My Name Is Barbra

An amiable anteater ? That s how I was described at nineteen in one of my first reviews as a professional actress. I was in I Can Get It for You Wholesale, playing a lovelorn secretary, and I could see the comparison . . . sort of.

Over the next year, I was also called a sour persimmon, a furious hamster, a myopic gazelle, and a seasick ferret.

Yikes. Was I really that odd-­looking?

Only a year later, when I was in my second Broadway show, Funny Girl, my face was exactly the same, but now I was being compared to an ancient oracle, Nefertiti, and a Babylonian queen. I must say I loved those descriptions. Apparently I also had a Pharaonic profile and scarab eyes. I think that was supposed to be a compliment, though I have to admit one of those eyes does look cross-­eyed at times . . . and it seems like the Pharaoh also had a big schnoz. People kept telling me, Get it fixed. (I bet no one said that to him.)

But sometimes I ll just pick up a magazine in the dentist s office, for example. (I happen to like going to the dentist, because I love how my teeth feel after they re cleaned. It s also an hour of peace with no phone calls.) Once when I was waiting, I saw a story about Neil Diamond, who was a grade ahead of me at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn. Actually it was about his brother, who d invented some crazy bathtub that had a stereo system and all sorts of electronic gadgets (perfect . . . for getting electrocuted). And it s not cheap . . . fourteen thousand dollars! I m thinking, Who would ever buy such a thing? And then I read that I m one of his customers! I didn t even know my friend Neil had a brother, and now I m being used to sell his bathtub?!

That s irritating, but other stories cut deep. One night, my dear friend Andrzej Bartkowiak, a brilliant cinematographer who did two films and a documentary with me, came over for dinner. (Actually, he was cooking, because I m a

Barbra Streisand

Praise for My Name Is Barbra

"A 970-page victory lap past all who ever doubted, diminished or dissed her. . . . Exuberant and glorious. . . . There are just so many scintillating Streisands to contemplate over so many years: singer, actress, director, producer, philanthropist, activist, lover, mother, wife, friend, autobiographer."
Alexandra Jacobs, New York Times Book Review

"The book is undeniably moving it does not, even for a moment, read as false. . . . Streisand s chatty, discursive presence hums on every page. . . . Riveting . . . . All the usual memoir forms rear their heads. There s the sob story, the gallant bildungsroman, the louche chronicle of various addictive behaviors, the righteous making of an activist, the victory lap. Streisand s book, in its sheer breadth and largesse, attempts to be all of these things, and thus becomes something incredibly rare. . . . If something interests her, then it is interesting, full stop. In a way, she draws on an old-fashioned idea of celebrity: to be a star is to be golden, and to make everything you touch look the same. . . . Streisand has never thought it necessary to contain herself, and there s no reason to start now."
Rachel Syme, The New Yorker

"The celebrity memoir I've coveted most is that of the singular Ms. Barbra Streisand. . . . We don't see a diva, we see a genius. . . .  In a society that tends to value women's passivity while lauding their accomplishments in hindsight, it's a distinct pleasure to look back with My Name Is Barbra and marvel at how the real she came to be."
Brittany Luse, NPR
 
[My Name Is Barbra is] enlightening. It s shake-your-head funny and hand-to-mouth surprising. The lady who wrote it is in touch with herself, loves being herself. . . . Streisand s boundlessness, her capaciousness the lack of precedent for her whole-enchilada ambitions, the daffiness, the sexiness, the talent,