Detailed Biography

Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, songwriter, film maker and actress. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, and a Peabody Award.

She is one of the most commercially and critically successful female entertainers in modern entertainment history and one of the best-selling solo recording artists with more than 71 million albums shipped in the United States and 140 million albums sold worldwide. She is the best selling female artist on the Recording Industry Association of America's Top Selling Artists list and the only female recording artist in the top ten.

According to the RIAA, Streisand has a total of 31 top ten albums to her credit since 1963. Streisand has the widest span between first and latest Top 10 albums of any female recording artist. With her 2009 album Love Is the Answer , she became the only artist to achieve number 1 albums in five consecutive decades. Streisand also holds the record for the most top 10 albums of any female recording artist. Her RIAA tally shows she has released 51 Gold albums, 30 Platinum albums, and 13 Multi-Platinum albums in the United States.

Early years

After a music competition, Streisand became a nightclub singer while in her teens. She originally wanted to be an actress and appeared in summer stock and in a number of Off-Off-Broadway productions, including Driftwood , with the then-unknown Joan Rivers. Driftwood ran for only six weeks. When her boyfriend Barry Dennen helped her create a club act—first performed in The Lion, a gay bar in Manhattan's Greenwich Village in 1960, she achieved success as a singer. One early appearance outside of New York City was at Enrico Banducci's hungry i nightclub in San Francisco. In 1961 Streisand appeared at the Town and Country nightclub in Winnipeg, Manitoba, but her appearance was cut short; audiences did not understand her revolutionary singing style. Portrait photograph, 1962

Streisand's first television appearance was on The Tonight Show, then hosted by Jack Paar, in 1961, singing Harold Arlen's A Sleepin' Bee. Orson Bean, who substituted for Paar that night, had seen the singer perform at a gay bar and booked her for the telecast. Streisand became a semi-regular on PM East/PM West, a talk/variety series hosted by Mike Wallace, in late 1961. Westinghouse Broadcasting, which aired PM East/PM West in a select few cities , has since wiped all the videotapes, due to the cost of videotape at the time. Audio segments from some episodes are part of the compilation CD Just for the Record, which went platinum in 1991. The singer said on 60 Minutes in 1991 that thirty years earlier Mike Wallace had been "mean" to her on PM East/PM West. He countered that she had been "self-absorbed." 60 Minutes included the audio of Streisand saying to him in 1961, "I like the fact that you are provoking. But don't provoke me."

In 1962, after several appearances on PM East/PM West, Streisand first appeared on Broadway, in the small but star-making role of Miss Marmelstein in the musical I Can Get It for You Wholesale. Her first album, The Barbra Streisand Album, won two Grammy Awards in 1963. Following her success in I Can Get It for You Wholesale, Streisand made several appearances on The Tonight Show in 1962. Topics covered in her interviews with host Johnny Carson included the empire waisted dresses that she bought wholesale, to her "crazy" reputation at Erasmus Hall High School, to her desire to sing at the Metropolitan Opera and travel around the world.

Streisand returned to Broadway in 1964 with an acclaimed performance as entertainer Fanny Brice in Funny Girl at the Winter Garden Theatre. The show introduced two of her signature songs, People and Don't Rain on My Parade. Due to the play's overnight success she appeared on the cover of Time. In 1966, she repeated her success with Funny Girl in London's West End at the Prince of Wales Theatre.

Singing career

Streisand has recorded 35 studio albums, almost all with the Columbia Records label. Her early works in the 1960s are considered classic renditions of theater and cabaret standards, including her slow version of the normally uptempo Happy Days Are Here Again. She performed this in a duet on The Judy Garland Show. Garland referred to her on the air as one of the last great belters. They also sang There's No Business Like Show Business with Ethel Merman joining them.

Beginning with My Name Is Barbra, her early albums were often medley-filled keepsakes of her television specials. Starting in 1969, she began attempting more contemporary material, but like many talented singers of the day, she found herself out of her element with rock. Her vocal talents prevailed, and she gained newfound success with the pop and ballad-oriented Richard Perry-produced album Stoney End in 1971. The title track, written by Laura Nyro, was a major hit for Streisand.

During the 1970s, she was also highly prominent on the pop charts, with Top 10 recordings such as The Way We Were , Evergreen , No More Tears , You Don't Bring Me Flowers and The Main Event , some of which came from soundtrack recordings of her films.

As the 1970s ended, Streisand was named the most successful female singer in the U.S.—only Elvis Presley and The Beatles had sold more albums. In 1980, she released her best-selling effort to date, the Barry Gibb-produced Guilty. The album contained the hits Woman In Love , Guilty, and What Kind of Fool.

