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The long-awaited memoir by the superstar of stage, screen, recordings, and television PLEASE NOTE The audiobook edition is read by Barbra Streisand. Features additional anecdotes and music that are exclusive to the My Name is Barbra audiobook. Barbra Streisand is by any account a living legend, a woman who in a career spanning six decades has excelled in every area of entertainment. She is among the handful of EGOT winners (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) and has one of the greatest and most recognizable voices in the history of popular music. She has been nominated for a Grammy 46 times, and with Yentl she became the first woman to write, produce, direct, and star in a major motion picture. In My Name Is Barbra, she tells her own story about her life and extraordinary career, from growing up in Brooklyn to her first star-making appearances in New York nightclubs to her breakout performance in Funny Girl on stage and winning the Oscar for that performance on film. Then came a long string of successes in every medium in the years that followed. The book is, like Barbra herself, frank, funny, opinionated, and charming. She recounts her early struggles to become an actress, eventually turning to singing to earn a living; the recording of some of her acclaimed albums; the years of effort involved in making Yentl; her direction of The Prince of Tides; her friendships with figures ranging from Marlon Brando to Madeleine Albright; her political advocacy; and the fulfillment she’s found in her marriage to James Brolin.
No entertainer’s memoir has been more anticipated than Barbra Streisand’s, and this engrossing and delightful book will be eagerly welcomed by her millions of fans.
The long-awaited memoir by the superstar of stage, screen, recordings, and television PLEASE NOTE The audiobook edition is read by Barbra Streisand. Features additional anecdotes and music that are exclusive to the My Name is Barbra audiobook. Barbra Streisand is by any account a living legend, a woman who in a career spanning six decades has excelled in every area of entertainment. She is among the handful of EGOT winners (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) and has one of the greatest and most recognizable voices in the history of popular music. She has been nominated for a Grammy 46 times, and with Yentl she became the first woman to write, produce, direct, and star in a major motion picture. In My Name Is Barbra, she tells her own story about her life and extraordinary career, from growing up in Brooklyn to her first star-making appearances in New York nightclubs to her breakout performance in Funny Girl on stage and winning the Oscar for that performance on film. Then came a long string of successes in every medium in the years that followed. The book is, like Barbra herself, frank, funny, opinionated, and charming. She recounts her early struggles to become an actress, eventually turning to singing to earn a living; the recording of some of her acclaimed albums; the years of effort involved in making Yentl; her direction of The Prince of Tides; her friendships with figures ranging from Marlon Brando to Madeleine Albright; her political advocacy; and the fulfillment she’s found in her marriage to James Brolin.
No entertainer’s memoir has been more anticipated than Barbra Streisand’s, and this engrossing and delightful book will be eagerly welcomed by her millions of fans.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Excerpts-
From the cover
An “amiable anteater”? That’s how I was described at nineteen in one of my first reviews as a professional actress. I was in I Can Get It for You Wholesale, playing a lovelorn secretary, and I could see the comparison . . . sort of.
Over the next year, I was also called “a sour persimmon,” “a furious hamster,” “a myopic gazelle,” and “a seasick ferret.”
Yikes. Was I really that odd-looking?
Only a year later, when I was in my second Broadway show, Funny Girl, my face was exactly the same, but now I was being compared to “an ancient oracle,” “Nefertiti,” and “a Babylonian queen.” I must say I loved those descriptions. Apparently I also had a “Pharaonic profile and scarab eyes.” I think that was supposed to be a compliment, though I have to admit one of those eyes does look cross-eyed at times . . . and it seems like the Pharaoh also had a big schnoz. People kept telling me, “Get it fixed.” (I bet no one said that to him.)
But sometimes I’ll just pick up a magazine in the dentist’s office, for example. (I happen to like going to the dentist, because I love how my teeth feel after they’re cleaned. It’s also an hour of peace with no phone calls.) Once when I was waiting, I saw a story about Neil Diamond, who was a grade ahead of me at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn. Actually it was about his brother, who’d invented some crazy bathtub that had a stereo system and all sorts of electronic gadgets (perfect . . . for getting electrocuted). And it’s not cheap . . . fourteen thousand dollars! I’m thinking, Who would ever buy such a thing? And then I read that I’m one of his customers! I didn’t even know my friend Neil had a brother, and now I’m being used to sell his bathtub?!
