“In retrospect, it was much more fun to dream of being famous than to actually be famous,” writes Barbra Streisand towards the end of My Name Is Barbra, her new memoir. “I didn’t like all the ridiculous stories that were invented, or the envy that my success generated.” Extracted from the 970 pages of the book, here is her version of a thoroughly examined life, filled with triumphs and disappointments, love affairs and famous friends, anxiety and antiques, and (always) food. She has a lot to say about the men in her life. Streisand lost her father at 15 months old and didn’t get along with her stepfather, but she loved her grandfather very much, “even though he once washed my mouth out with soap when I said a swear word. But I knew he loved me. I would sit on his lap and cut the hairs that grew out of his ear. Now that’s intimacy.” She met Marlon Brando, her teenage love, after singing at a charity gala, when “suddenly I felt someone kissing my back. Who would dare to do that? I turned around and it was him.” When she protested, he told her, “You can’t have a back like that and not have it kissed.” One of their phone farewells was: “I kiss you softly on the inside of your thigh and on your lips.” In the 1990s, he came to visit her for dinner and “he couldn’t get out of the car,” Streisand writes. “He had gained so much weight that he got stuck behind the wheel, and I had to grab him by the arms and pull him out.” Later, he rubbed her feet and talked to her about when he filmed On the Waterfront. “Did I sleep with Warren?” she asked herself after a recent phone call with Warren Beatty (they know each other from their summer theater days). “I seem to remember that I did. I suppose I did. Probably once.” Once she forgot the lyrics to a song during her 1967 show “A Happening in Central Park” and that prevented her from singing live for 27 years. “I felt a complete lack of control and it was terrifying,” she writes. (Well, she did a few concerts in Las Vegas during that time). Among those who attended her comeback tour in 1994 were Prince Charles, Sidney Poitier, Gregory Peck, Nancy Pelosi, Ralph Fiennes, Jesse Jackson, Sean Connery, John Travolta, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and CNN political analyst Bill Schneider. Backstage, Streisand writes, “the first thing I said to him was, ‘Why the hell is Alan Greenspan raising interest rates?'” She knows a lot of people. In 1960, Streisand was third on the bill for a show at the Bon Soir social club, and Phyllis Diller was the headliner. After critics commented that the young woman’s vintage clothing looked like a “trick,” Diller bought her “an expensive cocktail dress,” but “it wasn’t my style,” Streisand writes. “How could I tell her? She had been so kind and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. But if I didn’t wear it, she would surely notice, so I had to explain. I asked her if she would mind if I returned the dress and used the money to buy fabric and have something made for me. She understood perfectly. What a relief!” Streisand and Joan Rivers, then Joan Molinsky, were in a play called Driftwood. “She seemed funny… even though the play wasn’t a comedy… and I felt very fortunate to come from a wealthy family on Long Island. Not only did I have a father, but he was also a doctor! Wow!” She met President John F. Kennedy after singing “Happy Days Are Here Again” for him at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. He told her she had a beautiful voice, and she replied, “You’re charming.” Nearly 20 years later, Kennedy’s widow, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who was then working as an editor for Doubleday, contacted Streisand to write her memoirs. “I think there is a deeply moving book inside of you,” Onassis wrote to her. “Your book would be enriching for many people, and I think it could be very enlightening for you.” Streisand met Virginia Clinton, Bill’s mother, at the Arkansas Ball, and she became a surrogate mother figure to the singer, so much so that in a photograph where Streisand and her real mother appear, Virginia is the one holding Barbra’s hand. Wait… did the biggest hit of Aerosmith, “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” written by Diane Warren, get inspired by a pillow talk conversation that James Brolin and Streisand had with Barbara Walters on the 20/20 show? Who would’ve thought? Prince (but not the Prince of Tides) was also a fan of Streisand. “When he was 18 years old, in December 1976, he liked A Star is Born so much that he saw it six times,” she recounts. “The movie poster was the only thing hanging on the wall in his room. He even recorded a demo of ‘Evergreen’.” She hates cooking… but loves eating. “I burn water,” Streisand writes, but some of her most memorable treats are: Automat yams, a fast-food restaurant, and roast pork with mayonnaise on soft white bread from a non-Jewish deli. “Delicious.” Fruit. When she became famous, “I was excited to be able to buy as many slices of sweet melon as I wanted and only eat the ripest parts. To me, that was the height of luxury.” Quenelles. Composer Marvin Hamlisch “was one of the few people who knew what they were and could recommend a restaurant that served them.” Rice pudding. No raisins! Coffee ice cream. No chocolate chips! Pastrami, though with a side of wisdom: “No matter who you are, you can only eat one pastrami sandwich at a time,” she writes. She loved her dog Sammie so much that she cloned her. After Sammie, Streisand’s beloved Coton de Tulear, passed away, she adopted another puppy, Fanny, and then learned that the cloning lab she had turned to had unexpectedly produced not one, but two dogs, Violet and Scarlet, who “look so much alike that I had to put lavender and red silk flowers on their collars to tell them apart… It’s fascinating to see certain traits that remind me of Sammie, but each of these beloved creatures is a unique being. You can clone the appearance of a dog, but not its soul.” [All excerpts have been translated from English; a Spanish edition is not yet available]
