Hello, Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisand

by William J. Mann

  Of course, Barbra did talk fast and furious, but this was way, way over the top. “I was bald until I was two,” Barbra rambled on. “I think I’m some sort of Martian. I exist on my will power, being Taurus. I hate the name Barbara; I dropped the second ‘a,’ and I think I’ll gradually cut the whole thing down to B. That will save exertion in handwriting. I sometimes call myself Angelina Scarangella, which won’t.” There was much more in a similar vein. At the close of the piece, Barbra said, “I like interviews—they’re still a novelty—but by the time they appear they look funny to me, because my attitude changes from week to week.” Which attitudes, she was asked. “Oh, toward smoked foods, say,” she replied—a reference to PM East, where the whole kook image had been born. The New Yorker piece was a wonderfully entertaining article; no wonder the writer ended by saying he “rushed to the phone” to file his copy.

  Another profile, this one for United Press International, revealed how Barbra wore nightgowns as dresses. By turning the nightgown backward, Barbra explained, she could achieve an Empire bustline—“You know, like in Napoleon’s time.” No doubt she really did buy that nightgown, though whether she’d really worn it “the other day,” as the piece claimed, no one was sure. Nor did anyone really care. Barbra had been told to “play up the kook” by her publicists, so she did—and not all journalists were as resistant to following her lead as Ellis. Most of them quickly learned this Streisand kid was very good copy. Marvelously creative pieces could be structured around her persona.

  Richard Falk was continually surprised that Barbra understood his directions. When he spoke with her, it seemed as if she wasn’t even listening, “not there at all . . . a little off-center.” Softness, however, knew that Barbra heard everything that was said to her. She just processed it all very quickly, he said, then “moved on to the next thing.” Barbra took to the merchandizing of her image like a duck to water.

  Of course, if the product they were trying to sell wasn’t any good, no one would have bought it, and people were definitely buying Barbra. The fact that she was extravagantly talented made her publicists’ jobs a lot easier. The week before her Fanny Brice Award, Barbra had won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for her part in Wholesale. She’d been given the honor at a cocktail party at the Algonquin Hotel, hobnobbing with critics like Howard Taubman, Walter Kerr, and John Chapman, all of whom had sung her praises. (The rest of Wholesale was ignored, however; the choice for best musical was How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, with which Barbra’s show had so often been unfavorably compared.) While Barbra’s fortune might have been her voice, her fate was assured by the team that made sure that voice got heard.

  And now, in large part because of their efforts, she really did have a shot at the big time. The Critics’ Circle Award meant Barbra had the blessing of the city’s most important star-makers. But she already knew that the critics loved her. What Barbra really wanted was the Tony—the affirmation of her peers.

  3.

  Stan Berman was a Brooklyn cabbie who called himself the “world’s greatest gate-crasher.” Earlier that month, he’d crashed the Academy Awards in Santa Monica, California, presenting host Bob Hope with a two-dollar replica of an Oscar. Now, on April 29, as Broadway’s glitterati gathered at the Waldorf-Astoria for the sixteenth annual Tony Awards, Berman once again walked through the front door looking “very official” without anyone stopping him to ask for credentials. He was carrying orchids, which he hoped to present to the winners.

  Another Brooklynite at the Waldorf that night might have been feeling a bit like a gate-crasher herself, as she sat among such people as Judith Anderson, Helen Hayes, Jason Robards, Olivia de Havilland, and Robert Goulet. But Barbra Streisand was getting used to being in the presence of celebrities. Three nights before, she’d been one of a select group of New Yorkers invited to watch Judy Garland record a new album at the Manhattan Center. Unpublicized, the concert had started at midnight, and a dazzling mix of celebrities, socialites, and other A-listers had filed into the hall. But as Barbra took her seat with a few others from the Wholesale company, she couldn’t quite comprehend what all the excitement was about. Despite Garland’s recent triumph at Carnegie Hall and her three decades in the limelight, Barbra insisted that she had “never heard of her.” Some friends thought she was playing the diva, but maybe she really hadn’t heard about Carnegie Hall, or seen The Wizard of Oz, or made the connection when she’d sung Garland’s part in her duet with Mickey Rooney. Maybe she had forgotten the Garland records Barré had played for her. To friends, all of that seemed extremely unlikely, but then again, Barbra had never been one for idols.

