Barbra Streisand, singer, writer, producer, director, actress, composer, designer, photographer and activist.

She was born to Jewish parents on April 24, 1942 in Brooklyn, New York! Her father’s parents emigrated from Poland and Ukraine; Her mother’s parents emigrated from Russia, where her grandfather had been a cantor. Barbra’s father died when she was just 15 months old. Her mother then worked as a bookkeeper, and struggled to support themselves. The result was that Barbra didn’t receive adequate attention from her mother. “When I wanted love from my mother, she gave me food.” Barbra attended the Jewish Orthodox Yeshiva of Brooklyn. “I always wanted to be somebody, to be famous, you know, get out of Brooklyn.”  She made her debut as a child at a PTA meeting. She was determined to become an actress, especially when at age 14 she saw her 1st Broadway play, The Diary of Anne Frank starring Susan Strasberg. As a teenager she studied the lives of actresses Eleanora Duse and Sarah Bernhardt, and the acting methods of Stanislavski. In high school she joined the chorus, where she sang alongside her classmate, Neil Diamond. Around that time, she acted in the play Driftwood with Joan Rivers. After graduation at age 16, leaving the unpleasant situation with her mother, she moved out on her own, took any theatrical jobs she could get, such as ushering, and knocked on the doors of many casting offices. She often stayed at the homes of various friends on her army cot. According to Barbra, her mother had a great voice, but not once complimented nor praised her daughter’s talent in those years. Her mother begged her not to try to go into show business. That only made Barbra even more determined: “My desires were strengthened by wanting to prove to my mother that I could be a star.”

At 18 she won a talent contest at a gay nightclub in NYC. She then landed a steady job at another club as the opening act for comedian Phyllis Diller. Her salary was $125 per week. She soon was asked by the playwright Arthur Laurents to appear on Broadway in the musical comedy, I Can Get it for You Wholesale. Barbra received a Tony nomination and the NY Drama Critics’ Prize for best supporting actress. She was 1st seen on TV as a guest on the Tonight Show in 1961, and appeared several times on the PM East PM West show hosted by Mike Wallace. She soon appeared on several Bob Hope specials, and the Ed Sullivan and Mike Douglas shows. And the pianist, Liberace brought her to Las Vegas as his opening act. In 1963 she married actor Elliot Gould, with whom she had her only child, actor and singer Jason Gould.

In 1963 she recorded The Barbra Streisand Album, her 1st, which rose to the top 10 on the Billboard chart and won 3 Grammy awards, resulting in her becoming the best-selling female vocalist in the country. She soon thereafter recorded The 2nd Barbra Streisand Album.
In 1964 she appeared again on Broadway in Funny Girl, and was soon featured on the cover of Time magazine. 2 years later she performed Funny Girl in London.

At age 25 during a huge concert in NY’s Central Park before an audience of 135,000 fans, she forgot the words to two of the songs. This had a dramatic effect on her. For the next 27 years she refused to sing in public again, terrified that she would not remember all the words. She confined her work to recording studios and making movies. And it was only when teleprompters were invented and became available to her that she resumed singing in front of audiences. Streisand never listens to her own recordings, and because of her severe stage fright, actually does not enjoy performing. She doesn’t sing at home, not even in the shower. She prefers the informal, private atmosphere of the recording studio for singing.

Streisand has spoken of being proud to be Jewish, and described herself as “a Jewess through and through, although I’m not religious.” She has been generous to Jewish causes and philanthropies in the United States and in Israel, such as her donation of the Emanuel Streisand Building for Jewish Studies, a gift she made to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in memory of her father. At a concert during the Six-Day War in 1967, Streisand had such a deep-rooted fear of being assassinated for her outspoken support of Israel that she continuously weaved around the stage to make herself a more difficult target for any potential sniper attack. In 1978 she performed for the 30th anniversary of the State of Israel, during which she broadcast a telephone conversation with Golda Meir, Israel’s 4th Prime Minister.

In 1968 she appeared with Harry Belafonte at the Hollywood Bowl to benefit the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Poor People’s Campaign, which had been started by Dr. Martin Luther King.

Her 1st four TV specials were televised between 1965 and 1968. Also in ’68 she won an Academy Award for best actress for her performance in the movie Funny Girl. In 1969 she starred in the movie Hello Dolly with Walter Matthau.

In 1969 and ’70 Streisand dated the Canadian Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, the father of Justin Trudeau. In 1973 she had a relationship with the hairdresser and producer Jon Peters, who later became her manager and producer. In 1969 together with Paul Newman, Sidney Poitier and Steve McQueen she established the 1st artists production company for actors to secure and develop movie projects for themselves. And in 1972 she formed the Barwood Films production studio.

