ShareThisBy JON BREAM
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Singer, actress, comedian, director, activist, control freak. Reflect on the memories of movies, songs and TV moments, and maybe you'll agree that Barbra Streisand is the singular performer of the baby-boom generation.
Elvis was too old to be a baby boomer. The Beatles weren't as versatile as Babs, who was the first artist to capture an Oscar, Grammy, Emmy and Tony. Michael Jackson never really made it in the movies and didn't even try Broadway. Although Streisand didn't top VH1's list of top cultural icons in 2003 _ Oprah did, while Babs was 66th, behind the likes of Miss Piggy and Britney Spears _ no living artist has been an enduring icon to so many special-interest groups.
At 64, she is worshipped by, among others, gays, Jews, Democrats, ugly ducklings and the "verklempt" Linda Richman on "Saturday Night Live." She is revered for her meticulousness, comedic talent and, above all, that singing voice. She is a hero to enough constituencies to mount a pretty effective candidacy for higher office. But, like Oprah, she's too smart and too uncompromising for that.
And too successful. She ranks as the best selling female recording artist of all time, having sold more than 71 million albums in the United States. She was the only artist to have a No. 1 album in the 1960s, '70s, '80s and '90s. She and Cher are the only women to score a No. 1 song and also win an Oscar for best actress.
Barbara Joan Streisand started as an underdog in Brooklyn. Her birth father died when she was 16 months old. Her mom said she was too thin. Her stepdad said she was ugly, but the highly driven youngster wanted to become a singer.
At 18, she won a talent contest at a Greenwich Village club, where she developed a gay following (and dropped the middle "a" from her name to make it more distinctive). The boys loved the young woman with the imperfect face, unloving family and throbbingly emotional voice. The buzz brought Broadway impresarios and songwriters such as Harold Arlen and Cole Porter to check her out.
She signed with Columbia Records in 1962 and snared the Grammy for album of the year for her debut, "The Barbra Streisand Album."
A year later, at 21, she became an overnight sensation in the Broadway musical "Funny Girl." It told the story of burlesque queen Fanny Brice, a comedienne with prominent Yiddish flavor in an era of ethnic humor. Right away, this role endeared Streisand, who never hid her religion, her ethnic nose or her Brooklyn accent, to Jewish people.
Like the Beatles, she had an amazing run of success in the 1960s, releasing 13 albums in seven years, and being awarded a Tony as Broadway's star of the decade. She grabbed an Oscar in 1968 as best actress for her first film, "Funny Girl."
In 1969 she got her feet wet in politics, performing at a rally/fundraiser for New York Mayor John Lindsay, a Republican seeking his second term. But she became a staunch supporter of the Democrats, starting with George McGovern's 1972 presidential bid and perhaps peaking as the most famous FOB (Friend of Bill Clinton) who stayed at the White House.
Her liberal-leaning politics have landed her in hot water on her current concert tour for a bit in which she belittles President Bush. She dismisses the controversy, and told a heckler to "shut the (bleep) up if you can't take a joke!"
Christopher Andersen's recent book "Barbra: The Way She Is" paints Streisand as fiercely insistent upon creative control over all her projects, often clashing with directors and fellow actors and demanding more close-up shots of herself.
Many of these iconic images of Streisand converged in the 1983 film "Yentl," for which she became the first woman since the silent-movie era to write, direct, produce and star in a film. The reality check: How plausible was it for a 41-year-old to play a teen girl who dresses like a boy in order to study at a Jewish school?
Yes, she is a diva's diva. Since the late 1960s, she has shied away from performing concerts, conducting only two extended tours _ one in 1994 and her current 20-concert trek.
Why is she touring?
The main reason, she said in a statement, is "the increasingly urgent need for private citizen support to combat dangerous climate change, along with education and health issues."
In other words, these concerts are, in part, fundraisers for such causes as Clinton's Climate Initiative, to which she's given $1 million.
Leave it to Babs to ask Republican-like prices _ as much as $450 in some cities and $850 in others _ for her various constituents to see her in concert, and then turn some of the money over to Democratic candidates and causes.
