Streisand has turned into a parody of herself

I stumbled upon her home decorating book yesterday in the library while looking for gossipy celeb bios to read. I'm shocked it's not required reading for DL...she writes all about how she designed the underground mall (even going so far as to use doors from the 'Meet the Fockers' set for the shoppe doors, as otherwise they would've been tossed in the garbage by the crew). '

Fun fact: That house has nine HVAC units and it was "quite a chore" (her words) to hide them from view. She also repeatedly mentions regretting that she auctioned off a lot of her stuff before building this house, as the basement mall would've held most of her treasures.

See BUYER AND CELLAR, by Jon Tolind

Tolins

The article confirms what we already knew: Barbra as Rose is off the table for good.

After she auctioned off all her Art Deco, Streisand said, "UGH. I never want to see Art Deco again!"

[quote]Barbra as Rose is off the table for good.

Because she wanted to change the book! And Sondheim and Laurents were not keen on her directing.

"Now, I'm going to dress like I'm at a funeral for no reason whatsoever!"

she never WASN'T a parody of herself

But.

"LIKE MANY ASPECTS of her personality, she traces that undertow of vulnerability to not having known her father, a subject she returns to several times in our conversations this fall. His absence haunts her still. Last May, Streisand, like the rest of the world, watched George Floyd being killed by the Minneapolis police. She was struck by the horror of Floyd’s death, but she was struck as well by his 6-year-old daughter, Gianna, now left fatherless. To lose a father — “I know how that feels,” Streisand says. So, in June, Streisand sent Gianna some shares of Disney stock, along with a letter, written from the perspective of a young girl whose father has died. “I think our dads watch over us forever,” Streisand wrote. “When you get older and have a decision to make … just close your eyes and ask him for help. And if you listen very carefully, he will lead you to the right choice. I promise!

Love, Barbra.”

*sob*

MARY!

Why link to the article when it's pay walled OP?

R1 here...I failed to mention that the Sweets Shoppe in the mall has a frozen yogurt machine which always keeps Babs' favourite flavour in stock: Coffee frozen yogurt. All I could think was, who cleans that machine? And how much coffee frozen yogurt can Babs really eat?

So young....

So beautiful...

[quote]She didn’t realize until she arrived that the Lion was a gay bar, but it seems fitting that she got her start there. As William J. Mann, author of the 2012 book “Hello Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisand” has written, many of her early friends and influences turned out to be gay men, and “gay audiences instinctively recognized something very familiar about her, a shared sensibility.” Streisand is routinely ranked as a gay icon alongside Judy Garland, Bette Midler and Lady Gaga, who, to varying degrees, embody a combination of glamour and suffering that can only be redeemed by love, requited or (more often) not. “The Man That Got Away,” the 1954 torch song originated by Garland that later became a hit for Streisand, has been a queer anthem for decades.

[quote]Why link to the article when it's pay walled OP?

Some of us are not so cheap as you.

Not having a subscription to the NYT is sad.

Avigdor! Wait!

I still have both my parents, they are in their 90's so I've had them a long long time. I did lose a brother to suicide 23 years ago, it was devastating, shocking, numbing, but I've managed to come to some peace with it.

I don't think it's healthy to hold on to loss the way Barbra has about her father. When you are young I can see why it affects you and steers your attitudes and feelings. But as you get older and you've made no peace with what you have to work with in life, it just seems like a convenient excuse for whatever you don't want to face about yourself.

The only reason I have an opinion about this is because I have a bitch sister-in-law who still talks about her father leaving her mother when she was 6 years old. It's the reason for everything, my SIL is 65yrs. Justification for why she is the selfish bitch she is.

[quote]R1 she writes all about how she designed the underground mall (even going so far as to use doors from the 'Meet the Fockers' set for the shoppe doors, as otherwise they would've been tossed in the garbage by the crew).

I wonder if she asked, or just hauled a truck around to the back.

What a puff piece. She could have written that about herself it's so adulatory.

Barbra is very thin skinned, she doesn't take criticism well so any piece about her has to be complimentary or it won't happen.

Does she ever get tired of talking about herself incessantly?

[quote] Does she ever get tired of talking about herself incessantly?

No. Never. Not once.

R14 is Reading The Poors For Filth!

I can't tell, but I suspect the writer, James B. Stewart, is one of us:

[quote]She’s been a presence in my life since I was a teenager and saw her in 1968’s “Funny Girl,” a heartbreaking film about the devastated Broadway diva Fanny Brice that prompted my sister to lock herself in her room for a half-hour sob.

Ah, yes. Your "sister" sobbed. Uh-huh.

I think it's a bit infantile how she fantasizes about the perfection of a father she never knew while demonizing the mother she did know.

There's so little production happening during Covid, this is what we now get as "news."

R16 Losing a parent when you're young IS a huge impact on a child's life. No disrespect but losing a sibling to suicide as an adult (which I've also experienced) impacts us in different ways. I can understand why she was so impacted.

Note that the photographs behind her in R7 are of HER, not of loved relatives or friends.

R7 Her houses are too full of stuff. In every pic I’ve seen there are too many items in the room.

To be fair to Babs, her mother Diana always sounded like a total cunt. Not a shred of maternal warmth.

You know r14 some people can see the NYT for what it is and wouldn't give one cent of their money to support it.

How could she breathe in that house full of Norma Desmonds? Around every corner, Norma Desmonds... more Norma Desmonds... and still more Norma Desmonds.

r26 I didn't say it's not an impact, in fact I said I can understand that when you are young it would have a great effect. Barbra is in her 70's, a grown woman and a mother. There is something really wrong when you're still holding on deep into your life and have never come to terms or made peace with something. It's not a good sign. Something you refuse to let go of or grow past, not a sign of health.

If you really lost a sibling to suicide you wouldn't have made the statement you did. So, because I was in my 30's I should be able to easily get past my brother blowing his brains out. Good to know, wished we'd communicated sooner.

[quote]The article confirms what we already knew: Barbra as Rose is off the table for good.

Gypsy was extremely close to happening. She and Richard LaGravenese had finished the script and Sondheim was onboard. Barry Levinson had been brought on as director, and Ariana Grande was set to play Louise. Barbra had done costume shots as Mama Rose, which she showed during her London concert last year. Universal was mere days from green-lighting the movie when it suddenly fell apart for no apparent reason. Barbra was devastated.

"My Passion for Design"... Kindle, $47.99!

Who does this bitch think she is?

[quote]some people can see the NYT for what it is and wouldn't give one cent of their money to support it.

That is totally your decision to make, but once you have made it don't expect everyone else to accommodate it by not linking to the most famous newspaper in the country.

It's not our fault you can't read the articles.

Stunning.

Brave.

That image at r36 is photoshopped to the max. No 70+ woman has unlined hands like that, not to mention the face.

Streisand has turned into a parody of herself? Are you new? She's been a parody of herself since I was born.

The clinging to the death of her father when she was, not a year, not a year and a half, but (((drum roll))) 15 MONTHS OLD, is part of her official bio and will stay there. It make her "human," it makes her fans sympathize with her, her life has not been roses and riches, hear that! I seriously doubt she clings to it off camera or in real life.

R32 I don't know WHERE you got all that from. That certainly was not what I was saying. I'm making a point about how people understand and process trauma at different ages, that's all.

