Barbra Streisand

Blessed with extraordinary vocal ability and an independent, charismatic personality, Barbra Streisand is one of the most beloved and important American performers of all time. Born in Brooklyn (April 24, 1942) to a Jewish family, she lost her father Emanuel when she was just 15 months old, and later lived through a troubled relationship with her stepfather, with whom her mother Diana would have her half-sister Roslyn Kind. It was her mother, herself a former soprano singer, who became the main obstacle to her artistic calling, due to the practical mindset that had led her to give up the stage to become a school secretary.

But Barbra (real name Barbara Joan) doesn't give up. She performs for the first time in 1960, in a gay bar in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, scoring an immediate success. Then, in 1962, she lands her first Broadway role, in "I Can Get It For You Wholesale", and signs with Columbia Records. A year later she has already won two Grammys for her debut LP ("The Barbra Streisand Album"). She soon becomes one of the most successful singers of the 1960s, finding herself with three albums simultaneously in Billboard's pop album top ten, right in the midst of rock'n'roll fever and Beatlemania.

From here on, it's an unstoppable rise. She becomes a Broadway star ("Another Evening with Harry Stoones", "I Can Get It For You Wholesale" and, above all, "Funny Girl"), is a smash hit on TV with specials and duets alongside Judy Garland, and breaks through in film: from Gene Kelly's "Hello, Dolly!" to Peter Bogdanovich's "What's Up, Doc?", from Frank Pierson's "A Star Is Born" to Sydney Pollack's "The Way We Were" with Robert Redford, whose title theme, performed by her, also becomes her first number-one single. While the film adaptation of "Funny Girl" earns her an Oscar for Best Actress, she also becomes the first woman to win the Golden Globe for Best Director, for 1984's "Yentl", in which she stars and also oversees the soundtrack.

Music, however, remains her dominant specialty, with no fewer than 11 number-one albums, including "People" from 1964, "Guilty" with Barry Gibb in 1980, "Higher Ground" from 1997 and "Partners" from 2014.

In the late 1970s, she scores new worldwide hits with two duets: one with Neil Diamond on "You Don't Bring Me Flowers", and one with Donna Summer on the disco hit "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)". Her best-selling album, however, is "Guilty" (1980), written and produced by Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees. A sleek, irresistible record, featuring the number-one hit "Woman In Love".

In 1983, her directorial debut with "Yentl" also brings her a new chart success, with the soundtrack landing in the Top Ten. In 1985, "The Broadway Album" takes her back to the top of the charts. 1991 sees the release of "Just For The Record…", a retrospective box set, and her second film as director, "The Prince Of Tides". Streisand returns to the stage in 1994, driving the live album "The Concert" into the Top Ten. In 1996 she directs her third film, "The Mirror Has Two Faces", and in 1999 releases "A Love Like Ours".

Her 1999 New Year's Eve show in Las Vegas yields a new live album, "Timeless: Live In Concert", followed a year later by the Christmas album "Christmas Memories" and, in 2003, by a sequel to "The Broadway Album" titled "The Movie Album". In 2005 a deluxe reissue of "Guilty" is released, followed a month later by the album "Guilty Pleasures", which reunites Streisand and Gibb for 11 new songs, including new duets — "Come Tomorrow" and "Above The Law" — and the single "Stranger In A Strange Land", a protest song against the Iraq War.

After the new "Live In Concert" in 2007, Streisand turns to jazz standards on "Love Is The Answer", performing songs such as "Here's To Life" and "In The Wee Small Hours". Four years later comes "What Matters Most: Barbra Streisand Sings The Lyrics Of Alan And Marilyn Bergman", featuring ten interpretations of Bergman classics, including "The Windmills Of Your Mind" and "So Many Stars".

Eager to shed light on her vast archive, in 2012 Streisand releases a collection of unreleased material, with tracks gathered from hundreds of hours of old tapes and acetates. The collection, titled "Release Me", includes recordings from 1967 to 2011. Among the many concerts supporting the release is the one recorded in 2013 as the double live album "Back To Brooklyn".

By 2014, Streisand is already at work on a new project, "Partners", on which she duets with artists such as Michael Bublé, Andrea Bocelli, Lionel Richie and John Mayer. Two years later comes "Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway", which has her duetting on Broadway classics alongside Alec Baldwin, Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman and others. Both releases top the Billboard 200, leading to further successful concerts, including a December 5, 2016 performance in Miami documented on "The Music… The Mem'ries… The Magic!".

In 2018 she earns a new Grammy nomination with "Walls", an album in which she also voices her concerns about the American and international political situation. Three years later, the second volume of rare and unreleased material, "Release Me 2", is released.

Streisand was married to actor Elliott Gould, with whom she had a son, Jason (1967), though they divorced shortly after. For much of the 1970s she was romantically involved with Jon Peters. Since 1998 she has been married to actor James Brolin.

An eclectic, all-encompassing superstar — singer, actress, director, producer, as well as a passionate LGBT activist and Democratic Party supporter — Barbra Streisand has received the most important honors an artist can aspire to: 2 Oscars, 10 Grammy Awards, 5 Emmys, 11 Golden Globes and 1 special Tony Award, placing her among the select group of figures known as EGOT (from the initials of the awards), who over their careers have won all the most prestigious prizes given in film, television and music. In 2015 Barack Obama presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House, the highest honor in the United States, where Barbra also holds the astonishing record of being the only artist with at least one number-one album in six consecutive decades, starting in the 1960s (the first in 1964, the latest in 2016).