You can’t understand Barbra Streisand if you don’t know the famous story of her audition for I Can Get It For You Wholesale, which ended up being her big break. She made a splash in her Broadway debut, which of course was just a prelude to the superstardom which came with Funny Girl. You can’t understand Barbra Streisand if you don’t understand the revolution that she was, a revolution born out of beauty-standards – those beauty standards rooted in anti-Semitism, and shutting out “the other”. The Anglo-Saxon dominance not an accident. You have to understand all of these things. You can thrill to her voice, but you must get the context. The rise of Barbra Streisand was a revolution.
But how did this revolution happen? On a deep-down level, confounding if you examine it too closely, it happened because she believed in herself more than other people – including her mother, including the world – believed in her. She believed in herself so much that she walked into that audition with an entire FAKE backstory set up, a make-believe which set her free. Did she need such trickery? Wasn’t her voice – a once-in-a-generation voice – enough? Clearly not. She had to believe in herself so much that she literally forced others – who only saw her “ethnic” features and thought them ugly – to believe.
Michael Shurtleff gave us an eyewitness account in his essential book Audition. He sat in the theatre, watching an unknown teenage girl audition for the Broadway show, I Can Get It for You Wholesale.
Even when you know the story, when you accept that yes, Barbra Streisand did all this, the question remains: Why? How? How did she get the NOIVE? There was no gum?? Barbra!!
I had Barbra Streisand audition a couple of times for shows and the reaction was:’She sings great, but what can we do with a girl who looks like that?’ Along came I Can Get It For You Wholesale. I thought the role of Miss Marmelstein might just fit Miss Streisand.
I scheduled her last on the day of auditions. She arrived late, rushed onstage in her raccoon coat, explaining she was late because she’d seen the most marvelous shoes in a thrift shop window and just had to go in to get them. Only one of each pair fit, but she loved them anyhow and didn’t we think they were wonderful? She was wearing two unmatched shoes. She started to sing and then stopped after two notes, chewing gum all through this rapid-fire monologue, saying she must have a stool, could anyone find a stool for her, please? By this time the auditors were muttering to me, ‘Where did you find this nut?’ She sang the first two notes of her song, then stopped again. This time to take the gum from her mouth and squash it on the underside of the stool. THEN she sang. She mesmerized ’em. They asked her to sing two more. After that, they converged on the stage to explore their new discovery up close.
David Merrick, who was the producer, took me to the back of the house alone.
‘I thought I told you,’ he said,’that I don’t want ugly girls in my shows!”
‘I know, David, but she’s so talented.’
‘Talented, shmalented. I don’t want ugly girls in my shows.’
‘But –‘
‘There’s no buts! Look at them, swarming all over her. They love her! What am I going to do now? I’ll never get rid of her!’
Then – when Miss Streisand and all the others had gone, Mr. Laurents called me back. He was alone, sitting onstage on the stool Miss Streisand had commandeered.
‘Look at this.’ Arthur Laurents said to me. ‘Run your hand over the bottom of this stool.’
I did. There was no gum. She hadn’t recovered her gum. Arthur had been watching to see if she would. There had never been any gum.
‘My God,’ said Arthur. ‘What have we got on our hands here?’
It was the first inkling of what an incredible actress this young singer was: an adventuress who at 18 had her shit together so strong, she took the risk of putting on an act about a raccoon coat, shoes that didn’t match, a stool, and a piece of imaginary gum.
It wasn’t long after that, Mr. Merrick was paying her $5,000 a week to do Funny Girl and she was the biggest star on Broadway.
Camille Paglia, in her essay on Streisand (“Brooklyn Nefertiti: Barbra Streisand”), wrote:
There has always been a conflict in Barbra Streisand, as in Oscar Wilde, between her populist politics and her aristocratic and tyrannical persona. In early pictures, with her hair swept back, she looks so grand, like a Russian duchess. This is what gay guys liked about her – the arrogant, monarchical diva hood, which is definitely not democratic. Streisand has always been a kind of drag queen herself. That’s true of Sandra Bernhard too, and it’s true of me and of a lot of women who didn’t feel particularly feminine when they were growing up. For women like that, by the time you figure out what femininity is, you’ve become a female impersonator.
