets and techniques that’s properly definitely worth the multi-day learn. But when the curiosity is an excessive amount of so that you can bear, see among the ebook’s finest bits beneath.
She denies courting actor Barry Dennen, regardless of his claims in any other case
In his 1997 ebook My Life With Barbra: A Love Story, Barry Dennen (Jesus Christ Famous person) alleged that he and Streisand have been romantic whereas they shared an condo in Greenwich Village early in her singing profession. Nonetheless, Streisand writes that they have been all the time platonic as a result of she assumed he was homosexual. She added that she was “so damage” she couldn’t learn the ebook.
“Barry and I have been by no means lovers,” she writes. “We have been shut associates. I assumed he was in all probability homosexual, however then he informed me he had a son, so I figured he was bisexual. At moments, there may need been some form of sexual pressure between us. Nevertheless it was all very complicated. I used to be nonetheless so inexperienced that I didn’t know what was happening.”
She had a “flirtation” along with her Humorous Lady co-star Sydney Chaplin whereas she was married to Elliott Gould
Whereas performing within the 1964 Broadway manufacturing of Humorous Lady, Streisand started to develop emotions for her co-star, Charlie Chaplin’s son, Sydney. The Oscar winner was married to actor Elliott Gould on the time, whereas Chaplin was married to French actress Noelle Adam.
“Whenever you’re taking part in a personality who falls in love with one other character onstage or on-screen, you need to discover all of the methods you possibly can actually love that individual,” she writes. “And in that course of, generally the 2 individuals really do fall in love, for some time at the very least… or perhaps I ought to say, fall in attraction.”
Streisand finally informed Gould about their emotional affair and ended issues with Chaplin.
Chaplin turned verbally abusive towards her on stage
Quickly after, Chaplin turned resentful about their “breakup” and began making derogatory feedback to Streisand in the course of their performances, in response to the actress.
“One night time onstage, in the course of a scene, he began to mumble underneath his breath,” Streisand writes. “At first I assumed I used to be listening to issues. In spite of everything, I do have noises in my ears. Then I noticed, No, he’s really speaking. […] Did I hear proper? No, that couldn’t be proper. He couldn’t presumably be saying these imply, hostile issues, phrases like ‘shit’ and ‘crap’ and ‘rattling.’ However he was. He was cursing me out. He’d taunt me, calling me a bitch, or worse… probably the most vicious names.”
Streisand says his verbal assaults have been so repetitive that she dreaded happening stage and have become “bodily sick.” Finally, she reported Chaplin to the stage supervisor, who couldn’t persuade him to cease. Then, the present’s producer Ray Stark “introduced him up on prices” earlier than the Actors’ Fairness Affiliation. Nonetheless, Chaplin charmed the all-male panel and stored his membership. Fortunately for Streisand, Chaplin finally stop the manufacturing, however she says that the incident “scarred [her] for all times.”
There was no rivalry between Streisand and Judy Garland
Streisand mentioned she was vexed by the rumors that she and Judy Garland didn’t get alongside. She additionally confirmed {that a} controversial joke she made throughout her well-known look on The Judy Garland Present about wanting to interchange her was completely scripted.
“Individuals have been searching for some form of rivalry between us,” Streisand writes. “And after they couldn’t discover something, they made it up. I discovered Judy to be utterly beneficiant. We sang a medley of songs, taking turns, and she or he wasn’t simply centered on herself. She watched me and responded to me. She would attain out and brush again a strand of my hair, like a mom.”
Years later, Garland had a reasonably darkish piece of recommendation for Streisand earlier than her early demise from a drug overdose.
“Judy and I turned associates. We spoke on the cellphone, and she or he got here to one of many uncommon events I gave at my New York condo,” Streisand recollects. “I believe she arrived late. And I keep in mind her saying one thing I by no means fairly understood: ‘Don’t allow them to do to you what they did to me.’ I ought to have requested her what she meant, however I didn’t wish to seem too nosy.”
Walter Matthau screamed at her on the set of Whats up Dolly!
Sadly, Streisand needed to cope with verbal abuse on one other set—once more, due to Chaplin. Whereas filming the 1969 movie Whats up Dolly!, her display screen associate Walter Matthau screamed at her for improvising a scene.
“He checked out me with the purest venom and mentioned, ‘You might be the singer on this image, however I’m the actor! I’ve extra expertise in my farts than you could have in your entire physique!’’’ she writes.
