“You knew instantly that she was an original,” Alan Bergman. For those who have waited a lifetime for this memoir, it was worth it. For all who were uncertain it would ever happen, arriving just before holidays 2023, finally in her own words, Barbra Streisand sets the record straight on her private and public life in My Name is Barbra.
The EGOT winner chronicles her 60 year career with honesty, poignancy, humor and questioning. Her achievements have made her legendary, which includes 46 GRAMMY nominations.
In addition to her fabulous music career, Barbra Streisand was also the first woman to write, produce, direct and star in a major motion picture. She is also the only recording artist in history earning number one albums over six decades.
New York is where it began, growing up in Brooklyn, on to Catskills summer camp which she hated, Summer Stock at Malden Bridge Playhouse at 15, the Cecilwood Theatre in Fishkill, then her beginnings in New York Nightclubs. Later on with success, Hello Dolly! would film scenes in West Point and Garrison, then scenes from The Way We Were were shot in Schenectady.
Singing as a start, was a way to earn a living. Early on, success came from the musical and film versions of Funny Girl.
From her early career and throughout it, Barbra Streisand’s talents were often overshadowed by society’s labels pertaining to beauty and unfair comments directed towards her. She serenely handled this and carried on with creativity, not letting it defeat her. Thankfully by the time she reached twenty, some would refer to her looks as “pharaonic” “Nefertiti” and “Babylonian Queen” appreciating the beauty that she so obviously had in addition to her immense talent and drive.
As she mentions straightaway beginning the memoir, the negativity pertaining to her appearance was disheartening. As she also points out, it would stick with her throughout her career.
She had been asked to write her memoir for so long, finally deciding it was time to set things straight and correct any misconceptions lingering about her.
Her memoir is an inspiration to anyone that doubts following their dreams, because success “actually makes you more of who you really are” she states.
Like with so many talented and creative people, perhaps Barbra Streisand’s journey into music and theater stemmed from early dissatisfaction with everyday life being unfulfilling. At 14, journeying into Manhattan seeing marquees everywhere showed her seemingly “endless possibilities.”
Movies showed her a world “so much more vivid and alive than anything I was experiencing.” Barbra recalls the excitement of her first play Teahouse of the August Moon at Malden Bridge Playhouse where she performed with her best friend. She refers to that time as a “glorious summer.”
A local newspaper gave her performances great reviews, bolstering her confidence. Not unlike Ella Fitzgerald, she declared on the playground that one day she would be famous.
It was in the Catskills at 13, that her mother was told about a studio where you could make your own record; Barbra and her mother would then go to Nola Studios in December 1955 to do that. She recalls how inspirational that experience was for her. One of the memoir’s themes is that of honesty.
Barbra Streisand gives us a compelling glimpse into the creative process of her movies and albums, her journey from struggle to star, along with personal anecdotes on her friendships and romances. Life includes loss, and loss is another of the memoir’s themes with what comes across as the pain of losing her father while she was so young and some of her close friends and colleagues.
When once asked: “How do you hold a note so long?” “Because I wanted to” was her response.
Barbra Streisand has received the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the Kennedy Center Honor, the National Medal of Arts, France’s Légion d’Honneur, and America’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She founded The Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai, raising awareness for more research into women’s heart disease.
The Streisand Foundation, which she established in 1986, has supported national organizations working on preservation of the environment, voter education, the protection of civil liberties and civil rights, women’s issues, and nuclear disarmament. In 2021 she launched the Barbra Streisand Institute at UCLA, dedicated to finding solutions to the most vital social issues.
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