by Anne Edwards
‘Open that door!’ he shouted. He received no response. ‘I’m kicking it down if you don’t open it up this minute!’ he yelled louder. When he saw that she was not going to do as he asked, he stepped back, then ran forward and rammed the door with his shoulder, breaking the lock – and nearly his arm.
‘I don’t want your child!’ she sobbed when she saw him hulking in the open doorway, holding his injured arm close to his body.
‘It was the worst thing she could have said to me,’ he grimaced, recalling the incident. ‘Barbra’s infantile in some ways, immature in others, no matter how brilliant she may be. But it was wrong of me at that point in her pregnancy to kick the door down.’
Arthur Laurents was in London around this time and with Herb Ross and his wife, Nora Kaye, they had dinner with Barbra and Elliott. ‘The conversation all revolved around Barbra and at one point Elliott got up and excused himself and went across the street to a gambling casino, I think it was Crockford’s. He returned about forty-five minutes later and said, “Well, I just lost $25,000.” It was more than compulsive gambling. It was getting at her. When she did Wholesale Elliott was the star. Then came Funny Girl. She didn’t need him. And in the lives of those people that is very important.’
Funny Girl opened in London on 13 April to mixed reviews for the show. She was unprepared for British audiences, who were not as enthusiastic in their response to a performer. The laughs came in different places and were not as hearty, the applause thin. ‘One of the most nonsensical plots in the history of American musicals,’ The Times reported. ‘The only reason for seeing this thunderously publicized show is the redeeming presence of Barbra Streisand.’ Her personal notices were extraordinary. The Daily Sketch called her ‘the most phenomenal creature of strange chemistry ever to set foot on a stage. She sings, and there are saxophones and trumpets and violins in her throat. Her voice takes off on smooth gravel, and soars about in some previously unchartered musical magic land of sweetness.’
‘She is the heart, the soul, the sound and the music,’ the Daily Mail rhapsodised. ‘If those magical cords and that insolently sexy frame should temporarily be indisposed, my heart would bleed for the palpitating understudy.’1
London was en fête with Streisand’s success. Princess Margaret came backstage to congratulate her and the rest of the cast on their performance. Streisand joined the receiving line a few minutes late. ‘Well she isn’t my royal highness,’ she had commented to Tommy Steele in New York at a party in honour of the Queen’s sister and was accused of being rude, arriving late and refusing to curtsy. ‘I just could not say, “Hello your Royal Highness” to anyone. It doesn’t suit me. So I just sort of said, “Hello”. Princess Margaret looked at me almost like a fan, and told me she had all my records. I didn’t know what to say so I just stood there and replied, “Yeah?” Then May Britt [the Swedish actress then married to Sammy Davis Jr] asked me how come I was so late. I said, “I got screwed up!” The Princess looked bewildered. It was like a scene from a bad movie. I quickly said, “I mean I got fouled up.” [Another guest claims that what she said was fucked up.]
‘Tommy Steele [who was in New York starring in Half a Sixpence] looked white and shocked. I didn’t know what to do so I turned to him and asked: “You two know each other from London, huh?” Tommy was speechless. The Princess turned her head away. Nobody said anything. “I mean,” I said, “You have worked for her sister?” Tommy answered stiffly, “I have performed for Her Majesty and Princess Margaret, too.” I said, “Yeah, that’s what I mean.”’
The incident had been widely covered by the press, and now here she was once again confronted by the Princess, this time in England where any infraction of manners would be considered not only rude but insulting. ‘Oh, cripes!’ she said out of the side of her mouth to co-star Michael Craig, who stood next to her in the receiving line. ‘You don’t suppose she didn’t notice I was late?’ Margaret glanced her way. She had been talking to the theatre manager. She gave him a cordial nod of dismissal and walked directly over to Streisand, smiled regally and congratulated her on her performance. ‘Thanks,’ Streisand replied feebly.
‘This is the second time I’ve seen Funny Girl,’ Margaret admitted. ‘And I enjoyed it both times – here and New York.’
‘Yeah? Twice?’ Streisand replied uneasily. ‘Really?’ She heaved a sigh of exasperation and touched her hand to her forehead as if to say, ‘Oy vey! Am I dumb or something?’
