Barbra Streisand
The
career of Barbra Streisand has been paved with bold, creative
achievements and highlighted by a series of firsts. "The
Prince of Tides" was the first motion picture directed by
its female star ever to receive a Best Director nomination from
the
Directors Guild of America as well as seven Academy Award nominations.
Barbra Streisand produced the heralded drama in addition to directing
and starring in it. For her very first Broadway appearance in
"I Can Get It For You Wholesale," she won the New York
Drama Critics Award and received a Tony nomination.
For her very first record album, "The Barbra Streisand Album," she won two Grammy Awards in 1963, one as Album of the Year; and she was the youngest artist to have won that, at that time.
For her motion picture debut in "Funny Girl," she won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Actress, the first of two Oscars. With "Yentl," she became the first woman ever to produce, direct, write and star in a major motion picture. She was honored with an Emmy Award and the distinguished Peabody Award for her first television special, "My Name Is Barbra," in 1965. The program earned a total of five Emmys. This achievement was repeated 30 years later by her most recent musical production on television, "Barbra Streisand: The Concert," with two additional Emmy awards for Ms. Streisand among the five for the production.
She is the first female composer ever to win an Academy Award, this for her song, "Evergreen," the love theme from her hit film, "A Star Is Born." She was nominated again in 1997 as co-composer of "I Finally Found Someone," based on her love theme for her film as director/producer/star, "The Mirror Has TwoFaces."
The "actress who sings," as Streisand
once termed herself, has repeatedly been at the top of the record
sales charts. Her most recent "Higher Ground" and earlier
"Back To Broadway" albums are 
among
only a handful of recordings ever to become Number One on the
sales charts in their initial week of release and to go Platinum
through their first shipping orders. The previous "The Broadway
Album" similarly enjoyed great praise and sales, became
#1 and brought her three Grammy nominations and her eighth Grammy
for Best Female Vocalist. "Higher Ground" occasioned
two additional Grammy nominations for her. At home in pop, show
tunes, rock and ballads; she even made a classical album, titled
"Classical Barbra," which was nominated for a Grammy
Award in the classical division. The dual album "Barbra
Streisand: The Concert" was another recent effort in her
parade of hits.
The statistics of her achievements as a
recording sales leader are drawn in platinum and gold. Even prior
to the release of her latest Columbia album, "Higher Ground,"
her collection of inspirational and love songs, she had achieved
sales unequaled by any other recording artist. With forty gold
albums, she is second in the all-time charts, just ahead of The
Beatles. Only Elvis Presley has exceeded her. Thus, she is the
only artist among the top four all-time sellers (The Rolling
Stones are fourth) who was not part of
the Rock & Roll revolution, which has dominated the record
business for four decades. Not only have Forty of her albums
become gold, but twenty-five have reached platinum status and
the Recording Industry Association of America recently noted
that she is the only female artist ever to have achieved twelve
multi-platinum albums, (additionally, the soundtrack for her
motion picture "A Star Is Born" was multi-platinum)
earning her eight Grammy Awards in the process. She continues
to be the highest-selling female recording artist ever, and has
had number one albums in each of the last four decades. Her number
one albums span a period of over 39 years, the greatest longevity
in that statistic for any recording artist or group. Ms. Streisand
is currently preparing her next album for release in 1999…
"A Love Like Ours."
Recipient in 1995 of an Honorary Doctorate in Arts and Humanities from Brandeis University, Barbra Streisand is a rare honoree, perhaps the only artist to earn Oscar, Tony, Emmy, Grammy, Golden Globe, Cable Ace and Peabody Awards. Her most recent motion picture directorial effort, the TriStar Pictures release "The Mirror Has Two Faces," continued the tradition of each Streisand-directed film being accorded Academy Award nominations. The romantic comedy, her third triple effort as director/producer/star, received two Oscar nominations in 1997, and led, as well, to Lauren Bacall's winning the Golden Globe's Best Supporting Actress.
In 1995, Ms. Streisand added to her Emmy Awards, winning two more for her performance in and work as producer of "Barbra Streisand: The Concert." The HBO program earned a total of five Emmy Awards, matching the Emmy achievements of her first TV Special, the one-woman show "My Name Is Barbra," exactly thirty years before. Each of the shows won the coveted Peabody Award as well. "Serving In Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story," the first television dramatic production for her Barwood Films, earned an additional three Emmy trophies, a total of eight Emmys for Ms. Streisand's company in the same year. Ms. Streisand's Barwood Films has followed "Serving in Silence" with a continuing slate of broadcast dramas, each of which addresses important issues.