I lost a sister to suicide and I think of her every day. I'm not minimizing the impact at ALL. But when you're a child, and you face trauma, it makes a much bigger imprint on your psyche, your whole being, in a way that many carry around their whole lives.

It's still trauma as an adult, trauma that we feel deeply, but I don't think we process it quite the same. As a child you have a limited world, and think everything that happens is directed at or in reaction to YOU. As an adult we're able to understand that the world is larger, complex, and interconnected, and we understand the events around us as part of that larger world.

Don't most celebrities like her become parodies of themselves - from her to Madonna.

Few who reach that status don't.

Was "Papa Can You Hear Me?" her most annoying song?

I love Babs, for all her absurdities and self-delusions.

Madonna could do worse than to emulate Babs as she ages.

Point taken r26 but you aren't trying to hear me either.

Barbra is not a child and hasn't been one for a very long time. That was a moment in time she has been reliving for 60+ years and won't let go of. The point of getting older is not to hang on to everything that happened to you since childhood. The reason my brother shot himself is because he never let go of anything. Ever. Every slight, every hurt, everything still holding on to it and he ended his life.

It's not healthy to hold on to things from childhood as if they are still happening in present time. You are forcing yourself to relive the same horror over and over and over and over. It's not very sane is it?

[quote]R26 No disrespect but losing a sibling to suicide as an adult (which I've also experienced) impacts us in different ways.

What about having your sister work in a bakery, after you’ve generously lined up work as an extra for her [italic]more [/italic]than once??

You're an asshole r26

People should not presume to tell other people how they can grieve.

I further explained my comments at R39. If you willfully misunderstand me after that, you can all fuck the entire way off.

I'm not telling ANYONE how to grieve. What I SAID was that a child and an adult process trauma differently, and Barbra having her father's death cast SUCH a shadow because it happened so young is not her "unwilling to let go."

Do you people understand that Streisand lost her father WHEN SHE WAS A BABY? She never knew him. She knew of him and his life, but there was never a personal relationship to mourn. It's a fantasy she created - what he would have been like, how her life would have been different if he had lived. Her continual mourning of her father is nothing like those of you who lost adult brothers/sisters or parents. If I were her at her advanced age, I'd have fun with this fantasy figure as if he were a ghost I could talk to. If Streisand's obsession with the father she never knew isn't just a bio point to repeat over and over, and she is actually obsessed - she still needs therapy, and more therapy.

"All I could think was, who cleans that machine? And how much coffee frozen yogurt can Babs really eat?"

All I could think of is, what does she CHARGE?

I'm a little surprised by the article's passing reference to BUYER AND CELLAR (which really had nothing to do with her auctioning her Art Deco pieces, BTW). I'd read that Streisand pretty much despised the play and commented to friends that it was just another example of some stranger getting rich off of her story, or an imagined version of her story.

I found the play entertaining. But no, it is not a flattering version of Streisand.

If Barbra's father had lived, he would have run away with a florist and have become known as the Bossiest Bottom in Brooklyn.

Isn't BUYER AND CELLAR about her personal shopping mall, not selling her deco furniture?

[quote]Barbra as Rose is off the table for good.

Because the table was auctioned off?

[quote]I wonder if she asked, or just hauled a truck around to the back.

"You're just going to throw these doors AWAY?!!!"

(standing on the bed of the pickup truck)

Any creature here who uses the term "paywall" in any of the various spellings we see needs to be deleted from the site. Interloping, disconnected shits who pay big for gaming but treat the DL and other sites like antenna TV.

What an odd rant, R54. I doubt many people here are "interlopers" who should be "deleted" because they "pay big for gaming."

Many people stopped subscribing to NYT because of their repeated op-ed fiascos and their habit of carrying water for Trump. We've had tons of threads about it. DLers may not like it but none of you should be pretending like you don't know why some people won't subscribe to NYT, let alone pretending like only Trumpsters hate the paper. You all know damn well that's not true.

Yes, R54 ‘s rant is odd.

But we are seeming a lot of off the wall rants (and behaviours), unfortunately.

Agree, R55.

What is the problem with the term "paywall"?

Back to me, bitches! Don't you just adore my latest (unfiltered) selfies?

She made a hit out of "The Man That Got Away?" As far as I know she never did a studio recording of the song and only did it once in that 90's concert, right?

A friend of mine read the script of her proposed Gypsy and said it was very good and smartly adapted with very few changes from the original libretto except for the opening which started at the end of the play as Rose arrives to go backstage to have her big fight with Louise and then flashes back upon the Uncle Jocko scene and how it all began. I'm assuming that was only there to get the audience used to seeing Barbra as a 70-something early on. They also mentioned that "Mama's Talking Soft" was back in, the Small World reprise was gone, and there were a few more scenes fleshing out June and Louise's relationship that were really sweet. They said it read like they finally cracked Gypsy on film, so a part of me is sad it's not happening, but another part of me is glad it's not happening with Barbra. I don't think she has Rose in her and her voice isn't up to handling that score anymore.

It took years for a lot of those Golden Age divas like Joan, Bette, Loretta, Roz, Ginger, Livvy, Stanwyck, et.al. to give imperious "Great Lady" performances but Barbra began that tradition with her second film.

Oh, dear.

"The Man Who Got Away" would be proper.

If the new Gypsy screenplay is so great hopefully La Gravenese will buy Streisand out of her option soon and we will see it filmed with a more age-appropriate actress.

If they were smart, they'd give Rose to Toni Collette. She's the only major actress who could sing it and act it equally as well. Keep Ariana Grande to draw in the kids and maybe cast big names for the strippers or for Herbie and it could do fairly well. Gypsy has never been a huge crowd pleaser in the first place, so the filmmakers should know that from the start. Brilliant score, but what it has to say about parent/child relationships makes a lot of people really uncomfortable. The truth tends to do that.

[quote] Barbra as Rose is off the table for good.

Never give up the dream, Barbra! And if they ask you when filming starts, just say it's six months from today!

R55, you're quite the little Trumper, aren't you?

Your misstating the obvious doesn't change the fact that the twats here who won't pay are interlopers, and they contribute nothing except what twats drip out. And of course these cheapskates, who also cannot conceive spending a few bucks for access to the Post or NYT spend twice as much on a carry-out meal.

And you are a dullard in your posts, to boot. One can see you quite clearly, sitting there.

Trump away.

Oh, and R55, I have been as tired of the Times trying to play both ways as a sop to "balance," but your approach to the commonweal is, indeed, Trumpian. You want to control what you see in exquisite bias (and remember, dullard, that bias can be positive or negative). Refusal to see the other side, no matter how bad it is, leaves a person uninformed and cocooned. Trumpian.

None of which alters the comment about the paywall twats, of which you are one.

So don't pretend, yourself.

[quote][R55], you're quite the little Trumper, aren't you?

Nothing r55 made him sound even in the slightest like a Trumper.

But you sound like you're completely off your rocker, and have given way to paranoid delusions.

R65 Not all of us are American and already have more than enough news sources and have absolutely zero desire or need for the New York Times. What makes it any kind of a "must have"?

Interesting, compelling story in the NY Times about Barbra. I enjoyed it. Coming up with a new angle about Streisand is difficult since so much has been written about her, but the writer did a very job by including Sondheim, Barbra's interest in the stock market, her philanthropic efforts, how difficult it is for female directors and the early days on stage at the Lion night club and even some tidbits about Broadway we may have not known. Streisand always fascinates.