Streisand says Matthau continued to taunt her by fumbling his traces throughout her huge scenes. When she lastly requested him why he was being so hostile, he responded that she damage “his pal,” Chaplin. Streisand tried to elucidate her facet of their rift. Sadly, it solely made issues worse, as Matthau complained to Richard Zanuck, the pinnacle of twentieth Century Fox, about her.
Marlon Brando wished to sleep along with her
Streisand makes her longtime crush on Marlon Brando recognized a number of occasions all through her memoir. And it seems that she nearly had her probability with the Hollywood heartthrob, however finally declined the supply. In a chapter titled “Brando,” the actress writes that he launched himself to her at a profit for the Scholar Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) by kissing her again.
Throughout their second encounter, at a celebration hosted by Warren Beatty, Streisand says that Brando informed her that he “wished to fuck” her. He additionally predicted that she would divorce Gould.
Streisand finally declined his advances, however the two maintained a friendship and would “keep on the cellphone for hours” to debate their private lives, performing processes, and misgivings about their profession paths. Brando informed her that he didn’t really get pleasure from performing, stating that the occupation was “for ladies” and that he solely “did it for the cash.”
On her cantankerous relationship with Sue Mengers
It’s no secret that there’s no love misplaced between Streisand and her former agent/pal Sue Mengers, whose breakup has been thoroughly documented. In her ebook, Streisand notes that Mengers turned the form of agent who would communicate on her behalf on issues she didn’t fairly discover applicable: “That is the form of factor that drives me loopy. It occurs when an artist’s consultant begins to suppose they’re the artist, and may communicate for the artist, and have the identical energy because the artist.”
Streisand provides that she’s not even positive how Mengers got here to characterize her, noting that she’d began out as her ex Elliott Gould’s rep—and that again then, “it was clear to each of us that Sue was utilizing him in an effort to get near me.” As Streisand recollects, “Sue was very entertaining and will flip something into an awesome story… however I may by no means fairly belief her.”
Streisand claims that it was Mengers who tipped the gossip press off that she’d briefly begun seeing another person throughout her relationship with hairdresser Jon Peters (together with his data, she writes)—and that Mengers admitted as a lot after denying it for years, saying, “I’ve all the time hated Jon.”
Finally, Streisand recollects that their relationship turned too “symbiotic” for her liking and that she was “livid to search out out that she had turned down initiatives with out even exhibiting me the scripts.” When she informed Mengers that that they had totally different tastes and that she wished to finish their skilled relationship however keep associates, Streisand writes, Mengers replied, “If I’m not your agent, I received’t be your pal.”
The studio reduce an interracial kiss from Up the Sandbox
Trying again on the 1972 drama, Streisand writes that she would do just a few issues otherwise.
“I might combat more durable to maintain the second the place Margaret and her Black revolutionary boyfriend kiss,” the actress writes. “That was in a fantasy sequence the place they’re blowing up the Statue of Liberty. (In Margaret’s thoughts it was a false image, since she felt there was no liberty for her, as a lady.) The studio made us reduce the kiss however they stored the explosion, which says rather a lot about our world.”
Robert Redford initially turned down The Method We Had been
Sydney Pollack’s 1973 romance could be thought-about a foundational Hollywood love story, however Streisand recollects that her co-star, Robert Redford, was initially not serious about taking part in Hubbell as a result of he thought that the function was (in her phrases) “underdeveloped.” (She agrees.)
“Bob requested Sydney, ‘Who is that this man? He’s simply an object . . . He doesn’t need something. What does this man need?’” Streisand recollects. “In Bob’s opinion, he was shallow and one-dimensional. Not very actual. ‘A pin-up woman in reverse,’ as Sydney put it.”
And so, Streisand says she instructed Pollack to deepen the character and make the roles “equal”—and to pay Redford “no matter he wished.”
Even then, Redford declined, however after another week of begging, he thought higher of it and got here aboard. “The courtship had been robust, however Bob’s reluctance had an enormous affect on the script and finally resulted in a richer, extra fascinating character,” Streisand writes.
Columbia Information’s artwork division tried to take away the bump from her nostril for The Method We Had been album cowl
Streisand recollects capturing the duvet for her fifteenth studio album on her balcony in Carolwood—a easy course of that rapidly hit a snag when she bought the completed product again from her label.
