Barbra Streisand

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Barbra Streisand (1942-) is, quite simply, the best-selling female singer of all time.

She has had an astonishing thirty-one albums hit the Billboard magazine Top Ten, nine of which went Number One (not counting compilations or movie soundtracks, of which she had one additional #1 of each), and is the only singer in history to have a Number One album in six consecutive decades, beginning with People in 1964 and, as of now, ending with Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway in 2016. She's also had Top 10 singles in four consecutive decades, from "People" (1964) to "I Finally Found Someone" (her 1996 duet with Bryan Adams). She's one of the top performers in the history of Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart, scoring eight #1 hits there between 1964 and 1983 (and five #1 Pop hits between 1974 and 1980). She has won two Academy Awards, ten Grammys, four Emmys, an honorary Tony and a Peabody, was the first woman to win a Golden Globe for Best Director, was a Kennedy Center Honors honoree and won AFI's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001. While not known as a songwriter, she has written a few, including the Oscar-winning "Evergreen" from her remake of A Star Is Born (co-written with Paul Williams).

Streisand made her film debut as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl, for which she split a Best Actress Oscar with Katharine Hepburn (The Lion in Winter). She would later give noted performances in Hello, Dolly!, The Way We Were (opposite Robert Redford) and Yentl (which she also produced and directed).

Oh, yes, she's a director as well. Other directing credits include The Mirror Has Two Faces and The Prince Of Tides.

She has taken heat for the shape of her nose over the years (well, decades), most notably from New York Times critic John Simon, who has been waging a jihad on the singer's nose since the 1970s. To her credit, Ms. Streisand refused to undergo cosmetic surgery early in her career, though admittedly not out of a high moral principle; she once famously credited her unique voice to a deviated septum. "If I ever had my nose fixed, it would ruin my career." Barbra's nose was referenced on Glee, where Kurt uses it to talk Rachel (who is a fan of Streisand) out of getting a nose job.

She is also a noted political activist, and was very close friends with former President Bill Clinton (whom she introduced at his first inauguration) and his mother Virginia Dwyer, whom she called at least once a week from when they met to Dwyer's death. She is a famous (or infamous) supporter of liberal causes large and small and is noted for her strong stances on feminism and gay marriage, among other issues, as well as her criticism of former President Donald Trump (she even recorded an anti-Trump song called "Don't Lie to Me").

Although the population as a whole either loves her or despises her, she is a pop culture icon and one of the most important celebrities in the past fifty years of American history.

Her music is often referenced in media as being favored by gay men — expect any man listening to or asking for a song by her to have their sexuality questioned.

A partial discography, listing all of her albums to hit the Top 10 as of 2024 not counting compilations, movie soundtracks, live recordings and Broadway cast albums:

• The Barbra Streisand Album (1963)
• The Second Barbra Streisand Album (1963)
• The Third Album (1964)
• People (1964) (#1)
• My Name Is Barbra (1965)
• My Name Is Barbra, Two... (1965)
• Color Me Barbra (1966)
• Je m'appelle Barbra (1966)
• Stoney End (1971)
• The Way We Were (1974) (#1) - not to be confused with the film soundtrack
• Superman (1977)
• Wet (1979)
• Guilty (1980) (#1)
• The Broadway Album (1985) (#1)
• Till I Loved You (1988)
• Back to Broadway (1993) (#1)
• Higher Ground (1997) (#1)
• A Love Like Ours (1999)
• The Movie Album (2003)
• Guilty Pleasures (2005)
• Love Is the Answer (2009) (#1)
• What Matters Most (2011)
• Partners (2014) (#1)
• Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway (2016) (#1)

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Barbra Streisand is the Trope Namer for:

• Streisand Effect: Her attempt to block photos of her house from being released backfired so badly that it wound up naming this trope and providing the page image.

Barbra Streisand provides examples of the following tropes:

• Covered Up: One of Barbra's earlier hits, "Stoney End," was a Laura Nyro composition previously recorded by Mod Squad star Peggy Lipton, and she also had success with "Where You Lead" originally from Carole King's album Tapestry. Her version of "Memory," from Cats, is also better known to American listeners than the original by Elaine Paige (or the later version by Barry Manilow even though his was a bigger hit).
• Incredibly Long Note: "Woman in Love" and "He Touched Me" are two examples. So is her #1 hit duet with Donna Summer, "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)" - during the recording, Summer even famously lost her breath and fell from a stool from trying to hold a note longer than Streisand!
• Let's Duet: She has a long list of duet partners, enough to fill up several albums, and has sung with everyone from Seth MacFarlane to Mariah Carey. Two of her #1 Billboard hits have been duets - "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" (with Neil Diamond) and "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)" (with Donna Summer). She's also hit the charts singing with Barry Gibb, Bryan Adams, Céline Dion (a lifelong fan who considers Streisand her idol), Kim Carnes, and Don Johnson. She's even duetted with herself (her medley of the Bacharach/David songs "One Less Bell to Answer"/"A House Is Not a Home").
  • Michael Jackson wanted Streisand as his duet partner for his Bad album's first single, "I Just Can't Stop Loving You." Streisand disliked the song and turned it down, meaning she missed out on a #1 hit (which Jackson ultimately sang with Siedah Garrett).
• Long Runner: She has been active since the 1960s. As of 2023, her recording career has spanned 61 years, and her span of hitting the Billboard magazine Top 10 is 32 years (1964 to 1996).
• The Musical: One of her specialties. When she went back to singing show tunes in 1985 with The Broadway Album after several years as a pop/soft-rock artist, the result was her biggest selling album in years.
• Playing Against Type: After specializing in mainly show tunes and Great American Songbook numbers during the 1960s, Streisand refused to limit herself to those genres and expanded her palette in the '70s to encompass more contemporary sounds, including disco and the softer side of rock and roll. Her commercial peak on pop radio was roughly 1977 to 1981. Eventually she returned to her original specialty in the mid-1980s as her dominance on Top 40 radio ended, while continuing to sing pop ballads tailor made for the emerging Adult Contemporary format.
• Signature Song: "Don't Rain on My Parade." Also, "The Way We Were" and "As If We Never Said Goodbye." "Woman in Love" could also be considered this as it was her most successful single record.
• Spell My Name with an "S": Her birth name is spelled the traditional name of Barbara. She dropped the second "a" at some point.
• Signature Style: She sings ballads with some mid-tempo, in a classic pop style with a heavy dash of New York accent. She plays characters who mix great ambition with great insecurity, who are willing to take great risks to get what they want. Material success comes to these characters more easily than interpersonal success (with others or themselves). It should also be mentioned that she does this very, very well.