After years of largely ignoring Broadway and traditional pop music in favor of more contemporary material, Streisand returned to her musical-theater roots with 1985's The Broadway Album, which was unexpectedly successful, holding the coveted #1 Billboard position for three straight weeks, and being certified quadruple Platinum. The album featured tunes by Rodgers & Hammerstein, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, and Stephen Sondheim, who was persuaded to rework some of his songs especially for this recording. The Broadway Album was met with acclaim, including a nomination for Album of the Year and, ultimately, handed Streisand her eighth Grammy as Best Female Vocalist. After releasing the live album One Voice in 1986, Streisand was set to take another musical journey along the Great White Way in 1988. She recorded several cuts for the album under the direction of Rupert Holmes, including On My Own , a medley of How Are Things in Glocca Morra? and Heather on the Hill , All I Ask of You , Warm All Over and an unusual solo version of Make Our Garden Grow . Streisand was not happy with the direction of the project and it was ultimately scrapped. Only Warm All Over and a reworked, Lite FM-friendly version of All I Ask of You were ever released—the latter appearing on Streisand's 1988 effort, Till I Loved You.

At the beginning of the 1990s, Streisand started focusing on her directorial efforts and became almost inactive in the recording studio. In 1991, a four-disc box set, Just for the Record, was released. A compilation spanning Streisand's entire career to date, it featured over 70 tracks of live performances, greatest hits, rarities and previously unreleased material.

The following year, Streisand's concert fundraising events helped propel former President Bill Clinton into the spotlight and into office. Streisand later introduced Clinton at his inauguration in 1993. Streisand's music career, however, was largely on hold. A 1992 appearance at an APLA benefit as well as the aforementioned inaugural performance hinted that Streisand was becoming more receptive to the idea of live performances. A tour was suggested, though Streisand would not immediately commit to it, citing her well-known stage fright as well as security concerns. During this time, Streisand finally returned to the recording studio and released Back to Broadway in June 1993. The album was not as universally lauded as its predecessor, but it did debut at #1 on the pop charts . One of the album's highlights was a medley of I Have A Love / One Hand, One Heart a duet with the legendary Johnny Mathis, who Streisand said is one of her favorite singers.

In 1993, New York Times music critic Stephen Holden wrote that Streisand "enjoys a cultural status that only one other American entertainer, Frank Sinatra, has achieved in the last half century."

In September 1993, Streisand made global news, announcing her first public concert appearances in 27 years. What began as a two-night New Year's event at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas eventually led to a multi-city tour in the summer of 1994. Tickets to the tour were sold out in under one hour. Streisand also appeared on the covers of major magazines in anticipation of what Time magazine named "The Music Event of the Century". The tour was one of the biggest all-media merchandise parlays in history. Ticket prices ranged from US$50 to US$1,500 - making Streisand the highest paid concert performer in history. Barbra Streisand: The Concert went on to be the top grossing concert of the year, earned five Emmy Awards and the Peabody Award, and the taped broadcast on HBO is, to date, the highest rated concert special in HBO's 30 year history.

Following the tour's conclusion, Streisand once again kept a low profile musically, instead focusing her efforts on her acting and directing duties as well as her burgeoning romance with actor James Brolin. In 1997, Streisand finally returned to the recording studio, releasing Higher Ground, a collection of songs of a loosely-inspirational nature which also featured a duet with Celine Dion. The album received generally favorable reviews and, remarkably, once again debuted at #1 on the pop charts.

Following her marriage to Brolin in 1998, Streisand recorded an album of love songs entitled A Love Like Ours the following year. Reviews were mixed, with many critics carping about the somewhat syrupy sentiments and overly-lush arrangements; however, it did produce a modest hit for Streisand in the country-tinged If You Ever Leave Me, a duet with Vince Gill.

On New Year's Eve 1999, Streisand returned to the concert stage, giving the highest grossing single concert in Las Vegas history to date. At the end of the millennium, she was the number one female singer in the U.S., with at least two #1 albums in each decade since she began performing. A 2-disc live album of the concert entitled Timeless: Live in Concert was released in 2000. Streisand performed versions of the "Timeless" concert in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia in early 2000.

In advance of four concerts in September 2000, Streisand announced she was retiring from future paying public concerts. Her performance of the song People was broadcast on the Internet via America Online.

Streisand's most recent albums have been Christmas Memories , a somewhat somber collection of holiday songs , and The Movie Album , featuring famous movie themes and backed by a large symphony orchestra. Guilty Pleasures , a collaboration with Barry Gibb and a sequel to their previous Guilty, was released worldwide in 2005.