“I gave the shot to the artwork division at Columbia, and after they despatched the completed cowl again to me, I took one look and requested, ‘What occurred right here? One thing’s unusual,’” Streisand writes. “Nicely, it turned out that somebody had taken off the bump on my nostril! I assume they thought I’d be happy, however I really like that bump. That bump and I’ve been by rather a lot collectively. It’s mine, and I mentioned to the artwork director, ‘If I wished a nostril job, I might have gone to a health care provider. Please put the bump again.’”
Jon Peters pushed her to check her limits—however his mood “scared” her
Streisand writes that all through their relationship, movie producer Jon Peters pushed her to do issues she hadn’t essentially believed she may do. On the similar time, she writes, he might be a little bit delusional about his personal skills.
The previous hairdresser allegedly lobbied to provide her album ButterFly simply after they’d begun dwelling collectively, regardless of having no manufacturing expertise; Streisand writes that he wished to take care of his manufacturing credit score even after she’d bailed him out. She additionally writes that he pushed to have a sole producer credit score on A Star Is Born, relegating her to government producer—which, she later discovered, shouldn’t be an awards-eligible title.
“And he might be so unstable,” Streisand writes later. “His mood scared me.”
Streisand recollects a second when Mengers informed her that Peters had been telling individuals she wouldn’t work with out him—which prompted an argument after she urged him to cease “mendacity.”
So he was already in combating mode after we arrived on the home, and a truck was parked proper in entrance of it, blocking the doorway. I assumed we may nonetheless squeeze round it to get within the gate, however Jon was enraged. He stored honking the horn till lastly this huge, hulking man appeared.”
Peters yelled on the man to maneuver his “fucking truck,” Streisand recollects, and when the person didn’t acquiesce, “Nicely, that’s all Jon wanted to listen to. He’s solely 5 foot 9, and but he picked a combat with this man who was at the very least six foot three.”
Partway by the combat, Streisand recollects, the 2 males started biting each other. “So I bopped the man over the pinnacle with my pocketbook. As Jon mentioned, ‘You saved me once more. He bit my finger and it’s virtually right down to the bone!’ Being with him was getting exhausting. I’d choose to have all this drama in my films, not in my life.”
Frank Pierson “blackmailed” his method into directing A Star Is Born
Pierson got here aboard the mission as a screenwriter, Streisand writes, and she or he was shocked when he “blackmailed” the manufacturing.
“After giving me a primary draft that also hadn’t captured the love story, he mentioned, ‘By the best way, I additionally wish to direct this. And I’m not going to do one other draft until I get to direct it as properly,’” Streisand recollects. “I didn’t need him to direct . . . he had solely directed one unsuccessful movie and didn’t know something about musicals . . . however I used to be underneath great stress.”
Though the 2 agreed that they might co-direct, with Streisand forgoing a credit score, she writes that it didn’t take lengthy earlier than Pierson reneged on that settlement and have become a nightmare collaborator. He even went as far as to jot down a “intentionally merciless” article disparaging her, Peters, and her co-star Kris Kristofferson. When Pierson claimed that the article was not for publication, Streisand writes that she “made the error of believing him” as a result of she “nonetheless didn’t understand that I used to be coping with a pathological liar. And as I’ve mentioned, I can’t cope with individuals who lie.”
When the article finally got here out, Streisand writes that it “despatched me straight to the physician. My coronary heart was beating so quick I assumed I used to be having a coronary heart assault.” Concerning Pierson, she writes, “All I do know is that his conduct was unethical, unprofessional, and immoral.”
Hulton Archive/Getty Photographs
Mandy Patinkin misbehaved on Yentl as a result of he thought he and Streisand would have an affair
Only a couple weeks into the manufacturing of Yentl, Streisand recollects that just one individual gave the impression to be throwing issues off—Mandy Patinkin, the “character actor” whom she wished to make a star as her main man, Avigdor.
Patinkin hadn’t been making eye contact, Streisand writes; he wasn’t giving her or co-star Amy Irving a lot to work with. When she requested him what was unsuitable, she recollects, he had an fascinating response: “Powerful titty.”
When Streisand took Patinkin apart, “His face crumpled and he mentioned, ‘I assumed we have been going to have a extra private relationship.’ ‘What?’ I had no concept what he was speaking about. ‘I assumed we have been going to have an affair.’” After she turned Patinkin down, Streisand writes, “Tears rolled down his cheeks. And I immediately realized what this was actually about. I wasn’t paying sufficient consideration to him as a person . . . or at the very least not the form of consideration he wished.”