I’ve written in Sexual Personae that all the great stars imitated by gay men – Mae West, Marlene Dietrich, Bette Davis, Diana Ross, Joan Collins, and Barbra Streisand – are androgynous. That’s why their romantic relationships are so bad, because they are autocratic and autonomous. As artists, they need no one else.
Streisand performing “He Touched Me” in her massive Central Park concert in 1967, for me, is peak Barbra, although those early years have so many peaks. This is one of those performances where, no matter how many time I’ve watched it, and it has to be in the 100s now, my whole body – yes, my whole body – shivers with goosebumps as she reaches that final section. I am typing this now and have goosebumps just typing it. It is a purely physical phenomenon – rare in my experience. Elvis’ “If I Can Dream” does that. Whitney Houston’s Star-Spangled Banner. Judy Garland’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “Ol’ Man River” do that. James Brown on the TAMI Show. Involuntary full-body response. Each time. Always. I’m never “over it”.
One of THE reading experiences last year was reading her memoir. It was a treasure trove at over 1,000 pages. It was so fun because everybody I knew was reading it at the same time. So we’d text each other. “Did you get to this part yet?” “Where are you in the book?” I know pretty much everything about her, at least biography-wise, but she’s so private in other ways that the book was a revelation. I was thrilled at how much she wrote about her process! Her acting process! It’s so in-depth, she does so much research, and just hearing how she thinks about those things was so interesting. Answers to the questions no one asks her.
I’ll let my friend Mitchell have the final word. On occasion, at different story-telling events, he has performed the following piece he wrote, complete with audio-visual clips to accompany, which he calls “The Tao of Barbra“.
“I arrived in Hollywood without having my nose fixed, my teeth capped, or my name changed. That is very gratifying to me.” — Barbra Streisand
I just love the story of that audition. I understand Barbra deeply in that moment because I, too, felt the burden of having to overcome society’s distain for certain physical features. I could almost tell you the second that a new acquaintance would switch from judging me for my physicality and focusing on the other aspects of myself, my humor or intelligence or thoughtfulness. I think Barbra knew that she would not succeed if all she was putting out there was her looks plus talent. She had to create a scenario where people could start to perceive her unique qualities once they let go of judging her for her looks. I’m reminded, oddly, of Katherine Hepburn‘s performance as Eva Lovelace in Morning Glory. She is sitting in a producer’s waiting room, chatting with an older actor. She knows the moment when the old actor sees beyond her presentation to her originality. She says something that acknowledges that there has been enough time for him to see beyond the surface. We’re talking five minutes here, but those five minutes are critical to get to the other side of people’s prejudices. It’s pretty fascinating. I love this! XOXO Stevie
Stevie! I love your perspective on this. thank you so much for sharing it.
I love the LENGTHS she went to to set up this “kooky” narrative – which in a way was a bait and switch. Look at me, all hapless, with different shoes, and crazy clothes, and I bet you’re underestimating me, and then I start to sing and …
So it’s almost like her talent was also an indictment of the people who literally were just underestimating/dissing her?
Is it that deep? It’s almost like she was playing around – (albeit dead serious) – with ideas of first-impressions, and what she knew the world wanted women to look like and singers to sound like, etc. Like she had to construct it beforehand. “Okay so what will give me the biggest chance of having them actually perceiving me? Should I arrive late? Should I be awkward? Should I wear nutty clothes? Hmmm maybe I should chew gum.” She’s literally movie-directing this totally fake scenario.
// She knows the moment when the old actor sees beyond her presentation to her originality. /
I know just the moment you mean.
Hepburn too had an uphill battle – even though that seems a little insane right now. But she was just so different. People just couldn’t even SEE her because she didn’t fit into their classification structure.
love you stevie! Happy babs day!
and wasn’t her bio in the I Can get It For You Wholesale Playbill completely phony-baloney?
“Streisand was born in Rangoon …”
or something like that? She was soooo smart about these things. Create a mystique – she’s so OBVIOUSLY from New York – but by clouding the reality of it – by not earnestly listing her credits – she basically cloaked herself in mystery so she could come from anywhere / nowhere / everywhere. Also, it doesn’t MATTER where she was born. all that matters was the talent.
