Hello, Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisa - Part 53
Library

Part 53

LAT = Los Angeles Times

LoC = Library of Congress

NYPL = New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

NYT = New York Times

Where not cited, quotes are taken from personal interviews with the author. On occasion, quotes from printed sources have had grammar adjusted and/or ellipses discarded, but only if the original intent, meaning, or accuracy of the quote was not altered by doing so.

Why Streisand Now

[>] "one of the natural wonders": High Fidelity, May 1976.

[>] "to be a star having": Interview with publicist Jack Hirshberg, July 9, 1968, Hirshberg Collection, AMPAS. Hirshberg conducted in-depth interviews with clients, then polished them up and released portions to newspaper columnists and reporters. This is taken from the unedited transcript of his interview with Streisand.

"It was right to the top": Time, April 10, 1964.

[>] "for her talent to speak": Pageant, November 1963.

[>] "carried her own": Time, April 10, 1964.

"I don't think so": The Rosie O'Donnell Show, November 21, 1997.

"That goes so deep": O, The Oprah Magazine, October 2006.

"Barbra Streisand doesn't sound": Kaufman Schwartz and a.s.sociates interview with Streisand, August 15, 1963, submitted to Sidney Skolsky, Skolsky Collection, AMPAS.

[>] "negative implications": Playboy, October 1977.

"each ear is," "I really don't": O, The Oprah Magazine, October 2006.

"What is so offensive": Playboy, October 1977.

1. Winter 1960

[>] For sixty-five cents: Sue Anderson, a friend of Carl Esser's, related a story Esser told her about being with Streisand on her father's birthday eating fish at a diner on Broadway south of Times Square. Anderson said he used the phrase: "ninety-three cents and some pocket lint."

[>] called her "farbrent": Vanity Fair, September 1991.

"what life should be": Vanity Fair, September 1991.

"a need to be great," "preacher": Family Weekly, February 2, 1964.

"where people really": Look, April 5, 1966.

[>] never seen Duse act: Later Streisand would see Duse in an Italian film from 1916 and call it "extraordinary." James Spada, Streisand: Her Life (New York: Random House Value Publishing, 1997).

[>] "duty to squelch": These were Streisand's exact words when she confronted Susskind a few years later on PM East.

"a coat of some immense": Ladies' Home Journal, August 1966.

Jules Feiffer cartoon: LAT, September 10, 1963.

"I never hear": Playboy, October 1977; TV Guide, January 2229, 2000.

a hundred such inst.i.tutions: Background on the Theatre Studio and other acting schools in New York of the period was found in an article in the New York World-Telegram, February 21, 1959.

weekly radio program: Theatre Studio on the Air was broadcast on Wednesday evenings. Whether Streisand ever partic.i.p.ated is not known; all students were eligible, but no one was promised partic.i.p.ation. Among the productions aired while she was at the school were Sophocles' Antigone on October 11, 1959; Sean O'Casey's Pictures in the Hallway with the original Broadway cast on November 4, 1959; Chekhov's Swan Song on February 24, 1960; and Shakespeare's sonnets on August 17, 1960.

The school offered: Theatre Studio pamphlet, 1960, Curt Conway file, NYPL.

[>] some of the greats: Advertis.e.m.e.nts for the Theatre Studio, Village Voice, September 30, 1959; NYT, October 14, 1959, and January 9, 1961. The Theatre Studio should not be confused with its compet.i.tor, Stella Adler's Theatre Studio, which operated at 150 East Thirty-ninth Street. To avoid confusion, the Theatre Studio was sometimes advertised as "Curt Conway's Theatre Studio."

with enough "appet.i.te": Allan Miller, A Pa.s.sion for Acting: Exploring the Creative Process (Sherman Oaks, CA: Dynamic Productions, 1995).

a nice review in the local newspaper: "As the homely sister, Barbara Streisand is transformed from a tomboy to a pretty girl, aware of her powers, in a wholly believable transition." Berkshire Eagle, August 31, 1957.

"like someone who": Spada, Streisand: Her Life.

$180 for a fifteen-week course: Theatre Studio pamphlet, 1960, Curt Conway file, NYPL.