She’ll “all the time remorse” not making The Regular Coronary heart
Streisand dedicates a whole chapter to her years-long try to adapt Larry Kramer’s The Regular Coronary heart for the display screen, which finally failed due to her fixed tussles with the playwright. She particulars, as an example, how they butted heads over him wanting “sexuality to be entrance and middle,” which she thought was too brazen.
She even as soon as despatched a fax to Kramer by which she informed him, “You might be so self-destructive,” after he “insulted” her within the press and “demean[ed]” all of the work she had achieved.
“When he mentioned issues like I rewrote the script as a way to make the girl physician the star, I used to be appalled. He knew that wasn’t true. He was rewriting historical past. And it was unfair guilty me for the film not getting made. In spite of everything, he had had the rights for the previous fifteen years and he couldn’t get it made both… till 2014.”
The Regular Coronary heart did finally make its approach to the display screen that yr—by way of a movie written by Kramer and directed by Ryan Murphy—and whereas Streisand admits she’s “glad Larry lastly bought it made,” shedding that mission clearly nonetheless stings: “I’ll all the time remorse that I by no means bought to make The Regular Coronary heart. … This was a really onerous chapter to jot down…very painful. I don’t like reliving it. It would all the time break my coronary heart.”
Ron Galella/Ron Galella Assortment by way of Getty Photographs
Her relationship with Don Johnson was a blast—till they crashed and burned
Streisand writes of assembly Don Johnson—then the reigning heartthrob of TV, due to Miami Vice—at a celebration in Aspen, and likens their relationship to “adolescent pleasure.”
“I felt like a highschool woman, going out with the captain of the soccer workforce,” she writes, including that she favored that he bought as a lot consideration as she did as a result of, “For years I had all the time been apologizing to the boys I used to be with . . . I didn’t need them to really feel overshadowed. However now, I may really loosen up.”
Issues turned bitter, nevertheless, after she requested him to make a track along with her known as “Until I Liked You.” “It was Don’s angle afterward… singing with me apparently made him really feel very insecure,” she writes. “And as an alternative of speaking about it actually, he simply turned very chilly, and mistrustful, and indignant.”
In the future, she known as him in Miami and his ex-wife Melanie Griffith answered the cellphone at Johnson’s home.
“I had no drawback with him speaking to her, however I did have an issue with him not having the courtesy to inform me the reality about their present relationship. I can’t be with a person who shouldn’t be straight with me emotionally. In order that was it. The romance was over, and it was enjoyable whereas it lasted. I’ve no regrets.”
She and Ralph Fiennes had a really flirty relationship
After a live performance in Anaheim within the late Nineties, Fiennes—who was within the crowd that night time—hitched a journey again to Los Angeles with Streisand, the place she talked to him about eager to direct him in The Regular Coronary heart. After that preliminary assembly, he got here to her home for dinner, the place issues turned fairly flirtatious.
“I favored speaking to Ralph, as a result of he’s serious about so many issues, and by the point we went right down to the screening room, I felt very snug. After which there was a delicate shift within the ambiance. The look in his eyes as he gently touched my face after which my hair turned nearly too intimate, and I assumed, Oh no. This man is so enticing. However as a result of I hoped to direct him, I couldn’t enable myself to succumb to his charms. Imagine me, it was tempting.”
Just a few years in the past, Streisand recollects, they crossed paths once more at a Christmas social gathering in L.A.
“He mentioned, ‘Do you keep in mind sitting in your projection room at Carolwood? Do you keep in mind… our naked toes have been touching.’ We simply checked out one another. It was a type of moments after we have been each pondering the identical factor… and I lastly informed him why I couldn’t reply that night time. ‘I wished to direct you, so I needed to maintain my objectivity.’”
She by no means meant to diss Celine Dion on the Oscars
In 1997, Streisand went to the Academy Awards for her movie The Mirror Has Two Faces, however informed producers she didn’t wish to sing her nominated track, “I Lastly Discovered Somebody,” in the course of the present. Initially, Natalie Cole was going to carry out, however when she bought sick on the final minute, Celine Dion stepped in. Afterward, a lot was manufactured from the truth that Streisand was not in her seat throughout Dion’s efficiency—main some to invest that she was sad with or jealous of Dion.