Regarding her father and those criticizing her, it's not that she mourned her father since he died when she was only 15 months old. No, of course not; she didn't know him. But for a sensitive kid--or any kid for that matter--you're always aware that there is a void in your life because you see that your other young friends have fathers. Yes, her mother remarried and she had a stepfather, but she never really had a relationship with him. She talks about her father a lot--maybe too much to the point of melodrama, but it's a void in her life nonetheless. So we take the good with the bad regarding notable figures who are ever-present in our lives or in our collective culture.

R2 Is it available for download?

r55 I stopped trusting the NYT during Clinton's terms of office. By the end of this second term they had become a different paper. I started reading it in high school (70's), my father would get it every Sunday and I started reading the Arts and Leisure section (no surprise there) and eventually began reading the NYT Sunday magazine and editorials.

The paper began changing long before Trump.

And I don't "game" r54 and go fuck yourself.

[quote]Streisand has turned into a parody of herself

That's not what they say in the Mall under her house.

The woman from the Sunglass Hut and the man who runs the t-shirt kiosk say she's the most beautiful woman who has ever lived.

[quote]That's not what they say in the Mall under her house.

[quote]The woman from the Sunglass Hut and the man who runs the t-shirt kiosk say she's the most beautiful woman who has ever lived.

OTOH, none of them have ever actually been allowed to make eye contact with her.

I wouldn't say parody, but she's definitely turned into an eccentric older woman.

I'm surprised by the constant plastic surgery as well. I'd never thought she would have gone that route, and would have been championing aging gracefully.

She was quite striking in the 90's. She's never looked better on film than The Prince of Tides, and the power suits and Donna Karan dresses of that period really complemented her.

She should have been nominated for Best Director at least once. We all know that. One of the great travesties of the Academy awards. Yentl and Tides are masterpieces of filmmaking.

R70. Yes, Barbra, such a sensitive kid, such a martyr, such a symbol.

She was always, um, quirky.

Here she was on the cover of the Lazy Afternoon album back in 1975.

I admit I've always been a fan; her early records were especially thrilling.

She definitely is eccentric, but also very generous, intelligent, involved and talented. Just her work over the last many years for women's heart health will, in all likelihood, end up saving lives, and probably already has. She has not only donated an awful lot of money, but lent her active support to the cause in many useful ways, including making many appearances on its behalf and in endowing the Women's Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Imagine knowing that through your efforts in this life, other people, people you will never know, will be able to live longer and better! I know that I will never be able to think that about my own life.

So, for that alone, but also for many other reasons, including all the times I've enjoyed her work as an entertainer, I'd say that the fact that she is odd isn't so bad.

R65, you're ridiculous. I have no idea if there are a bunch of trolls like you who make things up in an attempt to start a flamewar that will detract from the thread, or if it's just you alone with your 17 browsers and empty days with nothing else to do, but you have to have realized that even the most clueless of Dataloungers have figured it out. You hardly ever get any engagement when you try this trick. Why do you keep doing it?

[quote]Does she ever get tired of talking about herself incessantly?

She is being interviewed by The New York Times. What exactly do you talk about when The New York Times is interviewing you R20?

That's a common complaint on here r80 and it always makes me chuckle. Someone is asked a question by a journalist or interviewer and they answer it and we get a few dozen "OMG shut up no one cares, this celebrity is so full of themselves!"

Pretty sure the NYT isn't going to be interviewing someone that no one cares about.

Big Barbra fan here, but the article was little more than a rehash of dozens of previous Streisand puff-pieces.

I remember her talking to Barbara Walters how when James Brolin holds her in her pool and they look out at the sea she feels like her father is holding her.

Paging Dr. Freud.

(and her pool is about to erode into the ocean.)

Here's the article:

THE DAY I arrive at Barbra Streisand’s property, she is on the phone with the Christie’s auction house in London. Outside, it’s a brilliantly sunny California afternoon in October, the skies clear of the ash cloud that recently blanketed Los Angeles.

Collecting is one of Streisand’s passions. On the walls of her sprawling Malibu home are early 19th-century American folk-art portraits, including several by the master of the genre, Ammi Phillips, a New England artist known for his spare, enigmatic, almost Modernist images. Streisand has been buying them since the late 1980s and is especially drawn to paintings of a mother with her child. She also owns two of George Washington, one done by Charles Peale Polk in 1795 while Washington was still alive, which Streisand has promised to Mount Vernon, the Virginia museum that was once the president’s home. (The other is by Gilbert Stuart.) We could be in Newport, R.I., or Colonial Williamsburg, except that Streisand’s husband of 22 years, the actor James Brolin, a fit-looking 80, is working beside the large pool just outside the living room windows, with the Pacific Ocean his backdrop.

An assistant leads me to an annex Streisand calls the barn, where she and her husband did most of their entertaining before the pandemic struck. This “barn” is a vast structure with a spiral staircase in a silo, a napping room, a frozen yogurt machine and more evidence of Streisand’s wide-ranging tastes: There are meticulously recreated rooms in the American colonial, Art Nouveau, Scottish Mackintosh and Arts and Crafts styles. Streisand has rotated through these movements and others, going through “periodic purges,” as she puts it, when her tastes in interior decorating (and, she adds, hairstyles) have changed. By the end of her Art Deco phase, circa 1974 to 1994, “I never wanted to look at Art Deco again,” she wrote in her 2010 coffee-table book, “My Passion for Design.” She put most of the pieces up for auction, an ordeal that inspired Jonathan Tolins’s 2013 Off Broadway play, “Buyer & Cellar.”I’ve been settled in a cavernous screening room, filled with overstuffed sofas and chairs, when suddenly, Streisand appears. She’s wearing a black top of her own design and a pair of $20 pants she bought online from a company called Simplicitie, and has just had her shoulder-length hair highlighted — which I know because she said the dye job distracted her from that afternoon’s 600-point reversal in the Dow Jones industrial average. The stock market is another of Streisand’s passions. She wakes up most mornings at 6:30 a.m. to check the opening in New York. If she finds the action “interesting,” she trades. Then she goes back to bed.

I’ve been settled in a cavernous screening room, filled with overstuffed sofas and chairs, when suddenly, Streisand appears. She’s wearing a black top of her own design and a pair of $20 pants she bought online from a company called Simplicitie, and has just had her shoulder-length hair highlighted — which I know because she said the dye job distracted her from that afternoon’s 600-point reversal in the Dow Jones industrial average. The stock market is another of Streisand’s passions. She wakes up most mornings at 6:30 a.m. to check the opening in New York. If she finds the action “interesting,” she trades. Then she goes back to bed.

You type very bridge and tunnel, R65.

You know, all the people who criticize her haven't accomplished anything close to what she has. She is a brilliant artist. her voice is literally a musical instrument. She is an actor. A successful actor film and stage. Sh She's also a successful film director, and music producer. She has led a life of purpose. Politically active, and raised a lot of money for women's health issues particularly heart disease. She's an icon. She is not a self parody. If you're talking about Liza with a "Z" then yes she is a self parody. Streisand is not.

She's only made 13 movies. Strange that for the biggest female star of her era she hardly ever worked.

Barbra gets and deserves a pass from my generation. She was EVERYTHING to me when I was a gayling. Granted it’s a bit of a love/hate thing over the years, but I’m glad she’s still around and come ON you guys that voice was once in a lifetime special.