Margaret eased her smile and moved on down the line to shake hands with Michael Craig.
On another night, Prince Charles came backstage after a performance. He, too, was an obvious fan and, like his Aunt Margaret, an avid collector of her records. Noticeably taken with her, he spoke to Streisand at unusual length about several of her records and the songs on them. She was more relaxed, able to be herself, joke a bit. ‘How are things at the palace?’ she was reported as asking. At the United States embassy, Noël Coward toasted her when she was presented with the Anglo-American Award as the best American performer of the 1966 London season, which had also included a badly miscast Mary Martin in Hello, Dolly!
Although the British lived in a culture (at that time, at least) not quite as transfixed by celebrity as the States, the public and the press had warmed to Streisand. There had been some earlier clashes where she was lambasted for her American brassiness. But once Funny Girl opened, any transgressions were most often overlooked. She was even forgiven her ‘American vulgarity’ in discussing how much money she made from her records. ‘The Beatles have to divide their royalties four ways, so I make four times as much as each one of them!’ she declared to columnist Sheilah Graham.
When she wasn’t at the theatre, she roamed through antique shops and art galleries. She bought fourteen paintings from artist Jason Monet, several of them with the artist’s pregnant wife as a recurring subject. Streisand was glowing, proud of her own condition which had been widely reported in the press. She suffered some morning sickness in the early weeks and cancelled her two weekly matinees, but her energy level never seemed to drop nor was the excellence of her performances affected.
Ray Stark, meanwhile, was continuing negotiations with Columbia Pictures for Funny Girl. Along with other Hollywood studios, Columbia was struggling to compete with television. Unable to sustain a large production staff, top directors, and a contract list of stars and supporting players as they had in the past, the studios were becoming used to making deals with independents.
Stark never wavered in his belief that no one but Streisand should play Fanny Brice. The question of the photogenic problems that might be caused by her nose had ended, as she had adamantly refused to undergo cosmetic surgery. Ray Stark stood behind her in this decision. He showed Color Me Barbra on a full-sized movie screen to studio executives in Columbia’s London office to convince them of her photogenic appeal. It was evident that Streisand had one of those faces that loved the camera and came fully alive through its lens. None the less, her looks were so far out of the spectrum of the pert cheerleader or chocolate-box beauty movie audiences expected of leading ladies that Columbia was still not yet fully convinced she should play the part.
Stark kept all negative reactions to himself, positive that in the end Columbia would see that Streisand was Funny Girl. He engaged a European-based script-writer to adapt the show for the screen. This was not as strange a choice as it might appear. In the 1950s, the House Un-American Activities Committee under the heel of Senator McCarthy, had purged Hollywood of many of its top writing, directing, production and acting talents. Several hundred ‘names’ were placed on a blacklist composed of people whose associations and liberal leanings made them suspect of having communist affiliations. Unable to ply their craft in Hollywood, many writers crossed the Atlantic to work, albeit most often uncredited and for far less money than was paid to those men and women unscathed and still employed in Hollywood.
Stark approached Sidney Buchman, former vice-president of Columbia, who, either
alone or in collaboration had been responsible for some of Hollywood’s most sophisticated comedies and musicals – The Awful Truth, Holiday, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Here Comes Mr Jordan, A Song to Remember, The Jolson Story. Sidney had refused to name names before the Committee and was thus found in contempt of Congress and given a year’s suspended sentence. Fired from the studio, blacklisted and unable to work in Hollywood, he had gone to London first and then established residence in Cannes. Handsome enough in his youth to have starred in his own films, in his sixties he remained a good-looking man of regal bearing with startling china-blue eyes, glistening silver hair and the nonchalant air of a worldly man who has intimately known prominence, fortune and numerous beautiful women.
After more than a decade of struggle, Sidney had just made a breakthrough with a successful movie version of Mary McCarthy’s best-selling novel, The Group, which he had adapted and produced. When Ray Stark rang him in Cannes and asked if he would be interested in writing the adaptation of Funny Girl, Sidney said he’d let him know. He then called me. I had also come to London in the 1950s from Hollywood and was a member of the clubby group of expatriate writers caught in this treacherous political maelstrom. In order to keep myself and my two children afloat I had happily worked on numerous screenplays without credit.
