|
The following biography
has been copied from
WIKIPEDIA.ORG
“The
Free Encyclopedia.”
Buy this Photo at AllPosters.com
Barbra Streisand (born
April 24, 1942) is an iconic American singer and film actress, producer,
and director.
* * * *
Early years
She was born Barbara Joan
Streisand in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York then moved to another area
in Brooklyn where she was educated at Beis Yakov School and Erasmus Hall
High School. Her father passed away when she was only 15 months old, and
she had a lifelong turbulent relationship with her stepfather.
Following a music
competition, she became a club singer in her teens. She originally had
wanted to be an actress, and appeared in a number of off-off-Broadway
productions, including one with then-aspiring actress Joan Rivers, but
when her boyfriend Barry Dennen helped her shape a club act — first
performed in a gay bar in Manhattan's Greenwich Village in 1960 — she
became a smashing success as a singer. It was also at this time that she
shortened her first name to make it more distinctive.
She signed with Columbia
Records in 1962 and her first album, The Barbra Streisand Album, won two
Grammy Awards in 1963. At one time, Barbara's first three albums
appeared simultaneously on Billboard's Top Ten - an amazing feat
considering it was at a time when Rock and Roll and The Beatles
dominated the charts. Barbra also appeared on Broadway, first in the
musical I Can Get It For You Wholesale and then as Fanny Brice in Jule
Styne's and Bob Merrill's Funny Girl (1964). After some notable TV guest
appearances Barbra built on her success with a number of television
specials for CBS.
Film career
Her first film was a
reprise of her Broadway hit, Funny Girl (1968), for which she won the
1968 Academy Award for Best Actress, sharing it with Katharine Hepburn
(The Lion in Winter), the first time there was a tie in an Oscar
category. Her next two movies were also based on musicals, Jerry
Herman's Hello, Dolly! (1969) and Alan Jay Lerner's and Burton Lane's On
A Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970), while her fourth film was based
on the Broadway play The Owl and the Pussycat (1970). She also starred
in the original screwball comedies What's Up, Doc? (1972), with Ryan
O'Neal, and For Pete's Sake (1974), and the hugely successful drama The
Way We Were with Robert Redford.
In 1970 she had a topless
scene in The Owl and the Pussycat. She quickly regretted the move and
bought up all prints of the film, deleting the scene. When High Society
magazine published the original photos of her bare breasts, Streisand
sued them.
Over the years, Steisand
has won two Oscars, five Emmys, and eight Golden Globes, as well as a
number of other awards. Her second Academy Award was as composer of the
song "Evergreen", from A Star Is Born (1976). In 1995 she received a
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
She has produced a number
of her own films, setting up Barwood Films in 1972. For Yentl (1983) she
was producer, director, writer, and star, an experience she largely
repeated for The Prince of Tides (1991). Steven Spielberg called Yentl a
masterpiece, and many critics praised the film as well as Prince of
Tides. There was controversy when Prince of Tides received a number of
Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, but Streisand was not
nominated for Best Director. Some claimed that her well-known
uncompromising, tough behavior was to blame for the slight, while others
felt that Hollywood was punishing her for being a woman, and if a man
behaved the same way, he would have been given recognition.
In 2004, Streisand
reappeared on the big screen in the comedy Meet the Fockers, playing
opposite Dustin Hoffman, Ben Stiller, and Robert DeNiro among others.
The film was very successful commercially and Streisand garnered
positive reviews.
Singing career
She has recorded more than
60 albums, almost all with the Columbia Records label, after her early
work in the 1960s (The Second Barbra Streisand Album, The Third Album,
My Name Is Barbra, etc.). Many were soundtrack albums from her films.
During the 1970s she was
also highly prominent in the pop charts, with number-one records like
"The Way We Were", "Evergreen", "(No More Tears) Enough Is Enough" and
"Woman In Love".