Say what you will, but Streisand is the greatest star. Okay well, maybe Garland, but those two are neck and neck, and I can never decide who comes out on top.

I’m more of the Streisand era than Garland, but both were brilliant. You don’t get any better than Barbra and Judy. They were a gift of a lifetime to the masses.

[quote] her voice is literally a musical instrument.

So is everyone's.

As much as I like Yentl her true path to success would have her follow her original movie career strategy.

Does she still use lavender scented toilet paper? She has charisma, but listening to her sing without seeing her is just painful. The opposite is true for Bette Midler.

What in the HELL is she wearing

You guys who criticize Barbra will never get it. We love her for the very reasons you bash her, from calling her self-parody to saying she’s all about herself.

We recognize Barbra in everything she says and does, and if you love her, that’s more than enough. She’ll always be The Greatest Star.

R93 She's been going through Stevie Nicks' closet.

I listened to an interview she recently did with Alec Baldwin, and she could remember every detail of a bad review she got 30 years ago.

She still looks like Barbra Streisand so she's doing fairly well with the procedures.

The author seems a little off. Look at how she describes Funny Girl, a musical:

[quote] She’s been a presence in my life since I was a teenager and saw her in 1968’s “Funny Girl,” a heartbreaking film about the devastated Broadway diva Fanny Brice that prompted my sister to lock herself in her room for a half-hour sob.

[quote]She was quite striking in the 90's. She's never looked better on film than The Prince of Tides, and the power suits and Donna Karan dresses of that period really complemented her.

I think she looked best in What's Up Do? I thought The Prince of Tides would have been far better if she had just directed (which she did wonderfully) and not cast herself to act (which she did not do wonderfully).

"Does she ever get tired of talking about herself incessantly?"

There was Life magazine article in 1969 or 70 where Streisand is interviewed, that included several lengthy sections "in her own voice."

Later, in the letters to the editor section, someone comments that they have never heard an individual use the word "I" as much as Streisand except for Muhammed Ali.

As a former devotee, I understand everything R94 says. However, I also agree with the others - Streisand is long past her expiration date.

Hi Barbra/r86! Any stampede deaths on Black Friday at your mall?

[quote] You guys who criticize Barbra will never get it. We love her for the very reasons you bash her, from calling her self-parody to saying she’s all about herself.

It sounds like you've been brain-washed and belong to a cult.

R101 makes me wish Barbra had covered The Who.

R2 R71 Buyer and Cellar.

No, OP. NO. Say it ain't SOOOOOOO.....

surprised she shared the NY TIMES Style Covers with the other two!..... 3 different editions printed up?

I can't imagine anyone being dumb enough to say Streisand isn't talented. Her voice, in its prime, was absolutely stellar. Her acting, however, was never great and it's strange to me that she's always fancied herself an actress yet she's never taken any major risks and always picks very safe projects where she won't have to do much heavy lifting. She was ideally suited for Funny Girl and it played right into all her sweet spots. She was also excellent in What's Up Doc and it's sad to me that she doesn't seem to think much of that film or her performance in it. She never looked more radiant than in that film.

Her voice is too ragged, her face too plastic, and her body movements are too elderly to have played Mama Rose past 2005 or so, so I'm glad she finally gave up that dream. That's a role that could have genuinely tested her, but I'm sure she'd have found a way to sleepwalk through it. Even in her prime, she was always too self-conscious a performer to pull off a role like that. You can't worry about every note sounding beautiful when you're supposed to be having a mental breakdown in "Rose's Turn."

I totally get Barbra's obsession with her father to this day. He was supposedly a loving man who was a nurturer of children and a scholar. And she's stuck with a mother who's a cold fish who doesn't have an ounce of warmth and has a narcissism which makes Barbra look like Eleanor Roosevelt. I mean marrying a man who resents your daughter and tells her she's ugly when the girl never had a father to begin with? You never get over your anger at the universe.

I had a father who hated me from birth(jealous as shit) wished me dead(literally as in telling me to my face) and a loving mother who when she realized I was gay suddenly treated me like God stuck her with a lemon. I turned out to be completely worthless to her. Even as an eldergay I have a huge void inside of me and an anger that I will never get over. I joke to friends that I'm just like Barbra(well without any talent of course) and they agree.

The only thing I don't like about her is her enormous cruelty towards people and her phoniness. I understand she's a great philanthropist but in many small gestures and one on one she's notoriously mean in both senses of the word.

Had she’d been a normal person, she could have bonded with her worshipful younger sister. But that wasn’t going to happen.

Do you think she’ll leave Ros $2,000 in her will, or something?

Barbra never really understood "What's Up, Doc?" or why it was funny and popular - even to this day I think she still doesn't get it.

Maybe someone will make "Gypsy" with her finally if she agrees to get a nose job after it's done? It could be part of her contract with the producers having first multi-million dollar photo rights to the unveiling of the new Barbra -- plastic surgeons have been waiting for years to do this. It would make them world famous as well. Plus she could see if it was the nose that gave her that tone -- she's in her 70s, how much singing does she have to do anyway?

"I totally get Barbra's obsession with her father to this day. He was supposedly a loving man who was a nurturer of children and a scholar."

R108: she.never.knew.him. She wasn't "left," he was never a factor except in her dreams.

I never used the word 'left.' But now that you use it she was left. He died on her. Abandoning her as a small child when from all the people who knew him say he was a very loving man. Of course not literally abandoned but she was left adrift so young and the memories of people who knew him were so strongly warm it's like he's almost tangible to her but always out of reach. As selfish and egotistical as she is I bet she would have given everything she has accomplished up to have grown up with one parent who would have loved her unconditionally. Not having one myself I know what it's life to spend your entire life feeling worthless and unloved. It's because I am. I will take it to the grave as she will.

In some ways, I'm sure the loss of her father and her shitty mother helped Barbra become the star that she was and is. Ask any performer and there's usually someone who wronged them in their past who they're trying to prove something to. It might be a parent, sibling, abusive spouse, or maybe even an asshole teacher. It seemed that one of Barbra's big reasons for wanting to do Gypsy was that she felt her mother was a lot like Rose and I suppose she saw herself as Louise. She'd apparently told Arthur Laurents (who was notoriously picky about who played Rose and who got to direct the show) enough stories about her mother that he agreed to let her do it, feeling that she understood the psychology of Rose. Maybe she'll include those in her autobiography, but I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being a forgettable puff piece.

Barbra's mother was a wannabe singer, but unlike Rose in "Gypsy", she didn't encourage Streisand's ambitions in show biz; didn't she tell her to prepare to be a secretary or something like that? Streisand dedicated Yentl to her father "and to all our fathers", but besides wishing she knew him and imaging all kinds of wonderful things about him, based on her mom's and others recollections of him, she herself had to deal with her stepfather Louis Kind, who was in fact very unkind towards her. Isn't there a story that he finally went to see her in "Funny Girl" on Broadway? I forget if he went back to see her backstage afterwards; I think he just left the theater shaking his head dumbfounded that this girl he called ugly had become a huge star. I imagine Barbra's mother had an incredible awakening when Barbara became famous. But other than maybe encourage Barbra and herself to make a few recordings of themselves singing, I think she was more like a Mrs. Strakosh from "Funny Girl".

R33- are there any screen shots of the Gypsy costumes?

R116 Yes, she showed few of them at her Hyde Park concert

"loving man who was a nurturer of children..."