  When Garland came out on stage, without any introduction, just strolling in from behind the curtain in a simple dress and high heels, Barbra probably wasn’t all that impressed. The thirty-nine-year-old singer had just gotten out of Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, where she’d been hospitalized for exhaustion, and was in the midst of a bitter fight with her estranged husband, Sid Luft, over their children. The strain showed. She also had laryngitis, which left her croaking through her songs. Ultimately she was just too hoarse and had to end the concert early. If this was truly Barbra’s first exposure to the woman many were already calling a legend, then she might have been forgiven for wondering what the fuss was all about.

  No doubt there was a similar detachment at the Waldorf on Tony night. Barbra was there for one purpose only: to win the award. Stargazing had never held much interest for her. Stan Berman the Brooklyn cabbie might be hiding backstage, eager to snatch a glimpse of the winners, but Barbra the Brooklyn chanteuse hardly strayed from her table, too busy putting away her London broil and baked potato to do much mingling. The Tony dinner-dance, despite its star wattage, was a rather homey affair, far less showy than the Oscar gala. Although New Yorkers could watch the ceremony on their local NBC affiliate, the rest of the country barely knew it was taking place, as the Tonys weren’t broadcast nationally like the Oscars were. Consequently, there was far less playing to the camera. Barbra’s only chance to make an impression, then, would come when she strode up to the lectern to collect her award.

  And everyone was certain she would win. None of the other nominees had generated as much publicity as Barbra had these last two months. Even David Merrick, who still didn’t like her, predicted she’d take home the prize. He’d chosen to sit with the company from his other show, Subways Are for Sleeping; after all, Subways had racked up three nominations to Wholesale’s one. But when it came time for the Best Featured Actress Award, Merrick callously turned to Phyllis Newman, Barbra’s competition, and told her, “Streisand’s going to win. I voted for her.” So confident of Barbra’s victory was the egotistical producer that he wanted it known before the fact that he was on her side. Merrick could never allow himself to be associated with losers.

  So when it was Phyllis Newman’s name that was called out as the winner, Merrick switched allegiances in that very instant, jumping up and congratulating her as if he’d been rooting for her the whole time. It was a surprise win, but explainable. The critics might not have cared how often Barbra had been late to the theater, so long as the final performance was excellent. But word of her occasional lack of professionalism had gotten around, and her peers, apparently, didn’t approve. Better to honor Newman, who’d been paying her dues on Broadway since 1953.

  After she collected her Tony, Newman headed backstage, where Stan Berman bounded out from the shadows to present her with an orchid. Meanwhile, Barbra gathered her things and slipped out the back door. She’d finished her meal. There was no reason to stick around and watch other people win awards.

  4.

  On a piece of cardboard, Jerome Robbins scrawled the names of the actresses who had been mentioned as possibly playing the part of Fanny Brice in the play he was going to direct for David Merrick and Ray Stark. At the top was Chita Rivera (an interesting choice). Then came Tammy Grimes. Judy Holliday. Paula Prentiss. Susan Pleshette. (Robbins me
ant Suzanne.) Mimi Hines. Kaye Stevens. Eydie Gormé. And then a woman whom Robbins clearly had little knowledge of. “Barbara Streisman.”

  All the famed choreographer of Gypsy, West Side Story, and the New York City Ballet probably knew of the “Streisman” girl at that point was that she was appearing in another of Merrick’s productions. If Robbins had seen Wholesale, he didn’t mention it in correspondence with friends.

  Instead, his passion was reserved for someone who wasn’t even on that list. Anne Bancroft, who’d won the Tony for Best Actress for The Miracle Worker two years ago and for Best Featured Actress for Two for the Seesaw three years ago, was Robbins’s first choice. Indeed, they’d been talking with Bancroft about the role for some time now. The chance to work with “Annie,” as Robbins called her, was a large part of the reason he’d signed on to the project in the first place.