Sidney did not like to work alone and we had found in the past that we were compatible as a team. He flew to London and took me to see Funny Girl. Would I work with him on the screenplay? The story was the weakest element of the show, but I was drawn to the classic theme – a woman caught between two great passions – the man she loved and the career that had given her independence and gratification. I agreed. Sidney promised that he would see what he could do about getting me credit. I believed then, and still believe, that he meant it at the time. Financially I knew he was being scrupulously fair–but then Sidney had a cavalier attitude towards money. He liked to spend it.
The material we had to work with consisted of the playscript, Isobel Lennart’s original screenplay, My Man (written before the play), and the lengthy reel-to-reel tapes recorded by Fanny Brice that she had used for her aborted autobiography. The main problems as we saw them were to open the story up for film, and give Nicky Arnstein greater dimension while keeping Fanny Brice front and centre as much as possible. There was also the challenge of creating bridges for the songs so that they would flow smoothly from the spoken dialogue that preceded and followed them. We were still working on the script when Streisand played her last performance of the London production of Funny Girl2 on 15 July, the show closing the same night.
Streisand and Elliott returned to New York. Booked into twenty cities for her contracted tour, she had to cancel all but four of them – the Newport Jazz Festival, the John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the Atlanta Stadium and Soldiers Field in Chicago, which were completely sold out months in advance. In Newport she greeted 117,000 fans, nearly 40,000 more than had attended a recent Frank Sinatra concert there. Because Streisand was a half-hour late, John Dupont gave a short organ recital to keep the crowds happy. About nine o’clock the 35-piece orchestra, directed by Peter Matz, and concealed behind a scrim on which lighted effects were used for visual interest, played a lengthy overture of Streisand’s numbers. She was given a standing ovation when she finally appeared in a glowing orange and gold chiffon gown with one shoe and one earring of each colour and a tiny coronet of orange rosebuds twined in her hair. She made use of an orange stool as a prop and occasionally came forward on to a special runway built out from the stage for closer rapport with the audience.
Her programme would be much the same in each city of the tour: after belting out ‘Where Am I Going?’ and ‘I Got No Strings’, the latter from the Walt Disney film Pinocchio, she gave a charmingly whimsical interpretation of Leonard Bernstein’s ‘I Hate Music’.
At the end of ‘Cry Me a River’, she stood perfectly still centre stage, a brilliant butterfly trapped in the light, her colourful skirt billowing out on both sides of her as a soft breeze blew across the open arena. The audience cheered wildly. Streisand did not react to these mass outpourings of love and admiration as Judy Garland might have. There were no tears, no convulsive hand gestures to indicate emotion, no moves to the edge of the proscenium to touch and be touched by her audience. She remained imperturbably where she had ended the song, looking pleased, patient, accepting – and controlled as she waited for the shouts and cheers to subside. ‘Thank you,’ she acknowledged, ‘thank you,’ and then sang ‘Down with Love’ to a thumping string bass accompaniment.
Her voice was exquisite in Lionel Bart’s ‘Who Will Buy?’ from Oliver!, the pure and plaintive tone almost unbearably moving. She ended the first half with a stirring arrangement of Harold Arlen’s classic ‘When the Sun Comes Out’. After the intermission she reappeared in a shimmering, black sequined Empire-line evening gown and startled everyone as she launched into a thoroughly unorthodox rendition of ‘Silent Night’ – part carol, part Broadway show tune – that brought wolf whistles unexpectedly from the audience. Included in this section were several songs from her French album, a poignant version of ‘He Touched Me’ and a rousing ‘Second Hand Rose’. She closed with ‘People’ and ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’, which brought the audience to their feet vainly screaming ‘More!’
