Ben Brantley, chief theater critic of The New York Times, profiled the prolific Barbra Streisand for this week’s Sunday Times, and the engrossing piece feels too good to be true. I was walking Manhattan streets with my head in my phone reading it because I couldn’t stop once I started. There were so many gems buried in the piece, but here are just 10 moments that got an full-out eyebrow raise or a knowing nod.
The Barn (home to the fictional play Buyer & Cellar) on her Malibu estate is called “Grandma’s House”. Also, she makes a point to let you know she’s never seen Buyer & Cellar but knows you have.
Garden-fresh snacks just materialize at Babs’ place.
Every. Single. Thing. About this exchange: “Vicky, whose truck is that?” she calls out to an assistant, as she’s showing me her rose-thick gardens. “It’s in the shot. Whenever I show my house, I never want a car in it. Also, tell somebody there’s a mop in the lavender room in Grandma’s House.”
She watches Andy Cohen’s Watch What Happens, and notes when she’s mispronounced (it’s sand not the harsh zand).
She screened the entire uncut sequence of herself as Fanny Brice performing “Swan Lake” in Funny Girl (with commentary) and a Gypsy sizzle reel that includes “Rose’s Turn”.
She never intended to be a Broadway star because she didn’t want to have to navigate the audition process. (Cue glares from every B’way diva who endured endless callbacks for Grizabella in the Cats revival.)
The main catalyst for her going back on tour is to pay for a painting the self-professed “auction freak” wants to own.
She’s not sharing choreography credit for “Miss Marmelstein” with Herbert Ross. The whole rolling on the office chair was the future Yentl creator’s idea.
Her signature Streisand nails were originally to keep her from being able to type as a secretary—her mother’s preferred profession for Barbra.
She “made Jane Fonda’s career”.
Again, click here to read the entire piece.