In February 2006, Streisand recorded the song Smile alongside Tony Bennett at Streisand's Malibu home. The song is included on Tony Bennett's 80th Birthday Album, Duets. In September 2006, the pair filmed a live performance of the song for a special directed by Rob Marshall entitled Tony Bennett: An American Classic. The special aired on NBC Television November 21, 2006, and was released on DVD the same day. Streisand's duet with Bennett opens the special.

In 2006, Streisand announced her intent to tour again, in an effort to raise money and awareness for multiple issues. After four days of rehearsal at the Sovereign Bank Arena in Trenton, New Jersey, the tour began on October 4 at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, continued with the featured stop in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida , and concluded at Staples Center in Los Angeles on November 20, 2006. Special guests Il Divo were interwoven throughout the show. On stage closing night, Streisand hinted that six more concerts may follow on foreign soil. The show was known as Streisand: The Tour.

On October 9, 2006, Streisand performed a concert at Madison Square Garden, featuring a skit that made fun of President George W. Bush. When one heckler continually protested, she responded by shouting "Shut the fuck up!" She later apologized, but added that "The artist's role is to disturb." Ultimately, Streisand endured negative reaction to the sketch at only two out of her twenty concert dates. It was thought that an audience member in Fort Lauderdale threw liquid from a cup at her because of the skit, but the incident was found to be non-political.

Streisand's 20-concert tour set record box-office numbers. At the age of 64, well past the prime of most performers, she grossed US$92,457,062 and set house gross records in 14 of the 16 arenas played on the tour. She set the third-place record for her October 9, 2006 show at Madison Square Garden, the first- and second-place records of which are held by her two shows in September 2000. She set the second-place record at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, with her December 31, 1999 show being the house record and the highest grossing concert of all time. This led many people to openly criticize Streisand for price gouging, as many tickets sold for upwards of US$1,000.

A collection of performances culled from different stops on this tour, Live in Concert 2006, debuted at #7 on the Billboard 200, making it Streisand's 29th Top 10 album. In the summer of 2007, Streisand gave concerts for the first time in continental Europe. The first concert took place in Zürich , then Vienna , Paris , Berlin , Stockholm , Manchester and Celbridge, near Dublin , followed by three concerts in London , the only European city where Streisand had performed before 2007. Tickets for the London dates cost between £100.00 and GB£1,500.00 and for the Ireland date between €118 and €500. The tour included a 58-piece orchestra.

In February 2008, Forbes Magazine listed Streisand as the #2 top-earning female musician, between June 2006 and June 2007, with earnings of about US$60 million. Although Streisand's range has changed with time and her voice has become deeper over the years, her vocal prowess has remained remarkably secure for a singer whose career has endured for nearly half a century.

On November 17, 2008, Streisand returned to the studio to begin recording what will be her sixty-third album and it was announced that Diana Krall was producing the album.

On April 25, 2009, CBS aired Streisand's latest TV special, Streisand: Live In Concert, highlighting the aforementioned featured stop from her 2006 North American tour, in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Streisand is one of the recipients of the 2008 Kennedy Center Honors. On December 7, 2008, she visited the White House as part of the ceremonies.

On September 26, 2009, Streisand performed a one-night-only show at the Village Vanguard in New York City's Greenwich Village.

On September 29, 2009, Streisand and Columbia Records released her newest studio album titled Love is the Answer, produced by Diana Krall. On October 2, 2009, Streisand made her British television performance debut after her interview on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross, promoting the album. It resulted to be a big success, debuting straight at #1 on the Billboard 200 and registering her biggest weekly-sales since 1997. This made Streisand the only artist in history to achieve #1 albums in five different decades.

Film career

Her first film was a reprise of her Broadway hit, Funny Girl , an artistic and commercial success directed by Hollywood veteran William Wyler, for which she won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Actress, sharing it with Katharine Hepburn , the first time there was a tie in this Oscar category. Her next two movies were also based on musicals, Jerry Herman's Hello, Dolly! directed by Gene Kelly and Alan Jay Lerner's and Burton Lane's On a Clear Day You Can See Forever directed by Vincente Minnelli , while her fourth film was based on the Broadway play The Owl and the Pussycat .

During the 1970s, Streisand starred in several screwball comedies, including What's Up, Doc? and The Main Event , both co-starring Ryan O'Neal, and For Pete's Sake with Michael Sarrazin. One of her most famous roles during this period was in the drama The Way We Were with Robert Redford, for which she received an Academy Award nomination as Best Actress. She earned her second Academy Award for Best Original Song as composer for the song "Evergreen", from A Star Is Born in 1976; this was the first time a woman had received this award.

