Barbra Streisand is by any account a living legend, a woman who in a career spanning six decades has excelled in every area of entertainment. She is among the handful of EGOT winners (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) and has one of the greatest and most recognizable voices in popular music. She has been nominated for a Grammy 46 times, and with Yentl she became the first woman to write, produce, direct, and star in a major motion picture.
In My Name Is Barbra, she tells her own story about her life and extraordinary career, from growing up in Brooklyn to her first star-making appearances in New York nightclubs to her breakout performance in Funny Girl (musical and film) to the long string of successes in every medium in the years that followed. The book is, like Barbra herself, frank, funny, opinionated, and charming. She recounts her early struggles to become an actress, eventually turning to singing to earn a living; the recording of some of her acclaimed albums; the years of effort involved in making Yentl; her direction of The Prince of Tides; her friendships with figures ranging from Marlon Brando to Madeleine Albright; her political advocacy; and the fulfillment she’s found in her marriage to James Brolin.
This autobiography was published in November of 2023 by Penguin Publishing Group.
I can't remember a time when this celebrity was not in my consciousness. In the 70's and 80's, I would watch her on variety shows and talk shows with my grandparents, listen to her songs on the radio, and see her movies in the theatres with my cousin or cable. But I did not know her full story. One of my online book clubs was reading this for a discussion for November 2024, so I decided to check it out.
This is a very in-depth memoir, clocking in at over 900 pages. Who better than to tell it than Barbra herself? She states in the opening that it took her nearly ten years to get it all down, and her attention to detail is amazing (she did say she kept many journals over her life so she had research to consult for it). Some reviewers have felt it was too detailed, too exact. I can see how that would be too much for some readers.
I, however, loved the amount of detail provided. Barbra is a storyteller and weaves it all in with a comfortable ease. I would have listened to the audiobook, but the stats tell that it clocks in at 48 hours. That's a lot! Her thorough narrative helped me to connect to her, to be in those moments with her as she was experiencing them - especially for the plays and films she did.
Where I was a little disappointed, as a music person, was how she glossed over several of her albums (like in chapter 22 where she runs through a trio of albums in barely as many pages); a line in chapter 25 tends to explain this - "I wanted to be thought of as an actress first, not a singer". Still, she does cover nicely several of the albums from the late 70's and early 80's which I knew very well.
Overall, I came away from this memoir with a reinforcement of my image of Barbra and much deeper understanding of how that image came together.
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