People always say nice things about the dead. What if he was actually a passive wimp who couldn't hold a well paying job? A mama's boy whose wife had to wear the pants in the family because he was unable to? There are all sorts of scenarios and I don't cont any of them out. If he had lived, Barbra may have ended up hating him for his apathy. Put some of that together with her driving ambition if you dare...

Interesting tidbit from the interview is that Redford got $750K for TWWW film and Barbra got only $350K. Barbra was a bigger star than Redford in 1973 and she had an Oscar, so I don't understand how he was paid twice as much as her. She was paid $1 million for Hello, Dolly, which is what Liz Taylor earned for Cleopatra, so it doesn't make sense that she only made $350k for TWWW.

She recently bought a Van Gogh painting to add to her collection. Her art collection and furniture collection is worth over $100 million.

R119, in the 1970s, women made less, much less, than men. Period

No mention of her cloned dog or her perm years. SAD.

But I'm sure she got a piece of the film. For her to only have made 350K seems impossible to me. Maybe as part of her indentured servitude to Stark contract she was underpaid? Even the unknown to Hollywood Andrews got 200k for SOM 10 years earlier before Mary Poppins even had any advance word. With Funny Girl alone Streisand shot to superstar status.

Maybe she was prepared to reduce her price to get Redford. Maybe not. I think it is more to do with her contract with Ray Stark.

Disney didn't do profit-sharing with stars in Walt's days, R122. But where [italic]The Sound of Music[/italic] is concerned, Mary Martin made more money off the movie despite not being in it because it was her husband who brought the property to R&H in the first place.

Streisand also had her pop albums from Columbia to fall back on. Stark couldn't touch those. Or the concerts.

She owes her career to Ray Stark, so she can't really complain.

[quote] She owes her career to Ray Stark, so she can't really complain.

I would, too, if I had one, but I didn't become a train wreck like other child actors, so I can't really complain either.

I think Elizabeth Taylor(Cleopatra) and Barbra(Hello, Dolly) were the only female actresses to get paid $1 million for a movie during the 1960s.

Ahem.

Ahem?

Wasn't the Funny Lady soundtrack released on Arista and not Columbia?

R130. Funny Lady (soundtrack), released March 15, 1975

Producer: Peter Matz

Label: Arista

Julie Andrews:

1967 $1 million (Thoroughly Modern Millie)

1968 $1 million (Star)

1969 $1.25 million (Say it With Music, in which she set to star, then sued the studio and collected the salary when the project was cancelled)

Is the last one what they call play or pay?

I love you, r89.

BS was spot-on about WHAT'S UP, DOC? T'aint funny. Silly, yes...Funny, no.

There's a good reason why Streisand is meh on WHAT'S UP, DOC? And that reason is Madeline Kahn.

In WHAT'S UP, DOC? Streisand is absolutely beguiling, frisky and sexy. She looks fantastic and nails the comedy and slapstick perfectly. Yet whenever Kahn appears she steals every scene away from Barbra and everyone else. And today, WHAT'S UP, DOC? is as known for Kahn as much as Streisand.

Kahn tried to be friendly with Barbra off-set, but Kahn later ruefully noted that Barbra wanted nothing to do with the other singing funny girl from Brooklyn.

Barbra got her start in a gay bar; sang with Judy Garland and Ethel Merman on TV; won an Oscar; fucked a lot of famous men; has a collection of Barbra Streisand memorabilia; has a rose named after her; collects expensive art; lives in an oceanfront mansion; has daddy issues; and has a handsome man to hold her in the pool. In other words, she's living the dream life of a gay man.

[quote]has a rose named after her;

And I WAS a fucking Rose.

[quote] has daddy issues

Not like I had.

We all turn into parodies of ourselves if we're so lucky as to have a long run.

Judy knew her father and knew he adored her.

"What's Up Doc" is a goddamn funny movie, and Barbra never looked more beautiful:

I also love Barbra in "The Owl and the Pussycat."

Just the one, dear?

Why/how did Streisand make $1 million on her first pic?

[quote]But where The Sound of Music is concerned, Mary Martin made more money off the movie despite not being in it because it was her husband who brought the property to R&H in the first place.

I read an interview somewhere (can’t remember where) that Mary Martin was actually pretty bitter that she and her husband had sold the rights to The Sound of Music back to Rogers and Hammerstein and did not profit from the movie. That Dick Rodgers was a shrewd businessman. Just ask Josh Logan.

R132, note those films were MUSICALS. If Julie Andrews acted in a drama in 1973, she wouldn't be getting a third as much.

[quote]Had she’d been a normal person, she could have bonded with her worshipful younger sister. But that wasn’t going to happen.

I thought it was funny that the article notes that Barbra talks a lot but never mentions her brother or sister.

[quote]She owes her career to Ray Stark, so she can't really complain.

He raped her. So, yeah, she can complain.

And Funny Lady was a second rape.

Barbra raped the audience with Yentl.

She already made inappropriate advances at them with [italic]The Main Event[/italic] and [italic]All Night Long[/italic].

[quote]She already made inappropriate advances at them with The Main Event and All Night Long.

Don’t forget me!

Am I the only person on the planet who enjoyed For Pete's Sake?

Maybe R152. Pauline Kael sure hated it.

Even Berlin got paid for Say It with Music. Though the fact that it was cancelled depressed him further putting the final nail in the coffin of his lack of relevance. And he might have been the most popular composer of the 20th Century until the 60s. After this he became pretty much a recluse. 'I don't want people saying, "Wow he's gotten old."' A cute Jewish boy when he was young.

Every white woman eventually becomes a Karen.

[quote]R119 Interesting tidbit from the interview is that Redford got $750K for TWWW film and Barbra got only $350K. Barbra was a bigger star than Redford in 1973 and she had an Oscar, so I don't understand how he was paid twice as much as her.

One factor could be that he turned down the part (which he thought was one dimensional) several times before finally accepting it, and the offer kept rising (?)

We've never really been into her.

She loves her. A whole lot.

I always felt she had the world's biggest inferiority complex.

The thing about Streisand is that she never gained a huge amount of fans from later generations. Yes, the Boomers worship her, but her fame really ends with them. She's never meant much to Gen X or Millennials. Others from Streisand's generation, like Dolly Parton, Stevie Nicks and the late Aretha Franklin, have a lot of fans from the Gen X and Millennial generations. I think Barbra's legacy will dim as time passes on.

[quote]The only thing I don't like about her is her enormous cruelty towards people and her phoniness. I understand she's a great philanthropist but in many small gestures and one on one she's notoriously mean in both senses of the word.

Enormous cruelty? Something you just heard? In all my years being a show biz fan, cruelty was never mentioned with Streisand. And in the end she made more than Redford off the soundtrack album he received nothing from.

Actually, R160, Streisand's first fans were mostly people in their 30s in the 1960s - my parent's generation, the Silent Generation. They had the money to see her on Broadway and buy her records. I, a Boomer, was a kid in school listening to Beatles records. I became a fan later, and know many Gen Xers who became fans with A Star is Born. Many of them were temporary fans, not devoted fanatics. After that, it's hit and miss. Other than Aretha, I don't see massive devotion to the others you mention.

It's not "massive devotion" but Dolly and Stevie have a solid fanbase among Gen X and Millennials. Barbra, no.

