Streisand

by Anne Edwards

  Ivied academia was in a frenzy of excitement at the prospect of her forth-coming appearance at Harvard, much more attention being paid to her than a recent visit to the school by Secretary of State Warren Christopher. The school’s Institute of Politics had to hold a lottery so great was the demand for tickets in the 700-seat auditorium. Arrangements were made for a camera news pool to be set up to cover her televised appearance. Special machines were installed to check for counterfeit tickets and Cambridge police were stationed at every door and stairwell. Streisand remained terrified of an attack or a shooting by some crazy person, even though no incident of suspected violence had occurred during her concert tour.

  She arrived by private jet in Boston with her secretary Kim Skalecki two days before her talk, and was driven to the Charles Hotel, where she was given the presidential suite. That night she holed up in her rooms rewriting her speech yet one more time. The following day she had a ‘wonderful lunch’ with John F. Kennedy Jr and twenty-five intense, serious, idealistic students, at which she discussed issues from welfare to defence spending. She grew misty-eyed when the youthfully handsome Kennedy had met her earlier and accompanied her on a tour of Harvard. Thirty-one years had passed since her treasured meeting with his father. Later she audited a class on constitutional law, for which she even did the homework after a run-through on her speech in the deserted auditorium.

  Her nerves increased as the time for her to speak approached. After the audience was seated, she stood in the wings waiting for a lengthy laudatory introduction by Harvard University’s interim president, Albert Carnesale, to end. When she finally stepped out on the stage that had previously played host to the likes of Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Newt Gingrich, Al Gore and a plethora of presidential hopefuls and administration officials, she was ’really nervous’. Wearing a conservative charcoal-grey pin-striped, severely tailored Donna Karan dress, a single strand of pearls, her nails ‘seriously sculptured’, she had clasped and unclasped her hands, hugged her knees, rocked backwards and forwards and clenched the arms of her chair as Carnesale went on about her accomplishments.

  ‘You heard of shpilkes?’ she asked in a Brooklyn accent, to a chorus of laughter and vigorous applause when she finally stepped up to the microphone. Standing in front of a large wall hanging with Harvard University – John F, Kennedy School of Government and the school’s emblem emblazoned on it – she sounded much like the impassioned Katie Morosky in The Way We Were as she told the students, ‘I must admit I’m confused by [Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich’s] thinking. He proposes taking children away from poor mothers and placing them in orphanages. If that’s an example of mainstream culture, let me say I’m happy to be a member of the counter-culture. I am also proud to be a liberal. Why is that so terrible these days? The liberals were liberators – they fought slavery, fought for women to have the right to vote, fought against Hitler, Stalin, fought to end segregation, fought to end apartheid. Liberals put an end to child labour and they gave us the five-day work week! What’s to be ashamed of?’ With a shrug of her shoulders, she spread her hands palm up in a gesture that indicated you know what I mean?

  Defending the right of a celebrity to be involved in politics, she asked, ‘What is the sin? Is it caring about your country? Why should the actor give up his role as citizen just because he’s in show business? For his role in the movie Philadelphia, Tom Hanks had to learn quite a bit about being a gay man with AIDS. Should he have remained silent on this issue? For thirty years Paul Newman has been an outspoken defender of civil liberties and a major phil-anthropist. Would it be better if he just made money and played golf? Or, is Robert Redford a bubblehead because he knows more about the environment than most members of Congress? ... Most artists turn up on the humanist, compassionate side of public debate because ... we have to walk in other people’s shoes and live in other people’s skins. This does tend to make us more sympathetic to politics that are more tolerant,’ she proudly acknowledged.

  Eyes glancing down to check her notes from time to time, she went on to castigate the far right for ‘waging a war for the soul of America by making art a partisan issue’. She suggested that the arts programme were minimal – ‘the Public Broadcasting System costs each taxpayer less than one dollar a year – they hardly could be under attack for the money’s sake. Maybe it’s about shutting the minds and mouths of artists who might have something thought-provoking to say.’ She reminisced about her childhood with stories about how her father had walked home from his teaching job to put the money he saved in the pushke, the charity box that many Jews had in their homes. She pointed to her own experience as a member of the Choral Club at Erasmus High School, stressing how important it was for children anywhere to ‘find solace in an instrument to play or a canvas to paint on’, a plea that the government should not cut such necessary funds.