That’s irritating, but other stories cut deep. One night, my dear friend Andrzej Bartkowiak, a brilliant cinematographer who did two films and a documentary with me, came over for dinner. (Actually, he was cooking, because I’m a hazard in the kitchen. I can burn water.)
Andrzej had been to see his friend earlier (a medical doctor, by the way) and happened to mention that he was having dinner with me. The doctor said, “I hear she’s a bitch.”
“What?” said Andrzej. “What are you talking about?”
“She’s impossible to work with.”
“That’s ridiculous. Have you ever worked with her?”
“No.”
“Well, I have . . . three times . . . and she’s wonderful to work with. In fact, she’s a very nice person.”
“No, she isn’t. She’s a bitch. I read it in a magazine!”
That’s the power of the printed word.
And there was no hope of changing this man’s mind. He chose to believe some writer who had never met me, rather than the person who really knows me. That upsets me deeply. Why couldn’t he accept the truth?
For forty years, publishers have been asking me to write my autobiography. But I kept turning them down, because I prefer to live in the present rather than dwell on the past. And the fact is, I’m scared that after six decades of people making up stories about me, I’m going to tell the truth, and nobody is going to believe it.
Recently, my husband, Jim, and I were driving home from a movie...
Reviews-
Starred review from December 4, 2023 Streisand’s long-anticipated debut memoir doesn’t disappoint. Utilizing her own journals, her mother’s scrapbooks, and interviews with colleagues and friends, the decorated singer and actor delivers a thoroughly enjoyable survey of her life and career that—even at nearly 1,000 pages—never overstays its welcome. Streisand begins with her teenage adventures fleeing her emotionally distant mother and stepfather’s Brooklyn apartment for Manhattan, where she and a friend went to see Broadway plays and where she eventually moved and got her first taste of showbiz success singing in nightclubs. From there, she dives deep into her key projects and famous relationships, writing of being booted off the Billboard top two by the Beatles (“Their sound was sensational, so I had no complaints”), developing stage fright during her star-making turn in the Broadway musical Funny Girl, and falling in love with leading men from Elliott Gould to James Brolin. The tone throughout is delightfully garrulous, often verging on conspiratorial: Streisand offers detailed descriptions of not only who she rubbed elbows with, but what everyone ate, what they wore, how the room was decorated, and what she really thought about it all (at one point, she returns a dress Phyllis Diller bought her so she can use the money to purchase fabric for a custom design). That combination of fastidiousness and looseness, mixed with Streisand’s natural humor, makes for a deliriously entertaining autobiography that gathers heft from the sheer breadth of its author’s experiences and achievements. This is a gift.
Starred review from February 1, 2024
The only thing more enticing for Streisand fans than reading her long-awaited nearly 1,000-page memoir is spending 48 hours listening to her read it. The audiobook will be even more in demand when patrons discover the bonus material: there are samplings from 50 Streisand songs sprinkled through the audiobook, including "People," "Stoney End," "Evergreen," "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)," and live versions of "My Man" and "Silent Night." One song that gets more space than most is "How Deep Is the Ocean," Streisand's duet with son Jason Gould, whom she generously gives time to shine. An even better bonus is Streisand ad-libbing additional asides into her reading. These are usually just an extra sentence or two, but they add intimacy to the audio. At one point, she reads from her memoir about recording a make-it-yourself record at age 15 on December 29, 1959, and then ad-libs, "Oh my gosh. Can you imagine? My son was born on December 29th. I've always been fascinated by numbers." Streisand's writing style is conversational, which enhances the warmth of her reading. VERDICT A spectacular and heartfelt memoir, written with invigorating passion and read with endearing humor.--Kevin Howell
Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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