When the 1970s ended,
Streisand was named the most successful female singer in the US, with
only Elvis Presley and The Beatles having sold more albums.
Streisand returned to her
musical theater roots with 1985's The Broadway Album. This was an
unexpected commercial success, and featured some songs reworked by
Stephen Sondheim especially for this recording.
At the end of the last
millennium, she still was the number-one female singer in the United
States, with number-one albums in each decade since she had started out.
In 1991 she released a
four-disc box set, entitled Just for the Record. A separate disc,
entitled "Highlights from Just for the Record" featured two dozen
tracks, including live material, greatest hits, and rarities, from her
early recordings up to 1991.
Around 1992, however,
success was not in Barbra's favor. She was losing money, and sought
advice from former boyfriend Dennen. He suggested she perform in a
series of live concerts, not only for financial reasons, but to overcome
her chronic stage fright, as well. The tour was one of the biggest
all-media merchandise parlays in history. Dennen later wrote a book
called My Life with Barbra.
On New Year's Eve 1999 she
returned to the concert stage, scoring another personal triumph for
giving the highest grossing single concert in Las Vegas history to date.
She later toured Australia with that programme, called Timeless, which
was also released on a two-disc album by Columbia.
Her most recent albums have
been Christmas Memories (2001), a collection of somber holiday songs,
and The Movie Album (2003), featuring famous movie themes and backed by
a large symphony orchestra.
In April 2005, Streisand
announced that her next album would be written and produced by Bee Gees
star Barry Gibb, with whom she had collaborated on the 1980 hit Guilty.
Buy this Mini Poster at AllPosters.com
Vocal profile
Voice type: Lyric
Mezzo-Soprano
Highest note: [Added by
Streisand's lowest note on record is
Eb3 in her recording of "Memory". Her highest note is a D6 in "Who's
Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" both live and on record. (thanks for the
update Kevin)]
Lowest note: [see above]
Vocal range: 2 octaves
(A3-A5)
Longest note: 25 seconds
Persona
She was married to Elliott
Gould from 1963 to 1971, with whom she had her only child, son Jason
Gould (who later appeared as her character's son in The Prince Of
Tides). She briefly dated Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in the
early 1970s, had long-term relationships with
hairdresser-turned-producer Jon Peters and tennis player Andre Agassi,
and later married actor James Brolin in 1998.
Streisand is known for her
outspoken liberal political views, and is a staunch supporter of the
Democratic Party. She attracted unfavorable attention for a 2003 lawsuit
she filed against a photographer whose aerial photos documenting the
California coast included an image of her Malibu estate. Streisand lost
the suit and was ordered to pay the photographer's attorneys' fees.
Streisand's strong,
larger-than-life personality has made her an icon to some members of her
fan base. This was affectionately satirized by Mike Myers's "Linda
Richman" series of sketches on Saturday Night Live, during one of which
Streisand herself made a surprise appearance.
On the other hand,
Streisand's sometimes over-the-top performance style, vanity (she
insists on being filmed from one side only), and political involvement
often make her a target of hostility as well. For instance, she was
repeatedly satirized on the South Park animated series such as in the
episode called "Mecha-Streisand", in which she tried to take over the
world by transforming herself into a giant robot.
* * * *
The
above biography has been copied in part or in whole
from an article on
Wikipedia.org
"The Free Encyclopedia." It has been modified under
the NGU Free Document License Section 5 in the
following manner: (1) All links within the article
have been removed, including text links such as
"[#]"; (2) The "[Edit]" text and link have been
removed [if you would like to update the article,
you may do so from the original page]; (3) the table
of Contents links and text have been removed; and
(4) all of the sections of the original article have
not been copied. All of the above text is available
under the terms of the
GNU Free Document License.
URL of Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Streisand
Date Article Copied:
July 11, 2005
We
will try to replace this article with an original
biography in the near future, but we hope this will
be of help to our visitors in the mean time. |
