Offers new revelations from behind the scenes about the singer-actress's early career in Greenwich Village, on Broadway, and in films, as well as her political activism, her relationships with her family, and her work on Prince of Tides. 125,000 first printing.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
Just as Barbra Streisand is a very big star, this is a very big book: lots of pages, lots of anecdotes, and lots of research. The result is a biography that's not just the usual cut-and-paste job. Film historian Riese seems to want to present an evenhanded portrait of Streisand, but without access to the people closest to her, it is mostly those with a gripe against her who get to speak. For instance, Riese presents a bevy of former friends who feel they were used and discarded by the star, but he virtually ignores the fact that her old boyfriends are still pals, that her best friend is a woman she met in the 1960s, and that her manager has been with her for almost 30 years. The best thing about this book is that, as a gathering of facts, it is amazingly complete. Riese recalls incidents that Streisand has probably forgotten. So for fans looking for a definitive biography of the events in Streisand's life, this will more than suffice. Readers who want a benevolent interpretation of those events, however, may have to look elsewhere. A big draw for the biography shelves. Ilene Cooper
From Kirkus Reviews
Big, strongly researched life of the actress/singer that gives a rich sense of her life as a human being--and as an outsized ego. According to Riese (The Unabridged James Dean, 1991, etc.--not reviewed), the death of Streisand's father at age 35, left unexplained by her mother, gave the future star fears of a similar early death. Moreover, since childhood, she has heard clicks and a wailing in her ears that may or may not be tied to emotional abuse she suffered from her wife-beating stepfather. With her younger, pretty sister Rosalind the family darling, Streisand did chores and washed floors as both Cinderella and the Ugly Duckling. Though her singing voice was early recognized in her Brooklyn neighborhood, she focused on acting in summer stock upstate and on acting lessons in Manhattan and has ever since declared herself an actress, not a singer, since her voice comes from her mother (whom she allots $1,000 monthly) but her acting talent from her own hard work. At 19, in her Broadway debut in I Can Get it for You Wholesale, she stopped the show--and then took off like a rocket, performing in supper clubs, making records, harmonizing on TV's The Judy Garland Show, and, at 23, blowing the theater critics to tatters as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl, which led to an Oscar for her film version. Though Riese apparently hasn't interviewed Streisand, he makes statements and assumptions about her emotional life that seem to be based on information from those close to her (``Despite sexist speculation that she was a pussycat on the Funny Girl set because she was being satisfied in bed [by her married hairdresser, Jon Peters], Barbra was her typically malcontent self during the production''). The star's directing and acting in The Prince of Tides takes up major space here. Warm, sometimes fanzine-toned treatment of an often gripping artist. (Twenty-four pages of photographs) (First serial to the National Enquirer) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Her Name is Ms. Streisand,
By This very "un-pretty," sexless, headstrong but very funny, and "driven" woman, repeatedly defied the very long odds society had stacked against her. As so few of us are able to do, Barbra, by always marching to the drummer inside her head, rather than to the cadence society had laid out for her, was able to use her considerable smarts, and her emerging but wildly untamed talents, to negotiate her own terms on life. Through the sheer force of her will, she became beautiful, sexy, famous, wealthy, and is thus the living example of T.S. Eliot's maxim in a poem called the "Confidential Clerk": "If you lack the courage to impose your terms on life then you must accept the terms it offers you." She is, along with Muhammad Ali, Richard Pryor and Miles Davis, one of my heroes. Barbra Streisand did not like the terms life had to offer her: of coming from an emotionless and very dysfunctional family, being an ugly Jewish girl with only modest talents and emerging into a superficial world controlled mostly by either misogynistic idiots, conformist freaks and "fakes." By the sheer force of her independence and the harnessing of her talents through her own penchant for perfection, she slipped the noose of the grim reaper and a possible certain trip to the "funny-farm," by turning all of her own lemons into lemonade. Not only did she thrive, becoming wildly successful at the age of nineteen, but also got to "thumb her nose" at those who wanted to control her, and thus she helped in her own very modest way to rearrange the deck chairs on the deck of America's so very ugly social order. With her considerable wealth she also was able to buy herself some happiness and find peace and a refuge from the more inane aspects of this world. Life's triumphs do not get much better than this. Five stars
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best Biography to Date,
By A Customer
This review is from: Her Name Is Barbra: An Intimate Portrait of the Real Barbra Streisand (Hardcover)
Though not perfect, this is Streisand's best biography for three reasons (1) it is well researched, (2) the author is not in awe of Streisand and avoids writing a tribute, and (3) it is interesting from beginning to end.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Lengthy,
By A Customer
This review is from: Her Name Is Barbra: An Intimate Portrait of the Real Barbra Streisand (Hardcover)
My biggest complaint is that Mr. Riese steps into the shoes of Streisand more often than he should. The research is good, but only as good as the people he has interviewed (the majority of whom hold a grudge against Streisand). There are statements in the book in which he actually tells us her thoughts, this is not only arrogant on his behalf, but unfair. I think he takes too much creative license. Good attempt though.
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