January 21, 2000
As if she never said goodbye - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER - If you were near Las Vegas’ MGM Grand, on December 31st 1999, you would have noticed the security, the fans and the commotion surrounding what would go down in that building later that night. What was going to happen? Well after almost five years, Barbra Streisand would perform in concert that night. In her previous tour in 1994, she opened the show with the stirring ‘divaesque’ number, As If We Never Said Goodbye from Sunset Boulevard. So this return to the concert stage, tickets sold immediately when they went on sale last May, and this entire show was the big thing in that town. Stars were there in perfusion and fans were there too.
Jump now to this Sunday on the 23rd, at the big bun toss at the Beverley Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills where the Hollywood Foreign Press will salute the one Ms. Streisand with the prestigious Cecil B. DeMille Award. Some say Barbra’s back. Her single with Vince Gill, went platinum and this concert on New Year’s was just the beginning of a tour. This award is another reinforcement of Barbra’s legend and her body of work, it’ll also thrust her in the public eye once again.
Barbra Streisand’s career started off on Broadway. A kid from Brooklyn and without her mother’s blessing she broke into show business. Forever uncomfortable and unphotographable, in Hollywood terms, she thrust herself with genuine chutzpah and made herself into a star. Cast into the role of Fanny Brice in Funny Girl, she made that role one of the many defining roles of her career. Following that she made a splash into concerts and film, like most stars of the 60’s, but then stuff happened.
While filming the film version of Funny Girl, a film that won her an Oscar, she was paired up with the Egyptian Omar Sharrif and received a number of death threats from the PLO. While performing in her legendary concert at Central Park, she forgot the words and the ever-present stage fright set in and the career of Barbra Streisand was now only viable in film and the occasional TV gig. Then later, TV seized to be an option, altogether. Streisand was now a film actress. She made The Way We Were with Robert Redford and did an updated version of A Star is Born with Kris Kristoferson; both films made in the 70’s.
The live concert, no longer an option, she immersed herself in these films and developed an immensely challenging sense of perfectionism. It gave her the reputation of being a ‘diva’, as well as being an obsessive control-freak of a bitch. She found her political consciousness and became a great activist and booster for the Democratic party. As she still is today.
She made more movies, did her first live concert in 20 years in 1986, only to do it again in 1994, and of course the New Year’s show, a couple weeks ago. It looks like that kid from Brooklyn is comfortable again and actually in love. Marrying James Brolin in 1996, you’ll know him from Pensacola: Wings of Gold, her love life is now somewhat stable. Following love affairs with Andre Aggasi to Richard Baskin (the ice-cream baron), Jon Peters and Peter Jennings, not to mention Jon Voight and Omar Shariff, she’s finally happy.
And I think her fans across America and around the world are pleased she’s back. I, for one can’t wait till she takes the stage and the standing ovation at The Golden Globe’s this Sunday night. She’s back, even though she never really said goodbye in the first place.
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