  But Ray Stark, Merrick’s coproducer and the one really in the driver’s seat for this show, had his reservations about Bancroft. Stark was married to Fanny Brice’s daughter, and he had a personal investment in the casting—literally: He’d had to make deals with his wife, his brother-in-law, and even his own children since they were all part of Brice’s estate. He’d had to buy the rights to the story of his father-in-law, Nick Arnstein, Brice’s second husband, who was still living. So with all that riding on the project, Stark was going to be very particular about their leading lady. Very quickly, he—or maybe it was Mrs. Stark, no one knew for sure—had soured on Bancroft. She didn’t want to play Fanny Brice, Stark insisted; she wanted to play a “new character based on” the legendary comedienne. If they did it Bancroft’s way, Stark wrote to Robbins and composer Jule Styne, they’d be left with nothing of Brice: “The personality of Anne Bancroft, not only through characterization but also through the style of singing and dancing, will be the only personality to emerge.”

  Still, Robbins preferred Bancroft over everyone else Stark kept suggesting as alternatives. Last fall, the producer had been set on Kaye Stevens, whom he called “the most exciting girl” and the “answer to our quest.” Stevens was a bubbly singer and comedienne who, with her carrot-red hair and slender body, resembled “a Spanish exclamation point,” as one scribe thought. Stevens was attractive enough, but no great beauty by any means. The real Fanny Brice had also been far from pretty and was known for her large nose. But there were some who thought Frances Stark only wanted an attractive, ladylike actress to play her mother. (Her original choice for the part had been Mary Martin.) Enthused by Kaye Stevens—perhaps hoping she’d be the perfect compromise between the reality of the part and his wife’s unrealistic expectations—Stark had pleaded with Robbins to fly out to the Coast to meet her. But the director, busy fixing A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum for George Abbott and Hal Prince, had declined, which infuriated the producer.

  They were very different personalities, Stark and Robbins. The former was soft-spoken and winsome—one account called him “pixieish”— where the latter could be surly, bombastic, and overwrought. Robbins’s ferocious temper was legendary. It usually erupted during times of self-doubt, which for Robbins was pretty much all of the time. Even after so much success, he still struggled with a deep sense of not being good enough. After the triumphant premiere of his show Fancy Free in 1944, for example, his first thought had been that he now had enough money for analysis. Robbins’s fears and self-doubts could be traced directly to deep-seated conflicts over both his Jewishness and his homosexuality: Most of the time, Robbins wished he were neither. When, in 1953, he named six of his colleagues as Communists to the U.S. House Committee on Un-American Activities, he sidestepped the blacklist, but gave himself yet another layer of shame to live under for the rest of his life.

  Ray Stark, on the other hand, was utterly without shame. Soft-spoken and winsome he might be, but that pixieish grin was cover for a shrewd, often cutthroat mind. Like David Merrick, Stark thought nothing of playing collaborators against each other, rationalizing that if it was good for the project, the ends justified the means. Director John Huston thought Stark’s penchant for starting rows among his company emerged from a belief “that out of the fires of dissension flows molten excellence.” But Stark’s devilry was always conducted with a smile. With Jerry Robbins, people tended to know where they stood: He was either screaming at them or lauding them with praise. But Stark left them guessing. He could tell an actor he was brilliant in the morning but fire him by lunchtime.

  The kind of doubts and anxieties that plagued Robbins had no place in Stark’s life. Self-reflection was a waste of time, and Ray Stark had no time to waste. Among his favorite expressions was one word: “Commit.” From everyone he worked with Stark expected complete commitment because he himself gave two hundred percent. He was always on the lookout for what was next, whether it be the next film for his production company, Seven Arts, or a follow-up to his first stage success, The World of Suzie Wong. To all of them he brought the same level of unflagging commitment. No other producer, said Arthur Laurents, had “more infectious enthusiasm” than Ray Stark.

  And nowhere was that enthusiasm more obvious, Laurents added, than when Stark was “casting young actresses.” Ray’s eye for the ladies was notorious. He was known to walk actresses he found attractive through his sculpture garden back in Beverly Hills and compare their buttocks to those on the nude statues. It was one final detail that set Stark apart from Robbins, and it suggests that it wasn’t only Mrs. Stark who was rooting for a pretty candidate to play Fanny Brice.