Virtually every aspect of Barbra Streisand's
1994 concert tour was record setting. The twenty-six appearances
were her first paid concerts in nearly three decades, all intervening
concerts since 1966 having been fund-raisers for various social
or political causes. The tour initiated with the celebrated 1994
New Year's performances at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas
and continued to set attendance and box-office records with immediate
sellouts in London, Washington D.C., Southern California, Detroit,
San Jose and New York's Madison Square Garden. Over 5,000,000
phone requests were recorded in the first hour when tickets for
the first America leg of the tour went on sale. The tour also
generated over ten and a quarter million dollars for charities
the artist supports, channeling money to significant causes in
each locale. Reflecting Streisand's social concerns, over three
million dollars went to AIDS organizations, with other gifts
addressing such urgencies as women and children in jeopardy,
Jewish/Arab relations and agencies working to ameliorate relations
between African-Americans and Jews. "Barbra Streisand: The
Concert," the critically lauded film version of the concerts
became the highest rated musical event in HBO's history, as well
as an equally successful video and double-album. It earned, in
addition to its five Emmy Awards and Peabody Award, three Cable
Ace Awards. The record went Platinum, a rarity for a double album.
The video of "Barbra Streisand: The Concert" was acknowledged
to have gone triple-platinum, having sold three times the number
required for platinum certification. Additionally, four of her
videos have been certified gold and one
platinum.
The filmmaker/entertainer was born April 24th in Brooklyn to Diana and Emanuel Streisand. Her father, who passed away when Barbra was 15 months old, was a highly respected teacher and scholar. An honor student at Erasmus High School in Brooklyn, the teenage Streisand plunged, unassisted and without encouragement, into show business by winning a singing contest at a small Manhattan club. She developed a devout and growing following at the clubs which began hiring her, and soon she was attracting music industry attention at such spots as the Bon Soir and the Blue Angel.
Streisand signed a contract with Columbia Records in 1962, and her debut album quickly became the nation's top-selling record by a female vocalist.
Following her award-winning debut performance in "I Can Get It For You Wholesale," she was signed to play the great comedienne Fanny Brice in the Broadway production of "Funny Girl." When the curtain came down at the Winter Garden Theatre on March 26, 1964, the star and the show were major hits. Her distinctly original musical-comedy performance won her a second Tony nomination.
Her star on the ascent, she signed a 10-year contract with CBS Television to produce and star in TV specials. The contract gave her complete artistic control, an unheard of concession to an artist so young and inexperienced. The first special, "My Name Is Barbra," earned five Emmy Awards, and the following four shows, including the memorable "Color Me Barbra," earned the highest critical praise and audience ratings. The two aforementioned specials were released 20 years later and became instant top-sellers in the videocassette market.
In 1966, Streisand repeated her "Funny Girl" triumph in London at the Prince of Wales Theatre. London critics voted her the best female lead in a musical for that season.
Few movie debuts have been as auspicious as Streisand's in Columbia Pictures' "Funny Girl." In addition to winning the 1968 Academy Award, she won the Golden Globe and was named Star of the Year by the National Association of Theatre Owners. After appearing in the films "Hello, Dolly!" and "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever," she starred in the non-musical comedy "The Owl and the Pussycat," released in 1970. 1972 brought another resounding comedy hit, "What's Up Doc?," followed by "Up the Sandbox," one of the first American films to deal with the growing women's movement. It was the premiere picture for her own production company, Barwood Films.
The memorable motion picture "The Way We Were" brought her a 1973 Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. The very successful "A Star Is Born," released in 1976, was the first movie to benefit from her energy and insight as a producer, and won six Golden Globes. The soundtrack album was certified as multi-platinum with four million sales. Shortly after Streisand had completed her first movie, she read a short story titled "Yentl, The Yeshiva Boy" and hoped to make it her second film. However, it took 14 years of development and persistence before the dream came true. "Yentl," a romantic drama with music, is about a courageous woman who discovers that nothing is impossible in matters of the heart and mind. It is a movie that celebrates women trying to fulfill their capabilities, not allowing traditional restrictions to deter them. The film also was the first big budget project (15 million dollars) which was instrumental in opening the doors to women in film on a higher professional level. Streisand's directorial debut film received four 1984 Academy Award nominations, and she received Golden Globe Awards both as Best Director and as producer of the Best Picture (musical or comedy) of 1984. The awards represent 2 of 11 Golden Globes she has received throughout her career. Her follow-up film to "Yentl" was "Nuts," the unusual story of a smart woman shaped into an angry, anti-social character because of her childhood experiences. In addition to starring, Streisand produced and wrote the music for the powerful drama released in 1987.