In 1973 Streisand co-starred in The Way We Were with Robert Redford. Its theme song, The Way We Were won an Academy Award, became a million-selling gold single, and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Her 2nd Academy Award was in 1976 for best original song for her song Evergreen in the movie A Star is Born. Her 1st efforts as producer, director and star was in 1983 for the movie Yentl, which received 5 Academy Award nominations. She was also the co-author of the script with Jack Rosenthal.

In 1992 she spearheaded a boycott of Colorado ski resorts when that state denied gay men and lesbians any legal recourse against even the most blatant homophobia. “We must refuse to play where they discriminate. I know that I can speak more eloquently through my work than through any speech I might give. So, as an artist, I’ve chosen to make films about subjects and social issues I care about, whether it’s the inequality of women, or about being discharged from the army for one’s sexuality.” Streisand is also a longtime Democratic fundraiser. She has raised 25 million dollars for various organizations, and through her foundation, has donated 16 million for the protection of the environment, voter education, the protection of civil liberties and civil rights, women’s issues, nuclear disarmament and climate change initiatives. She has produced such TV films as Rescuers: Stories of Courage, that pays tribute to rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust.
The Streisand Foundation funds charities close to her heart. Her 1994 concert tour set box-office records and generated over ten million dollars for charity. In 2000 Streisand announced that she was retiring from giving live performances. Yet in 2006 she sang 20 concerts on a tour of the U.S. that grossed more than 92 million dollars. When asked why she performs, Streisand said that it is not for the money. “I have enough money, thank God, and the only reason I want it, is to give it away. There’s nothing more I need.”

For 5 years in the 80s she lived with Richard Baskin, of the Baskin-Robbins ice cream family. She also dated Richard Gere and Clint Eastwood in the 80s. And in the early 90s, Peter Jennings, Jon Voight, and the tennis champion, Andre Agassi, 28 years her junior!
She is alleged to have had affairs with Bill Clinton and Prince Charles. In fact she told an audience in London: “If I had played my cards right I could have become the 1st Jewish Princess!”

In 1995 Streisand spoke at Harvard Univ. about the role of the artist as citizen in support of arts programs and funding. She has been an outspoken supporter of voter rights advocacy, and gay rights, including same sex marriage. In 1998 she married actor, James Brolin. In 2009 she sold 526 of her possessions at an auction to benefit her foundation.

The following year, she collaborated with 20 others in recording a new version of We Are the World, to benefit relief aid for Haiti, 2 weeks after the massive, destructive earthquake there.
Beginning in 2009 when Streisand learned that more women in the U.S. die from heart attacks than all types of cancer combined, she endowed the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. The program researches women’s cardiovascular disease. By 2012 she had raised 22 million dollars and personally donated 10 million.

In 2013 she made her 1st concert tour of Israel, including a performance of the Israeli national anthem, Hatikva, for its former Prime Minister, Shimon Peres, to celebrate his 90th birthday.

Streisand has recorded 50 albums. By the ’70s she was named the most successful female singer in the U.S. She’s also the highest-paid singer in history. She is the only recording artist whose albums became #1 in each of the past 6 decades. In fact she has recorded 52 gold albums and 31 platinum albums. Barbra Streisand is the recipient of the Israel Freedom Medal, the Scopus Award of the American Friends of The Hebrew Univ., honorary doctorate degrees from Brandeis Univ. and the Hebrew Univ of Jerusalem, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Arts, the 1st Annual Jewish Image Award, the Legion of Honor, and the Kennedy Center Honors. Billboard magazine ranked her as the top female Jewish musician of all time. The movie Funny Girl was selected for preservation by the Library of Congress in the National Film Registry, and the song People was selected for preservation in the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry.

She was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Long Island Music Hall of Fame, and the National Museum of American Jewish History. She has been nominated for 43 Grammy awards, and has won 8 of them. She is also the recipient of 2 Academy Awards, and 2 Oscars. She’s created 17 TV specials, and of the 19 movies she’s made, she directed 3 of them, which received 14 Oscar nominations. She is the recipient of the Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame 4 times. She is the honorary chairwoman of the board of directors of Hadassah’s International Research Institute on Women. Streisand worked on writing her autobiography for years. It was published in 2023. The memoir spans 970 pages, while the audiobook, read by the author, exceeds 48 hours. She lives in Malibu, California overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

In 2018 she stated that because of her stage fright, she was not going to sing before audiences again. That year she spoke about the danger she believed Donald Trump posed to the U.S., and recorded the album Walls as a protest to Trump. One of its songs is titled Don’t Lie to Me. It also features Streisand singing John Lennon’s Imagine. In January of 2017 she spoke at the historic Women’s March in Los Angeles.

In June of 2020 Streisand gave George Floyd’s 6-year-old daughter two of her albums, My Name Is Barbra and Color Me Barbra. Streisand stated: “I sent Gianna videos where I played a little girl in my first television special singing kid songs and my second special a sequence with lots of baby animals.” Streisand also gifted George Floyd’s daughter shares of Walt Disney stock.