Barbra Streisand has discussed her early experiences with sexism, including an incident with Sydney Chaplin that contributed to the stage fright that stopped her playing concerts for 27 years, before the release of her memoir.
The singer and actor recalled her fraught relationship with Charlie Chaplin’s son when they both starred in Funny Girl on Broadway in the 1960s.
“I don’t even like to talk about it,” Streisand, 81, told the BBC before the release of My Name Is Barbra. “It’s just a person who had a crush on me, – which was unusual – and when I said to him, ‘I don’t want to be involved with you’, he turned on me in such a way that was very cruel.
“He started muttering under his breath while I was talking on stage. Terrible words. Curse words. And he wouldn’t look into my eyes anymore. And you know, when you’re acting, it’s really important to look at the other person, and react to them.”
The experience, Streisand said, left her “flustered” and contributed to her quitting live performance. But throughout her career, she said she also encountered other male collaborators who proved problematic.
These included Walter Matthau, who humiliated her on the set of Hello, Dolly! by screaming: “I have more talent in my farts than you have in your whole body”; and Frank Pierson, who publicly rubbished the 1976 version of A Star is Born (which he directed), calling Streisand a control freak who constantly demanded more closeups.
Streisand’s book also lists the men who became entranced by her, such as Omar Sharif, who wrote long, passionate letters begging her to leave her husband; King Charles (then Prince Charles), who described her as “devastatingly attractive” with “great sex appeal”; and Marlon Brando, who introduced himself by kissing the back of her neck, saying: “You can’t have a back like that and not have it kissed.”
Streisand, who had been writing her memoir for almost a quarter of a century, also addressed insults about her appearance in her early career. “Even after all these years, I’m still hurt by the insults and can’t quite believe the praise,” she told the BBC.
Despite her considerable success, including 150m records sold, nine Golden Globes, four Emmys and two Oscars (for acting and songwriting), Streisand said she felt little happiness when looking back at her life.
“I want to live life,” she said. “I want to get in my husband’s truck [the actor James Brolin] and just wander, hopefully with the children somewhere near us … I haven’t had much fun in my life, to tell you the truth, and I want to have more fun.”
Streisand discussed the death of her father from a cerebral haemorrhage when she was 15 months old, leaving the family in poverty. Her mother’s new husband, a used-car salesman, was distant and cruel.
“I don’t remember him ever talking to me or asking me any questions,” she said. “I was never seen by him – [nor] by my mother. She didn’t see my passion for wanting to be an actress. She discouraged me.”
Streisand left home at 16 and took a job as a clerk while working weekend shifts as a theatre usher so she could keep up with the latest Broadway shows.
“I got paid $4.50, I think it was, but I always hid my face because I thought someday I’d be well-known,” she said. “Isn’t that funny? I didn’t want people to recognise me on the screen and know that I once showed them to their seats.”
Her dream of stardom began to come true in 1960, when she entered a talent contest for the prize of $50 and dinner. That night, she said, the girlfriend of the comedian Tiger Haynes told her: “Little girl, I see dollar signs all over you.”
Winning the contest led to Streisand being booked to play shows around Greenwich Village in New York, and she was soon receiving standing ovations in clubs and bars. But her true breakout role was in the Broadway and later film adaption of Funny Girl, which earned Streisand her first Oscar.
After that, her trajectory was remarkable as she starred in films including What’s Up, Doc?, The Owl and the Pussycat, and The Way We Were. In a parallel recording career, she scored hits including Woman in Love, Evergreen and No More Tears (Enough Is Enough), becoming the second biggest-selling female artist of all time.
In 1983, Streisand also made her directorial debut with Yentl, the first Hollywood movie where a woman was the writer, producer, director and star.
She said when she came to England for the film shoot, she found the country far less sexist than the US. “You had a queen and Margaret Thatcher was the prime minister. In other words, you weren’t intimidated by me being a woman. In America, I sadly tell you, it was so different. The people were cold; aloof.”
Although her memoir works to dispel the diva myth that’s surrounded her, Streisand also recalled moments of star behaviour, such as the time she phoned up the Apple CEO, Tim Cook, to complain that the iPhone was pronouncing her name wrong.
“My name isn’t spelt with a ‘Z’,” she said. “It’s Strei-sand, like sand on the beach. How simple can you get? And Tim Cook was so lovely. He had Siri change the pronunciation … I guess that’s one perk of fame!”