I love that she was (still is) so awkward in many ways and yet the power of her self-belief is just … I mean, it’s outRAGEOUS, stevie!
Beauty is such a funny thing. When I was little, my parents had the Funny Girl record- which I listened to obsessively. The narrative of that record was that Fanny Price wasn’t pretty ( but she WAS a charismatic star). Later I saw Barbara Streisand in a movie or two and just assumed- yep, she’s not pretty- because she didn’t look like the starlets on mainstream TV/movies of the 80s. When I finally saw Funny Girl, I was shocked by how pretty I thought Streisand was. I guess I changed. Beauty standards may have changed a bit too. I don’t think beauty is nearly as important as I used to, but it certainly does have power. What’s interesting to me is that- to some degree- beauty is unstable. So many forces impact our perception of it: time, culture, age, symbols. Regardless, of “beauty” I am grateful to Ms. Streisand for her fierce determination. She knew she had something more important than conventional beauty and she was – so efficiently!- able to persuade others through creative strategy. Sounds like I need to read this book!
Thank you for your perspective on this. really interesting!
She almost single-handedly changed the beauty standard – at least as far as Hollywood was concerned. I, of course, think she’s drop dead gorgeoous – but as you say that’s kind of not really the real issue. Or what is important. It’s all about perception. The idea that this Jewish girl with the big nose could be a Leading Lady in a Romantic Movie – with someone like Robert Redford falling in love with her – was a revolution and it opened so many doors for so many people. Or if not actual doors then something even more important – the change of perception thing. We’d never be quite so blithely unconsciously WASP-y again. And the negative reaction to Barbra – which you still see now – often has a whiff of anti-Semitism in it, along with misogyny – almost like “who the hell does this broad think she is?” there’s this whole “how DARE she” thing going on in the tone of negative criticisms of her. The same revolution was happening on the male side of the aisle in the 60s and 70s, when people like Dustin Hoffman became a legit leading men – or George Segal – Elliot Gould – to not be euphemistic: Jewish men in leading roles, romantic leading men, not playing sidekicks to the goys.
It’s a pretty heavy trip to put on a teenage girl who happened to be this amazing singer and actress but … that’s just the way it went down. Her memoir is so damn long – but it’s so worth it. I’ve heard the audio book is great too – the whole thing already sounds like she’s just talking to you. she’ll stop herself after some rambling (interesting) story and say “now where was I? Oh yes, back to that moment on the beach …” It’s very chatty. I was sorry when I finished it!
Love what you say here, And yes- I do think anti-semitism is a feature in our cultural perception of Barbara. It’s interesting how bigotry works- I am sure my early take on Barbara’s beauty was infected by anti-semitism, while at the same time I had no overt “anti-Jewish” feeling. It took a long time to see the connection, and even how it played out in my perception of myself and other women I knew. I had other elusive prejudices growing up – and it was freeing when I finally saw them through luck and circumstance. Bigotry is so subtle and messy that way.
And wow- “almost single-handedly” is crazy. yet, it does often seem to shift that way. Poitier stands out as an another “almost single-handed” example, but I think there are many.
Poitier is a great example. It’s a huge burden – to be “the first” – because you are forced to be a symbol of something, as opposed to just a regular actor like every other actor.
I feel like Babs’ symbolic nature was almost obliterated by her sheer takeover of the entire industry – conquering every realm of it – and, even more irritating to those who didn’t like her – moving very quickly into the producer/director realm. Don’t even get me started on how she was treated as a director. If this were a sane world, she would have directed 15 films instead of three. People were just so resentful – again with the “who the hell does this mouthy Jewish entitled broad think she is?” thing. I always think of Steven Spielberg’s comment on Yentl being nominated for 5 Oscars – excluding Barbra for Best Director: “I guess the movie directed itself, huh.”
Not that anyone is entitled to an oscar nomination, lol, but excluding her, not giving her the full props, is definitely a THING – especially when you compare her to male directors and how over-praised they often are. The audience gave Babs all the flowers – over and over again – her audience has been loyal for 60 years – but the industry has been reluctant – because she won the game on her own terms. She proved them wrong and they HATE being proved wrong.