  Whatever the reasons, it seemed Stark and Robbins simply could not see eye to eye on who should play Fanny. In November, Stark was pushing the attractive Georgia Brown, known best for playing Nancy in the West End production of Oliver! But Robbins argued if they weren’t going with Anne Bancroft, then they should go with Carol Burnett, the wacky sidekick from The Garry Moore Show who’d proven her Broadway power—and vocal chops—for more than a year in Once Upon a Mattress. Advance word on Burnett’s television special with Julie Andrews, written by Mike Nichols and to be called Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall, was outstanding. With her offbeat looks, comedic timing, star presence, and big Broadway voice, Burnett seemed to Robbins the perfect choice to play Fanny Brice. On the surface, Stark was open to Burnett, insisting he wanted “to see her in person because television doesn’t necessarily do her justice.” But at the same time, he was offering actress Paula Prentiss—who was far more conventionally attractive—as an alternative.

  That was where they stood now. The list Robbins had scrawled on that piece of cardboard was a mix of his ideas and Stark’s, though “Barbara Streisman” was probably neither’s. She’d made the list, most likely, because—thanks to Richard Falk and the Softness brothers—people kept bringing up her name: columnists, stage managers, TV commentators. Whether Robbins had seen or heard a mention of “Barbara Streisman” is unknown. But clearly someone had, with the result that Barbra’s name, however misspelled, was added to Jerry Robbins’s list.

  5.

  When Bob, with Barry Dennen in tow, showed up at the Lichee Tree restaurant at 65 East Eighth Street, just before midnight on May 10, the place was mobbed with several hundred people. The night was a bit chilly, but partygoers were spilling out onto the sidewalk since the restaurant was packed to the walls inside. Photographers were snapping away as Mike Wallace, Abe Burrows, Phyllis Diller, and others arrived bearing gifts. The reason for all the fuss? The official celebration of Barbra’s twentieth birthday.

  Bob was carrying a framed drawing he’d done of Barbra. But once he and Barry worked their way inside, there seemed to be no place to leave it for her. Every available table was crowded with huge floral tributes from David Merrick, Leonard Bernstein, Richard Rodgers, and others. “Many more, sweetheart,” Mike Nichols had written on a card attached to a bouquet. Another card read: “With love from Ethel Merman.” Bob looked over at Barry and cracked, “Gee, what do you think the pope sent?”

  “Matzo balls,” Barry deadpann
ed.

  Glancing around the crowded room, they couldn’t see Barbra, but they could sure smell the feast that was being laid out. Sizzling Go Ba combined chunks of lobster and crab with snow peas, bamboo shoots, and mushrooms. Filet mignon was flavored with the sweet berries of the lichee tree and served on a bed of bean sprouts and rice noodles. Irene Yuan Kuo, who ran the restaurant with her husband, prepared the menus and planned the parties. She had taken a liking to Barbra, who was a frequent patron, and so when Don Softness approached her about hosting the party, she’d happily agreed. In China, Kuo told Softness, it was traditional to “welcome a girl into the realm of womanhood when she attains the age of twenty.” The Kuos had agreed to foot the bill because they believed—or were convinced—that the publicity would be good for their two-year-old eatery. When Barry learned that salient little fact, he marveled over the “genius for self-promotion” his former girlfriend had developed since the days when they were putting up posters for her weekly appearances at the Lion.

  Since she hadn’t won the Tony, Barbra needed some other kind of exposure to keep her name in the news—and in the running for the Fanny Brice show. Howard Taubman had just included her in a list of the top ten newcomers on Broadway for a photo spread in the New York Times, even using her publicists’ talking points: “a natural comedienne who has been likened to Fanny Brice.” But more was still needed. Weaving in and out of the crowd at the Lichee Tree was Don Softness, working the room for his client. His focus was the gaggle of newspaper columnists who always showed up whenever free food was offered. Already he’d lassoed Leonard Lyons for their cause; now Earl Wilson was being wined and dined. The party was as much for the press, Softness admitted, as it was for Barbra’s friends and coworkers.