Barbra Streisand was born on April 24, 1942. Streisand is a singer, actress, and director whose sixty-year recording career encompasses about 50 albums. She is best known for her performances of standards and songs from musical theater, but also had a successful run as a mainstream pop singer in the 1970s and 1980s.
Streisand grew up with music in her family. Her mother had considered a career in music, and occasionally took jobs as a singer. Even as a child, Streisand says she “always wanted to be somebody, to be famous.” She auditioned (unsuccessfully) for MGM Records when she was only nine, and her mother helped her record her first demo tape when she was thirteen.
At 14, Streisand saw her first Broadway play and began to think more about acting. She spent music of her free time reading plays, books on acting, and biographies of great actresses. When she graduated from high school at 16, she began visiting casting offices and auditioning at New York theaters. It was at about this time that she dropped a “a” from “Barbara,” changing her name to “Barbra.”
In 1960, Streisand auditioned for the chorus of The Sound of Music; it was the first time she’s sung at an audition. She didn’t get the part, but the casting director encouraged her to take her singing more seriously. Within a few months, she’d gotten her first professional job as a singer, working as a nightclub opening act for comedian Phyllis Diller.
1962 was a breakthrough year for Streisand. She got her first Broadway job, in the musical I Can Get It For You Wholesale. It wasn’t a large role, but she made the most of her spotlight moment, the song “Miss Marmelstein,” and was nominated for a Tony Award. She also sang several songs for a 25th anniversary recording of the musical revue Pins and Needles, and began to appear frequently on TV talk and variety shows.
The Barbra Streisand Album was released in 1963, and it won two Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year. The next year, Streisand returned to Broadway, this time in a starring role. Funny Girl gave her two of her early signature songs, “People”, her first hit record, reaching #5 on the pop chart, and “Don’t Rain on My Parade.”
Streisand made her film debut in the movie version of Funny Girl in 1968, and won the Academy Award for her performance. As she accepted the Oscar, she greeted it with a cheerful “Hello, gorgeous!”
Streisand’s recording career was busy in the 1960s; for much of the decade, she released two albums each year. Her material usually wasn’t a fit with mainstream radio, which was dominated by the Beatles, folk, and psychedelia, though she did appear frequently on the adult contemporary charts, and returned to the pop chart in 1970 with a cover of Laura Nyro’s “Stoney End.”
Streisand had her most consistent success as a film actress in the 1970s, showing a gift for screwball comedy in What’s Up, Doc? and For Pete’s Sake. She received another Oscar nomination in 1973 for her first straight drama, The Way We Were, and scored her first #1 hit with the movie’s title song.
Streisand was back at the Oscars in 1976, this time as a songwriter. She and Paul Williams won the Best Song award for “Evergreen,” the love theme from the third film version of A Star Is Born, in which Streisand starred with Kris Kristofferson.
“Evergreen” also won two Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year, and was a #1 pop hit. That kicked off Streisand’s most successful era as a pop singer. She had three more #1 songs in the next four years— “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” a duet with former high school classmate Neil Diamond; “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough),” another duet, this one with disco queen Donna Summer; and “Woman in Love.”
“Woman in Love” was the lead single from Guilty, the best selling album of Streisand’s career. The cover photo shows Streisand embracing Barry Gibb, who produced the record, wrote or co-wrote all of the songs, and duetted with Streisand on some of them. They re-teamed 25 years later for the follow-up album Guilty Pleasures.
As an actress, Streisand had her first outright flop in 1981, with the comedy All Night Long. Her acting career slowed significantly after that disappointment. She’d averaged a movie a year in the 1970s; since All Night Long, she’s made only seven movies.
Part of the slowdown can be explained by the fact that Streisand also directed and produced three of those movies—Yentl, The Prince of Tides, a Best Picture nominee, and The Mirror Has Two Faces. Streisand received her fifth Oscar nomination for Mirror, as one of the songwriters of “I Finally Found Someone,” which she sang with Bryan Adams.
Streisand returned to her musical roots in 1985 with The Broadway Album, a collection of musical theater songs. Most of them were written by Stephen Sondheim, who wrote special lyrics for “Putting It Together” and “Send in the Clowns” to make the songs better suited to Streisand.
Throughout her career, Streisand has enjoyed collaborating with other singers. One of her most memorable early television appearances was on The Judy Garland Show, teaming for a ballad duet of their (usually upbeat) signature songs, Garland’s “Get Happy” and Streisand’s “Happy Days Are Here Again.” Beginning with Streisand’s pop-star era in the 1970s, she recorded so frequently with other artists that she eventually had enough collaborations to assemble a full album. Duets was released in 2002, and it included performances with Barry Manilow, Ray Charles, Celine Dion, Don Johnson, Kim Carnes, and Vince Gill. “If You Ever Leave Me,” her 1999 duet with Gill, had been a minor hit on the country charts, not someplace you’d expect to find Streisand!
Streisand has returned to collaborations in earnest in recent years, recording two full albums of new duets—2014’s Partners and 2016’s Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway. Her most recent album was released in 2018; Walls featured the single “Don’t Lie to Me,” which Streisand describes as a “bombastic” song arising from her anger about American politics.
Streisand has received virtually every career award you can imagine for her work in music and film—lifetime achievement awards from both the Grammy Awards and the American Film Institute, the Kennedy Center Honors, the National Medal of Arts, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Library of Congress added Funny Girl to its National Film Registry in 2016, and “People” to its National Recording Registry in 2017; both honors indicate work worthy of preservation as part of our national heritage. Four of Streisand’s recordings have been added to the Grammy Hall of Fame—The Barbra Streisand Album, the Broadway cast recording of Funny Girl, and the songs “People” and “The Way We Were.”
Freegal’s “Best of Barbra Streisand” playlist offers a good sampling of her career; most of the songs mentioned above are included. And almost all of Streisand’s albums, with the exception of a few movie soundtracks, are also available at Freegal for streaming or download.