Her second creation as a film director, "The Prince of Tides," concerning the consequences of childhood traumas and exploring family relationships, achieved seven Oscar nominations, and a nomination for her direction from the Directors Guild of America, making her only the third woman ever so honored. She brought this book to the screens because, "It's about how love and compassion can heal and liberate the soul. I'm interested in telling stories about positive transformations and the potential for human growth."
After working with her for two weeks, the book's author, Pat Conroy, gave Streisand a copy of his novel with the inscription: "To Barbra Streisand: The Queen of Tides...you are many things, Barbra, but you're also a great teacher...one of the greatest to come into my life. I honor the great teachers and they live in my work and they dance invisibly in the margins of my prose. You've honored me by taking care of it with such great seriousness and love. Great thanks, and I'll never forget that you gave 'The Prince of Tides' back to me as a gift. Pat Conroy."
Her Barwood Films has placed great emphasis on bringing to television dramatic explorations of pressing social, historic and political issues which would not otherwise be addressed in more widely viewed television movies. "The Rescuers," a series of six dramas to be broadcast on Showtime (two of them already shown to great acclaim and wide viewership) as two-hour specials, pays tribute to non-Jews who heroically saved Jews from the Holocaust. Through Barwood, Ms. Streisand helped bring to millions of television viewers a drama investigating military harassment of and repression of the civil rights of gays. It was acknowledged that the critically praised "Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story," would never have been realized on network television had not Barbra Streisand put her executive producing talents and considerable artistic and social-issue influence behind it. It had great impact in conveying its urgent civil rights issue and it earned three Emmys, six Emmy nominations and the Peabody Award in the process. Barwood's CBS MOW, "The Long Island Incident: The Caroline McCarthy Story," inspired a national debate on gun control with its true story of a wife and mother who surmounted tragedy to win a seat in Congress after initiating a crusade to achieve sensible controls on guns.
Similarly, Barwood is currently preparing for Showtime a film supporting the Middle East peace process. "Two Hands That Shook The World," will parallel the lives of Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat up to their historic handshake at the White House.
And like the true Renaissance woman she
is, her life and her art are dedicated to the humanities as reflected
by the Streisand Foundation, which is committed to gaining women's
equality, the protection of both human rights and civil rights
and liberties, the needs of children at risk in society and the
preservation of the environment. Through the Streisand Foundation,
she directly funded the United States Environmental Defense Fund's
research for and participation in the recent Global Warming world
summit conference in Kyoto. Her environmental dedication is reflected,
also in her donation to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy
of the five home, 24 acre Malibu estate on which her One Voice
concert had been performed. The site has been dedicated as a
center for ecological studies. Ms. Streisand is a leading spokesperson
and fund-raiser for social causes close to her heart, including
AIDS. During the twenty-seven years, which preceded her limited
1994 tour and the Las Vegas New Year's appearances, she had devoted
her live concert performances exclusively to the benefit of those
causes she supports. Her concern with social issues is reflected
not only in the dedications of her personal life, but in the
subject matter of the films she has initiated, each of which
has addressed some social consideration. Recent honors reflecting
the range of her involvement in charitable
and social causes include the 1992 Commitment to Life Award from
AIDS Project Los Angeles for her dedication to help people living
with that disease, and the ACLU Bill of Rights Award for her
on-going defense of constitutional rights. Ms. Streisand's feelings
about the rights and obligations of artists to participate in
the political process were brought into sharp focus by her early
1995 speech at Harvard University under the sponsorship of the
John F. Kennedy School of Government. The address won unprecedented
reportage and reproduction in such print media as the New York
Times and the Washington Post. It was carried a record number
of times on C-Span.
Prior to the 1986 elections, she performed
her first full-length concert in 20 years, raising money for
the Hollywood Women's Political Committee to disburse to liberal
candidates. Taped on Sept. 6, 1986, before 500 invited guests
at her California home, the concert was called "Barbra Streisand:
One Voice" and aired on HBO on Dec. 27, 1986, to enormous
acclaim. The money raised that night helped elect five Democratic
Senators, which restored a Democratic majority in the Senate.