Along with Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier, Streisand formed First Artists Production Company in 1969 so the actors could secure properties and develop movie projects for themselves. Streisand's initial outing with First Artists was Up the Sandbox .

From a period beginning in 1969 and ending in 1980, Streisand appeared in the annual motion picture exhibitors poll of Top 10 Box Office attractions a total of 10 times, often as the only woman on the list. But after the disappointment of All Night Long in 1981, Streisand's film output decreased considerably. She has only acted in five films since.

Streisand produced a number of her own films, setting up Barwood Films in 1972. For Yentl , she was producer, director, and star, an experience she repeated for The Prince of Tides and The Mirror Has Two Faces . Steven Spielberg called Yentl a masterpiece, and both won critical acclaim. There was controversy when Yentl received five Academy Award nominations, but none for the major categories of Best Picture, Actress, or Director. Prince of Tides received even more Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, but the director was not nominated. Streisand is also the writer of Yentl, something she is not always given credit for. According to New York Times Editorial Page Editor Andrew Rosenthal in an interview with Allan Wolper, "the one thing that makes Barbra Streisand crazy is when nobody gives her the credit for having written Yentl."

In 2004, Streisand made a return to film acting, after an eight-year hiatus, in the comedy Meet the Fockers , playing opposite Dustin Hoffman, Ben Stiller, Blythe Danner and Robert De Niro.

In 2005 Streisand's Barwood Films, Gary Smith Co. and Sonny Murray purchased the rights to Simon Mawer's book Mendel's Dwarf. As of December 2008, Streisand stated she is considering directing an adaptation of Larry Kramer's play The Normal Heart -- a project Ms. Streisand has worked on since the mid-1990s Streisand has been seen shooting scenes for sequel to 2004's Meet the Fockers. Andrew Lloyd Webber stated that Streisand is one of several actresses interested in playing the role of Norma Desmond in the film adaptation of Webber's musical version of Sunset Boulevard , although Paramount Pictures has delayed the film.

Politics

Streisand has long been an active supporter of the Democratic Party and many of their causes. Streisand said, "The Democrats have always been the party of working people and minorities. I've always identified with the minorities." Streisand has personally raised $15 million for organizations through her live performances. The Streisand Foundation, established in 1986, has contributed over $16 million through its grants to "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 2006, Streisand donated $1 million to the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation in support of President Clinton’s climate change initiative.

Lawsuit

Streisand sued Kenneth Adelman, an aerial photographer who displayed a photo of her Malibu, California, home along with other photos of the entire California coastline on the website of the California Coastal Records Project. Her suit was dismissed under the anti-SLAPP provisions of California law. Streisand v. Adelman et al., in California Superior Court; Case SC077257. The publicity generated by her efforts to suppress the photograph has given rise to the term Streisand effect.

Awards

Music awards

Streisand has been nominated for over 40 Grammy Awards, of which she won 15. She's been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame three times.

Personal life

Streisand has been married twice. Her first husband was actor Elliott Gould, to whom she was married from 1963 to 1971. They had one child, Jason Gould, who would go on to star as her on-screen son in Prince of Tides. Her second husband is James Brolin, whom she married on July 1, 1998. While they have no children together, Brolin has two children from his first marriage, including academy award nominated actor Josh Brolin, and one child from his second marriage. Both of her husbands starred in the 1970s conspiracy horror thriller Capricorn One.

Jon Peters' daughters, Caleigh Peters and Skye Peters, are her goddaughters.

Streisand shares a birthday with Shirley MacLaine, and they celebrate together every year.

Streisand's philanthropic organization, The Streisand Foundation, gives grants to "national organizations working on preservation of the environment, voter education, the protection of civil liberties and civil rights, women’s issues and nuclear disarmament" and has given large donations to programs related to women's health.

In September 2008, Parade magazine included Streisand on their Giving Back Fund's second annual Giving Back 30 survey, "a ranking of the celebrities who have made the largest donations to charity in 2007 according to public records". Streisand was named third most generous celebrity. The Giving Back Fund claimed Streisand donated $11 million, which The Streisand Foundation distributed.

At Julien’s Auctions in October 2009, Streisand, a long-time collector of art and furniture, sold 526 items with all the proceeds toward her foundation. Items included a costume from Funny Lady and a vintage dental cabinet purchased by the performer at 18 years old. The sale’s most valuable lot was a painting by Kees van Dongen.