[quote] Streisand has turned into a parody of herself

Don't all Divas?

True, all the divas turn into parodies and get weird as they age. Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich, Mae West and a bunch of others got quite strange.

[quote] He raped her. So, yeah, she can complain.

If you ever met Ray Stark you'd be laughing at that remark. He was the queeniest queen you've ever seen.

The Stark raped Streisand story comes from illiterate ex-boyfriend Jon Peters. It's in the proposal for the autobiography he was shopping around several years ago. There were so many threats of lawsuits because of the bullshit in it, the book was shelved. Streisand herself said recently that she was never a me too victim. On the other hand, Lainie Kazan said Stark made a pass at her during an interview when he had a full leg cast on.

Lois Chiles slept with Ray Stark to get a part.

[quote]Others from Streisand's generation, like Dolly Parton, Stevie Nicks and the late Aretha Franklin, have a lot of fans from the Gen X and Millennial generations.

Nobody -- except a few old queens on DL -- gives a fuck about Stevie Nicks.

[quote] Nobody -- except a few old queens on DL

Well, since that group composes 90% of Datalounge...

When you look back at Barbra's movies and albums, I think she spent a lot of time squandering the talent she had.

Once she stopped recording songs from the American Songbook, she recorded a lot of rubbish. And her movies (with a few exceptions) were bad, especially when you consider how few she made.

Her choices in film projects have always been bizarre. When she finally decided to go Gypsy and play a role that any actress would kill to play, she was way too old for it. She sat around being lazy, feeling she wasn't ready for it when she was first approached to play the role on stage in the London revival in the mid-70's, again for a proposed film version in the 80's, and again right after the success of the film version of Chicago.

I think this is why she's not as well known or loved among the newer generations. She spent too many years making forgettable films she could coast through instead of trying to be taken seriously as a legitimate actress. She always went on and on about how she wanted to do the classics like Chekov, but she never wanted to do them that badly. Trust me, if she'd wanted to green light a film version of one of his plays, she could have done it in the 70's, 80's, or 90's with the snap of a finger. I really think she was more concerned about falling flat on her face.

She's a perfectionist & has no sense of humor about herself. All this collecting & redecorating seems vapid, the way she does it with her storage mall in the basement.

She should have taken better care of her voice. I realize people's voices diminish with age, but it seems like she could have held on to her voice longer. Also, she never really took care of her body. She always seems like she's draped in something, hiding her body. It's incongruous with her perfectionism in other areas of life.

Yes. A vocal coach once confirmed for me that Streisand was quite lazy, rarely practicing voice, almost never studying or getting professional coaching between her recordings or concert gigs. It's fine that she never studied music theory, but the human voice is a delicate mechanism that needs constant maintenance.

As a longtime fan I cannot bear to hear her vocals. after, say, the mid-90s. She has a wispy fragment of what she once had. Painful.

A Diva who did not exactly become a self-parody: DL fave Lena Horne!

For casting of LH's 1981 Broadway show, she didn't summon up Movie Lena or Nightclub Lena, she invented a whole new character, Earthy Lena. This character used words like ain't and y'all, and a studied "black accent" that she did not use in real life. Audiences ate it up.

Someone told me that when Lena Horne appeared in Atlanta, she did cartwheels across the stage and wasn't wearing underwear.

I found that hard to believe --- but maybe she was just trying to be "earthy."

^ Or maybe it was an indirect pass as at the lady in the isle seat.

She’s been a parody of herself forever. I thought the article was pretty great. As an elder and longtime Barbra fan myself, I could tell it was written from a knowledgeable fan perspective. The author recalled seeing Funny Girl when it came out. Imagine how thrilling it must’ve been for him to go to her home and interview her. He must have felt like one of the luckiest people in the world!

I’ve always thought one of Streisand’s finest performances was in a film that didn’t really work, Up the Sandbox. Pauline Kael also loved her performance in that movie.

I like that she’s lazy. She clearly enjoys life. Food, decorating, all that fun stuff.

R175 I saw Lena; she was fine. A lot of the earthy Lena was Lena yelling some of her songs when she pushed too hard her belting. OK, MGM molded her as a refined singer, but in that way she was quite lovely, though I suppose she thought she was being repressed vocally. She had many fans -- hell, Redd Foxx as Fred Sanford absolutely loved her, the same way Archie Bunker loved Alice Faye.

She was made to "sing with a pretty mouth like Jeanette MacDonald".

[quote]She should have taken better care of her voice. I realize people's voices diminish with age, but it seems like she could have held on to her voice longer.

She held onto her voice longer than most other great singers. Even the Broadway divas who train their voices religiously have all suffered significant vocal decline, like Patti LuPone and Betty Buckley, both of whom sound like shit now. Judy, Aretha, Whitney, Mariah and Olivia lost their voices much earlier than Barbra. The only female singers who maintain most of their voices well into their later years are altos, like Gladys Knight and Cher, because they never had high ranges to begin with. It's always the top notes that go first, so age and vocal decline is more noticeable in sopranos and mezzo-sopranos.

Patti LuPone still sounded quite good last time I heard her. But Buckley in some of those clips from "Hello, Dolly!" clearly did not. Barbara Cook had most of her voice till the end while she was still singing, though she didn't go very high.

LuPone still sounds pretty great to me. A few years ago, she was still singing songs from Evita and Sunset Boulevard in the original keys. The saddest vocal deterioration for me to witness has been Liza. She can hardly get out a note these days.

Streisand still has some of that great vocal quality, but there's a noticeable amount of rasp. She's better at the quieter songs these days than the big belty songs which is another reason why it's good Gypsy's dead now. I wouldn't want to hear her struggle through those songs unless the rumors are true and she pre-recorded them ages ago.

[quote] I like that she’s lazy. She clearly enjoys life. Food, decorating, all that fun stuff.

Yes, but she's very industrious about stupid stuff, like keeping her mall in impeccable order. I guess we are all guilty of that.

The dolls, they deserve impeccable order, R186.

It's not an underground mall. It's a boulevard of DREAMS.

I'm in tears. I'm mourning for the career Barbra Streisand could have had with the infinite wisdom of Datalounge. My God what a lost opportunity.

Hi, Jason. Tell your mom we said "hi."

Remember when she was on Rosie and reacted in subtle horror when she thought Rosie was going to gift her with a Little Kiddle? O.K. maybe not subtle horror, more like...confusion.

[quote] The only female singers who maintain most of their voices well into their later years are altos, like Gladys Knight and Cher, because they never had high ranges to begin with.

I saw an interview with Gladys Knight. She said that, early in her career, someone told her to save (preserve) her voice and stay in a lower range.

Gladys's voice is still good, not sure about Cher's voice.

R181, I didn't say Lena wasn't fine, I said she was a convincing and popular fake in 1981. You're conveniently missing the 30 years of performing Lena did after MGM and before The Lady & Her Music - she was already unrefined, unrepressed, completely out there by herself on a night club stage or on TV. In 1981, Lena was 64, and probably had to push too hard to get her voice to do what it did naturally ten years earlier. I am talking about the CHARACTER "Lena Horne" in that musical, it was a completely new invention, not the woman herself or anything anyone had seen before, hence not a self-parody. As far as her popularity, duh, she was a major singing stage star, mostly for work after MGM.

I'm in my forties and even for somebody my age, Barbra Streisand is pretty old-timey.

