UR TV CAST

“What about the lies of this administration about the Iraq war?” she asked “Lies, lies and more lies. That partly explains how her fame, in spite of her becoming a virtual recluse over much of the past decade, remains undiminished.In recent years, however, part of what has kept her in the spotlight has been her political views. A frequent visitor to the White House during the Clinton years, she is a fervent Democrat, who last June made a rare concert appearance in Los Angeles for a benefit for Democrat presidential runner John Kerry, raising $5m for his campaign. By the mid-1970s, she had formed her own company and was producing and directing also, beginning with the 1976 romantic weepie A Star Is Born, which she produced, and, in 1983, the epic Yentl when Streisand was in the director’s chair. Streisand remains the highest selling female recording artist ever. She had produced and directed most of her films since, including the most recent until now, 1996’s The Mirror Has Two Faces with Lauren Bacall and Jeff Bridges.And all along, her singing career has never flagged: she has achieved a number one album in each of the past four decades. “Barbra Streisand sets an entire theatre ablaze,” gushed The New York Times.

“She is the new girl of the theatre season.” Funny Girl was then transferred to celluloid, giving Streisand her first big film break Even though it was her first film, it won her an Oscar. After that, aged just 27, Streisand won the lead role in the film version of Hello, Dolly!, alongside the already veteran star, Walter Matthau Evidently, the two did not get on. “I found it a most unpleasant picture to work on and, since most of my scenes were with her, most distasteful,” Matthau recalled later.Difficult though she may have been, there was no stopping Streisand’s growing fame. Over the following years her film repertoire grew to include the hugely popular What’s Up, Doc? with Ryan O’Neal and the romantic drama The Way We Were with Robert Redford. But he didn’t seem to mind too much – they fell in love and were married by the spring of 1963. Their marriage lasted only until 1971, but they had one son, Jason Gould, who was later to co-star in one of the films she directed and starred in, The Prince of Tides (1991).Two years after her Wholesale romp, Streisand was cast in the wildly successful Funny Girl, which again saw her winning rapturous reviews.

And soon she was acting, appearing first in a not very successful Broadway musical in 1962 called I Can Get It for You Wholesale. In an early example of her sometimes wayward demands, Streisand insisted that her programme biography listed her as having been born in Rangoon and raised in Madagascar, for exoticism’s sake. The management objected to the bold-faced lie, but eventually let her get away with it.The musical closed within months, but audiences went crazy over Streisand. Indeed, she managed to eclipse the leading man, Elliott Gould. It was then that the “a” in her birth name – Barbara – was discarded, almost as a gesture of leaving her family behind. A national tour of small clubs was followed by a recording contract with Columbia Records, each album more successful than the one before. “When I was a child, we never ate around a dinner table together or had conversations.