Additionally, she headlined concerts which raised millions of
dollars for each of the successful presidential campaigns of
Bill Clinton. To date, over $10,000,000, including $7,000,000
in profits from "Barbra Streisand: One Voice", have
been channeled to charities through the Streisand Foundation,
which continues to occupy much of the star's energy and resources.
Her passionate political activism continues. Convinced that 1998
national general election was one of the most crucial in recent
history, she applied herself to the election of candidates and
issues she felt essential. She was one of the first and most
outspoken critics of the Republican Congress' use of the impeachment
issue as a means of blocking or undoing the social achievements
of the Clinton administration. Ms. Streisand contributed financially
to support the campaigns of 35 candidates in the general election,
27 of whom won. Similarly,
she also supported specified candidates by endorsing 194 of them
on her website and then recommending consideration of this list
when she did her AOL get-out-the-vote Internet chat on election
eve. Of the candidates she endorsed, 155 were elected and 39
were not. In both instances, that is a won/lost ratio of nearly
80%.
On July 1, 1998, Ms. Streisand married director/actor James Brolin.
new
CD releases and activities by Barbra Streisand since 1999
Early November in 1999 saw the release
of the additional single, "If
Your Ever Leave Me" (video
clip excerpt), a duet with US-country-star Vince 
Gill.
The songs is from Barbra´s latest studio recording "If
You Ever Leave Me". There are two additional bonus track,
which are not included on the longplay.
With "A Love Like Ours" Streisand presents 12 romantic pop arias: it opens with the classical touched "I've Dreamed Of You", which was the official wedding song for her marriage with actor James Brolin; "The Music That Makes Me Dance" is Barbra´s tribute to big orchestral arrangements. The selection of songwriter demonstrates taste with George Gershwin, Richard Marx, Melissa Manchester, Tom Snow, Michel Legrand and Alan Marilyn Bergman.
Her previous recording "Higher Ground" and the single "Tell Him" (a duet with Céline Dion) had toped the charts world-wide for weeks. It has sold over 5,000,000 copies worldwide, one of twelve multi-platinum albums and 24 platinum, the most ever for a female artist in each case. Her total of thirty-nine gold record albums is exceeded only by Elvis Presley and The Beatles. Ms. Streisand continues to be the highest-selling female recording artist ever and has had number one albums in each of the last four decades. Her number one albums span a period of over 39 years, the greatest longevity in that statistic for any recording artist or group.
The following double album, "Timeless", is a live recording, dating December 31, 1999 and January 1, 2000, from the MGM Grand Garden Arena:
The MGM Grand Hotel has signed
the superstar for an appearance on December 31, 1999, at the
13,000 seat MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas, it was announced by
Erlichman, the actress/singer/director's career-long manager,
and Richard Sturm, Senior Vice President-Worldwide Entertainment,
for MGM Grand Hotel, Inc.
Her total of thirty-nine gold record albums is exceeded only by Elvis Presley and The Beatles. For the millennium gala Barbra Streisand appeared on New Years Eve at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas, an engagement that was to be probably her final concert again.
Erlichman pointed out that Ms. Streisand historically had dedicated most of her creative time to her recording career, to her work as director, producer and actress in motion pictures and, recently, to her Barwood Films slate of issue-oriented motion pictures for television. He noted that prior to two MGM concerts just over five years ago, she had gone nearly three decades without performing for pay in public.
"My priorities have shifted," a newly-wed Streisand says, "I want to work less these days, travel and enjoy my life. If this concert goes well, I may decide later to appear in a few cities around the world that my husband and I would like to visit."
The New Years Eve engagement was the first public performance (other than a 1996 political fund-raiser for President Clinton) by Ms. Streisand since the conclusion of her 1994 six city tour, where she appeared with conductor-friend Marvin Hamlisch (amongst others) at the London Wembley Arena. Again Marvin Hamlisch was conducting the concert for Ms. Streisand, as he did for her last concert tour. Ticket prices for the New Years Eve event were ranging from $500 to $1500, with limited Golden Circle pricings at $2500.
Barbra Streisand has released an album with a festive themes amongst a mixture of covers and originals in 2001. In 2007 she went on tour again.
Statistics:
40 Gold Albums
25 Platinum Albums
13 Multiplatinum Albums
8 Gold Singles
5 Platinum Singles
4 Gold Videos
1 Platinum Video
1 Multiplatinum Video