[quote]R180 I like that she’s lazy. She clearly enjoys life. Food, decorating, all that fun stuff.

I kind of agree. I think she’s great, but she’s not obliged to do anything for MY benefit. She got rich really quick from her recording and television contracts, and then the wealth kept rolling in.

If she wants to build a mall in her cellar rather than do projects that are beyond her total control, well, fine. Because most of the projects she controls are pretty lukewarm, anyway.

So... just go play with your dollhouses, Babs.

I went to that Lena Horne show the night after it opened. It was one of the most exhausting and exhilarating evenings I've ever spent in a theater. It was tremendous. If that was not the real Lena Horne it was still a very great performance. I can't imagine she kept up that level of intensity throughout the run. She was the entire show and there were no other acts to give her a rest.

I went to the Garden to see Streisand in her I guess first public performance since Happening in Central Park. She was in great voice and I was surprised at how much she sounded like herself in her most demanding popular songs with no compromises that I could hear. But there was something dead about the performance. She wasn't involved. She was pretty nervous which was understandable but she had a terrible script to recite between songs where I think she might have been talking to a therapist but that part might have been a bad dream.

I was driving in Times Square before show time and a big limousine almost side swiped me. I look over and the back window is open and it was Lena on the way to her show and she mouthed "Sorry"... and waved.

r194: Barbra enjoys what she is doing - she doesn't much and she is happy with that. Her problem is she still sees herself as a major Hollywood player. She isn't. For the last thirty years she has been talking a good game about films she wants to do or direct, but she has to micromanage every tiny detail to the exasperation of studio heads. She could have "just" done GYPSY after she expressed desire to do it, but like THE NORMAL HEART she diddled with it to get it "just so" for years...ultimately those projects weren't that important to her. She wanted to rewrite the script to GYPSY? No wonder Laurents and Sondheim pulled the rights away from her. And she continues to repeat the bullshit that "No studio would back THE NORMAL HEART"- Columbia agreed to back it but pulled out after her extended battles with Larry Kramer, who didn't want her 'creative input'. She may well have ADD.

After awhile, at this post I wish she'd be honest and just say. "I like recording, I now like doing concerts. But I don't have any delusions about making another film."

A friend for whom Barbra could do no wrong went to a Barclays Center concert a few years ago and said the voice was gone. She played some of it for me and it was indeed in ruins.

Concerning Gypsy when she was the right age to do the role in her late 40s to late 50s she probably did not want to do the role. By the time she showed interest she was too old.

Not a dream R195, the therapy bit was part of one of her tours in the 90s. It was released on DVD and the calls from her analyst were included as interludes on the live album. Very strange framing of the show but I guess it was on brand for self-indulgence.

The version of THE NORMAL HEART that Ryan Murphy eventually made for TV was good but far from great (and largely forgotten just 6 years later).

It's a shame. Had Barbra actually made it earlier as a feature film with herself and her choice of cast, it might have made more impact and be better remembered. And it might have helped re-position her again as a film director, not just a performer.

The Gypsy screenplay my friend read was apparently very faithful to the stage play and what surprised me most was that it was written for Barbra to play Rose in some sympathetic light. Isn't that just rich? Barbra finally decides to throw caution to the wind and play an unlikable character and she's too old for it.

It had been most people's fears that she'd try to make Rose too likable and cutesy.

R199 The show was staged like it would be one of her earlier specials. The set was Colonial American, and I believe Barbra even supplied some of the furniture from her own collection. The therapy ending of Act one was a homage to the recently released Prince of Tides. The finale of Act Two had a Yentl theme.

The buildup for those shows was HUGE. At the time, everyone assumed it was her one and only tour, given how much she disliked performing.

We watched that YouTube clip of Buyer and Cellar last night.

Michael Urie was surprisingly good at keeping the thing going playing different characters. And it was pretty funny.

I wonder if it was as successful on stage, however, as part of the illusion of it being two different people talking was achieved by using different cameras.

I'd expected Buyer and Cellar to be more of a hit piece on Streisand, but I felt it painted her in a kooky, yet sympathetic light. If she didn't like the show, I think that probably says more about her than it does for the writer. It actually made me sort of like her and want to hang out with her.

[quote]I'd expected Buyer and Cellar to be more of a hit piece on Streisand, but I felt it painted her in a kooky, yet sympathetic light.

I don't agree. I think it painted out to be a narcissist who uses people. And she can't have liked Arthur Laurents' quip, "You'd be perfect to play Mama Rose -- you're both monsters!"

*SPOILER*

When it is revealed that she only invited the young man into her home to see if the color of his hair worked with her sofa, any sympathy you had for her evaporated.

I did think that most of the pop psychology was shallow and already well explored.

"I think she’s great, but she’s not obliged to do anything for MY benefit"

Why not? Streisand got rich and famous for being a singer-actress. We should judge her for her work, not her decorating. She endlessly promotes her personal life and I'm not into that...don't most of the famous (at least) say they want to be judged by only their performances?

"I went to the Garden to see Streisand in her I guess first public performance since Happening in Central Park."

Absolutely not, R195. Streisand likes to promote live appearances by increasing the years between them, "first live show in 26 years." 46 years, 56 years, soon it'll be 106 years. Central Park was in 1967. Streisand opened a hotel in as Vegas in 1969. She did the New Year's show at the Riviera in Las Vegas 1971-72. In 1976, she did a live show edited for a scene in A Star is Born. She performed live at that benefit on her property in 1986. She came back to live performing in 1994. Am I missing any more of them?

R196, great story, but I hope Lena was a passenger not the driver. She didn't drive.

r62 Not sure what contractual framework you're thinking of when you suggest Streisand be bought out of her option but she doesn't have an option on the material. The studio does. She just needs to walk away. She may be entitled to a producer's credit and fee but she doesn't control the material or the project rights. The studio either controlled the underlying film rights or made a deal with them to get the project going. Then they paid LaGravenese to write a script. So the script is owned by the studio. The studio could get rid of both LaGravenese and Streisand if they wanted to. Even if Streisand was a producer on the project, she has no control over anything.

[quote]Am I missing any more of them?

Yes. During the years that Barbra wasn't doing any concerts, she did a concert with James Taylor and Carole King to raise money for George McGovern.

She even released an album from it: "Live at the Forum"

Thanks, R209, I forgot it.

[quote]She performed live at that benefit on her property in 1986.

I remember a video of that concert. I think Bette Midler, Whitney Houston, and a lot of other celebs attended. Didn't Babs provide dinner as well? (I don't think she cooked and/or served, though.)

She sent out for falafel.

That 1986 benefit cost $5,000 to attend and 1000 people attended, so she raised $5 million in one night.

"(I don't think she cooked and/or served, though.)"

Are you insane or trying to be funny?

My favorite part of her Malibu concert was when she sang Judy Garland's signature song in such a way that it was clear she was trying to prove how much better a singer she was than Garland.

"Who knows? Maybe she's listening."

What happened to the Amy Sherman Palladino Gypsy? Wasn't she announced to direct her own version a year or two ago? It was fairly soon after STX dropped Streisand's version completely. I wonder if they'd be using the same script or if they'd be starting from scratch.

How the fuck was "Gypsy" adapted for Streisand? Instead of the mother of young children, Mama Rose was their great-grandmother?

R213 The audience seemed much smaller than a thousand. 250 maybe?

She's no Connie Francis.

[quote]She's no Connie Francis.