Since the night when Elliott had knocked down the door to their bedroom there had been a harder edge to their relationship. Streisand had felt fiercely violated by his action, Elliott repentant while at the same time struggling with the emasculation of her terrible oath that she did not want his child, but it was obvious now that both of them did, indeed, look forward to parenthood. As Streisand moved into the last months of her pregnancy, Elliott doted on her, waiting backstage at every performance until she returned to her dressing room, usually a makeshift affair, rubbing her back and her hands. There was always a local doctor on hand, but she seemed in good health and spirits.
In Atlanta, rain drenched the outdoor arena the day of the performance, washing out rehearsal plans. That night the field was so muddy that people had difficulty getting to their seats. Many of those with front-row tickets had to be satisfied to sit in the less muddy rear rows. Streisand sang only a few notes of her opening number and then stopped, complaining of an echo split. Ticket holders had heard it too and began to crawl over seats to move back in the grandstand where the acoustics were much better. No one left. Streisand mania had swept the country. It was not the same kind of overwhelming public adoration that the Beatles or Elvis evoked. Her fans were somewhat older, more sophisticated. She gave them the best she had to give – which was a great deal – and she did so on every song she sang. Perfect weather the following day hiked ticket sales to over 18,000, and the concert did equally well in Philadelphia.
They reached Chicago for the last week of concerts at the end of September. The stage was erected on the ten-yard line of Soldiers Field. The crowd of 14,220 people sprawled into the end-zone stands. A whistle whined from the neighbourhood railway yard. ‘My God!’ Streisand cried into the microphone, ‘it’s got poifect pitch!’ She was six months’ pregnant and showing noticeably. She patted her tummy when she sang ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’, to thunderous cheers. After more than a dozen bows she retreated to the house-trailer that had been supplied to her as a dressing room and ordered her hairdresser to cut her hair into a gamine Mia Farrow style. She squealed with delight as she looked at herself in the mirror and then headed back to New York with Elliott in a chartered Aero Commander jet. They were to vacation for a few weeks in a rented beach house at Sands Point on Long Island Sound. ‘I’ve got to have time to catch up with the world,’ she said. ‘I’ve had no time to read about Vietnam and Black power.’ She had not been able to relax since Paris and their trip to the Continent. She walked barefoot in the sand with Elliott, and planned for the baby’s imminent arrival.
They returned to New York in October, the baby due in two months’ time. Dedding that the penthouse, which l
acked a separate wing for a nursery, would hardly be the right environment in which to raise a child, she set out with Elliott in search of a new home. They found what they thought was the ideal apartment for $200,000 in a prestigious Westside building, but were turned down by the co-op board. The rejection shocked and infuriated her. ‘I’m not sure it was because I was an actress or because I was Jewish – or both ... I am deeply Jewish, but in a place where I don’t even know where it is ... and I thought, “I don’t want to live in a city where I can’t get a place to live ... where there is this kind of prejudice.”’ For the time being they would remain in the penthouse and redo her sewing room into a nursery.
There were two false alarms before labour began two weeks late at 6 a.m. on 29 December 1966. Streisand, escorted by Elliott, his arm protectively around her, arrived at New York City’s Mount Sinai Hospital at 9 a.m. He remained in a labour room with her until shortly before the birth and then went with her into delivery. ‘It was very traumatic, but Barbra was very brave,’ he said. ‘We held hands and talked about a son or daughter. If it was a girl, she was to be called Samantha.’ At 3 p.m. Jason Emanuel Gould, weighing seven pounds, twelve ounces was born. His father stood close enough to catch a glimpse of him as he entered this life.
‘My God, I’m a mother. I’m a little girl myself, and now I’m a mother,’ were Streisand’s first words to Elliott when the nurse handed her the child in her private room, number 507. ‘He’s so delicate,’ the new mother whispered, tears rolling down her face.
‘You know my baby didn’t cry,’ Elliott bragged when Jason was returned to the hospital nursery. ‘All the other babies were crying, and had their eyes closed, and this woman next to me said, “Look at that brand new baby with its eyes wide open,” and it was my baby. He looks like Barbra, only he has a cleft in his chin and dark hair, like me,’ he added laughing proudly. ‘He’s got the brightest, bluest, flashingest eyes. Just like her. Exactly. Beautiful.’ Jason’s blue eyes changed to brown a few weeks later.