In her memoir although, Streisand units the document straight.
“I used to be sitting within the viewers watching the present … after I immediately began hemorrhaging. (I used to be having extra issues with endometriosis.) I rapidly bought up and rushed to the toilet,” she writes. “And by the point I may emerge, Celine had already sung the track. I didn’t know that she was about to go on, and I used to be mortified to have missed her. However in fact among the papers tried to show it right into a scandal, as if I had intentionally dissed her.”
“Nothing might be farther from the reality,” she continues. “Who wouldn’t wish to hear Celine sing a track that you just cowrote? I discovered her afterward and apologized profusely. She utterly understood.”
She was “damage” by the pay discrepancy between her and Dustin Hoffman for Meet the Fockers
Regardless of initially turning down her function within the 2004 comedy Meet the Fockers, Streisand appears to have optimistic recollections from the expertise. She’d all the time wished to work with Dustin Hoffman—who she’d recognized since earlier than both of them have been well-known—and had all the time favored Robert De Niro, who nonetheless sends her flowers yearly on her birthday.
However she was peeved when she came upon concerning the pay discrepancy between her and Hoffman.
“This was the primary time I felt the impact of Hollywood’s unequal pay scale for women and men,” she writes. “I didn’t ask what the opposite actors have been making, however I used to be positively damage after I came upon that Dustin was getting 3 times as a lot as me, plus a tiny proportion, which is critical on a film that made $520 million. I used to be given some excuse about how I had been the final to signal, however the one factor that made me really feel higher was when my expensive pal Ron Meyer, who was the pinnacle of Common, gave me a bonus… the primary and solely time I ever bought one. I assume he, too, thought it was unfair.”
Todd Williamson/Getty Photographs
She particulars her therapy of a sequel to The Method We Had been—and explains why it’s by no means occurred
Streisand began writing a therapy for a sequel to The Method We Had been again within the Nineteen Eighties. And she or he spoke to Redford concerning the concept sooner or later in 2015, when he got here to her home for lunch.
“I knew these characters so properly, and I all the time thought that they had extra to say to one another. Within the first film, precept received out over ardour… Katie let Hubbell go, which was the rational factor to do underneath the circumstances. However within the sequel, ardour wins out,” she writes.
Streisand then particulars the plot of her dream sequel: Katie and Hubbell meet once more in 1968 when their daughter will get arrested throughout a Vietnam Conflict protest. Streisand describes it as “form of a three-way love story” between Katie, Hubbell, and their daughter, and “every little thing involves a climax after they’re on the Democratic Nationwide Conference in Chicago, the place all hell breaks free with riots on the street.”
Varied scripts have been commissioned over time, in response to Streisand, however none labored out and she or he finally wrote a therapy herself.
“However we have been combating a shedding battle as a result of Bob isn’t a fan of sequels,” she writes. “Nonetheless, as he and I talked this time, there was a second of ‘Might this actually occur?’ … Anyway, I gave him a duplicate of my therapy so he may learn it at residence. After which I by no means heard again from him.”
“I didn’t wish to stress Bob, so I by no means known as him both,” she continues. “Frankly, I believe age was an enormous concern for him. It didn’t hassle me as a lot. In spite of everything, we have been each too outdated to be in school within the unique. When the performing is nice, I believe the viewers suspends disbelief. However I needed to face the truth that the second had handed, and the sequel will dwell solely in my thoughts.”
She was “appalled” to study “the Streisand impact”
“I’d prefer to set the document straight concerning the so-called ‘Streisand impact.’ Once I first heard the time period, I naïvely thought, Is that concerning the impact of my music? Little did I do know. Then my assistant confirmed me all of the references to it on the web, and I used to be appalled,” Streisand writes concerning the phenomenon, which refers to how efforts made to censor info or reduce a narrative can backfire, as an alternative inflicting it to be extra broadly publicized.
The time period was popularized after Streisand filed a lawsuit in an try to “suppress” the California Coastal Information Undertaking’s {photograph} of her residence in Malibu.
“Let me say this loud and clear,” she writes in her memoir. “Opposite to the reason on Wikipedia, I didn’t try to ‘suppress’ {a photograph} of my home. … All I requested was that this man please simply deal with me like everybody else and take away my identify, for safety causes. However he refused.”
In submitting the lawsuit, she writes, she felt that she was “standing up for a precept, however looking back, it was a mistake.”