Flatterer!

There were no changes to Rose's age in the screenplay. There were rumors that some early drafts opened with Rose's corpse in a casket.

We should have a thread on celebrities who are parodies of themselves.

No we shouldn’t!

"That 1986 benefit cost $5,000 to attend and 1000 people attended, so she raised $5 million in one night."

Again, inflated numbers. 1,000 = 100.

Barbra loves her stone crab claws and Key Lime pie. She has Joe's Stone Crab fly them meals out to Malibu for her and Jim.

Does anyone know how the businesses in Barbra's basement shopping mall are faring since Covid?

Jim is so lucky. B-list TV actor married to A+ icon, set for life. I’m sure she can be tolerably cozy at home. She’s lucky too, he’s handsome and seems nice.

The mall is doing a brisk business with Barbra and Donna's exclusive line of COVID apparel.

Sure, R227, take his side, why don’t you?

When I said first public appearance since Central Park I meant that opening night at the Garden was her first NY appearance to a public audience(as in not a fund raiser) since then. In fact that tour might have opened elsewhere other than NY but I don't remember.

[quote]R226 Does anyone know how the businesses in Barbra's basement shopping mall are faring since Covid?

I’ve heard there’s problems since she made Jason manager, in order to give him a job.

He doesn’t show up, and she hit the roof when she learned he was turning one of the spaces into a little cabaret venue to feature himself, called “Jason’s Jumpin’ Jubilee.”

Apparently he just threw her stuff that was in that one space out.

[quote] We should judge her for her work, not her decorating.

Sorry, that argument went right out the window when she published "My Passion for Design." Once she published that, she in effect asked readers to critique her decorating skills.

She makes the erroneous assumption that we need her opinions on fashion, art and politics. Capote said it best when referring to her singing style of ‘A Sleepin’ Bee’. It could easily apply to other aspects of her life “Self-loving vulgarity”. I believe that is the phrase that he used.

Totally suits her. And I like her for the most part.

I got it at a remainder price. Pretty boring. It's not like she's got bad taste she surprisingly has dull taste. I thought it would be fun but as Woody Allen would put it everything has gone through the deflavorizing machine.

[quote] Does anyone know how the businesses in Barbra's basement shopping mall are faring since Covid?

Ye Olde Frozen Yogurt Shoppe has temporarily closed down (will reopen!). Unfortunately, no delivery service is available. And, absolutely no curbside pickups outside the mall.

I flipped through Barbra's "My Passion For Design." If had no idea whose house that was, I would've thought "this house must belong to an old Jewish woman."

I imagine any gay manager of the mall would be trying on the Irene Sharaff Funny Girl and Beaton Clear Day creations.

It's sadly appropriate a woman whose most famous achievement was overcoming her looks with her extraordinary and remarkable talent has spent much of her life obsessed with beauty--and that her ideas of beauty should ultimately be so ordinary and unremarkable.

[quote]Ye Olde Frozen Yogurt Shoppe has temporarily closed down (will reopen!). Unfortunately, no delivery service is available. And, absolutely no curbside pickups outside the mall.

She should get one of the delivery robots like Pink Dot has.

I remember when PEOPLE put her on the cover after Bill Clinton won...she pontificated and elaborated on the Clinton’s’ political ideology and what have you. She sounded extremely pompous and arrogant. The letters to the editor were brutal; a lot of them were liberals too. Basically they told her to shut up. The article was really painful to read. It was as if she paid the magazine to write the article. I appreciate that she’s liberal, as am I. But she takes herself wayyyyyy to seriously. I see Sean Penn and George Clooney do the same thing.

She squandered a lot of time with bad career choices and inactivity. With her level of talent, it was a shame.

She should've been like other divas such as Bette Davis and Marlene Dietrich who kept working until they couldn't physically do it anymore.

I bought the design book when it came out, to give as a kind of gag gift to a friend. I don't remember much about it, except I liked the....screening room, was it? Looked very comfy.

When she dies most Americans will ask "Barbra who?" and "Why that stupid spelling of her name?"

[quote]She should've been like other divas such as Bette Davis and Marlene Dietrich who kept working until they couldn't physically do it anymore.

Bette worked until she dropped dead.

She’s still working up here...working my last fucking nerve.

Olivia stop being a cunt and give me a light!

because of this thread, I was forced to go down the rabbit hole on You Tube and liten to her early albums and my gawd it was like stepping into another world. What an astonishing voice. He TOuched Me....How Does the Wine Taste, etc. Brilliant. And her Broadway Album is sublime. I love Not While I'm Around from Sweeney Todd.

She wasted her talents on a lot of MOR schlock from the 80s onward.

r238: thats an incredibly astute observation. Thank you for that.

She had very advanced taste in the early 60s - she collected Klimt and Egon Schiele before most Americans collectors had even heard of them. Now she collects Americana like a WASP wanna-be from the 1980s.

"I appreciate that she’s liberal, as am I. But she takes herself wayyyyyy to seriously."

Note that Streisand didn't become this BIG LOUD LIBERAL until Bill Clinton was elected. Sure she was a liberal and took sides on various issues, but quietly and infrequently. Then BOOM Clinton lets her visit the White House, she becomes "friends" with Bill and Hill, and suddenly she's taking herself as a voice of the left oh so seriously. Of course Streisand has taken herself - her acting, producing, singing, directing - way too seriously since the 1970s, That was bad enough.

She and Bill fucked, didn't they?

r251: She stayed overnight in the White House when Hillary was out of state on a family matter. It was no secret, either.

You know they did.

I loved in that NY Times article she mentioned that she does "vulnerable" very well. When was the last time she played a vulnerable character? The Way We Were back in the 1970s? I'll never forget on one of her comeback concert recordings she apologized in advance when she sang a classic torch song. I can't remember the song, but it was My Man or Can't Help Loving That Man. It sort of negated the impact of the song.

When was the last time she saw her son? I never see pictures of them together or her talk about him.

"She and Bill fucked, didn't they?"

According the the Datalounge since 2003, yes. I say, are you kidding? And I'm willing to place a wager.

The rumor was that he chased her around one of the guest rooms in the White House and she scratched him trying to fend off his advances. He showed up on

There was a website called The Irrelevant Guide to Barbra Streisand that went in depth about this. They also discussed her alleged feud with Jackie and John-John, concerning some property that Sheldon tried to sell the Kennedys.

He showed up the next day to a press conference with scratches on him and that was the story going around Washington and the White House.

R253 it was My Man where she gave a preface saying "even though the next song is a classic victim song, I'm going to break my rule and sing it anyway." Well, you'd better, bitch. It one of the songs you're most famous for. Victim songs are interesting. Everyone's pined for someone they shouldn't. It doesn't make them weak. It makes them human. If she truly was an actress at heart, she'd realize she's playing a character during the song.

To me, "My Man" is about being dickmatized. Barbra certainly has been prone to that.

r256. Bet it was rough sex.

For all of Streisand's 1970s women's lib crap, how she can be the loser or sing victim songs, has anyone noticed that in movies she's most always being treated badly and left by the male lead?

I watched THE NOSE NEEDS TWO MIRRORS this weekend. Why does she feel the need, despite her immense talent and success, to constantly seek validation based on her looks? And talk about age inappropriate casting. The character Rose was supposed to be in her forties and Streisand was FIFTY FIVE.

Happy Hanukkah Barbra!!