  During the fifty-minute speech she appeared ardent and edgy in turn. She gestured a lot, brushed her shoulder-length, blonde-streaked hair back from her face, wet her lips, drank water when she paused. After her closing remarks, she was given a standing ovation. Carnesale came forward and announced that there would be a short recess and then their guest would answer questions. Backstage, Streisand appeared excruciatingly anxious and had to be calmed. The feared question period was next.

  A round of applause greeted her return to the podium.

  A Harvard senior, Christopher Garda, asked the first question. ‘Why are you being so defensive?’ adding that it sounded like the artistic community was ‘out of touch with society’.

  He was barraged with hisses and Streisand raised her hands in a gesture that seemed to mean: I’ll answer that. ‘Why are you a Republican?’ she countered.

  Her discomfort in this section of the programme only grew as the questions became more technical than philosophical. Several times she fended these with an honest ‘I don’t know enough about that to give you an answer.’ When asked if she had plans in politics, she replied, ‘Political ambition and political fervour are two different things.’ Finally, with only one more question allowed, a young woman praised her as articulate, wealthy and intelligent. Streisand gave her a crooked Fanny Brice smile. ‘You’ve got a guy for me?’ she asked.

  She had put herself on the front line. She was always setting tough goals for herself, a higher mountain to climb, a new set of obstacles to overcome, critics to win over. The press were generally positive to her appearance and her speech, but arch-conservative author Arianna Huffington wrote a stinging rebuttal in the Washington Post. ‘Barbra, how could anyone hear anything over the din of such high-pitched melodrama?’ she charged. ‘Why do you insist on characterizing conservatives’ wish to curtail tax-payer subsidies for the arts as motivated by “disrespect” for art and artists? Is your wish to cut the defence budget motivated by “disrespect” for our military and its servicemen?’ Her suggestion was that the private sector raise the $167 million yearly budget necessary to sustain the arts.

  Holding scant regard for Huffington’s opinion, Streisand was not upset by her diatribe. She had spoken out on issues that were meaningful to her and believed she had a right to public address.

  By the end of summer her attention was consumed by pre-production pressures for Mirror which would go before the cameras in and around New York in late October. Casting had been a relatively simple matter. With Jeff Bridges now definitely signed to co-star, Pierce Brosnan, the suave, handsome Irishman, fresh from his role as James Bond in the most recent 007 movie, was cast as the devilishly attractive other man (in this case Streisand’s movie brother-in-law), Dudley Moore as Bridges’s drinking buddy and Lauren Bacall as Streisand’s glamorous mother.

  ‘Everyone was optimistic on the first day of shooting,’ a member of the crew recalled. ‘I’ve worked with Barbra on several other filmed projects and she seemed calmer, more assured. Having known her for thirty years or more I’ve watched as she has changed. All of us do over such a span of time, of course. But with Barbra the change has b
een as dramatic as everything else in her life. She’s lost touch with the real world, sees things only from her point of view. She has always been self-involved, demanding, a workaholic. But she once had a marvellous zest for life, wanted to eat up the whole world. That’s not there any more. What I feel she’s lost is her sense of humour, the ability to laugh at herself. She’s so damned serious these days.

  ‘She’s always been like that little girl with a curl in the middle of her forehead – one day she’s very good, the next day she’s horrid. She can be your best friend and sympathetic supporter. Then the wind changes and she can cut you off in the most appallingly cold, cruel manner. In recent years I’ve seen it happen with scary frequency. On the set of Mirror it became a common occurrence. I was terrified that what I was watching was the total unwinding of someone I had loved and admired very much. The filming process itself was like a bad movie. I began to wonder – “Where is all this going and what is it all about?” She became paranoid. There was no contradicting what she said. She was the only person in the world. It was megalomania to the nth. One night I came back to the apartment I was using while we were in New York and I cried. It was as though I had lost someone very near and dear to me.’

  She had gone into this project believing that it would be far less complicated or emotional than The Normal Heart. It was going to be the movie that would show the studios she could make a non-musical, commercial film on budget, prove that she was a reliable, bankable director. One week into the filming she knew she had made a mistake in casting Dudley Moore in his role. He was too comedic, too much the drunk from Arthur, which changed the focus of the scene he was in.

  ‘It was hard to tell if he was playing an inebriated character or if he was one,’ a member of the crew commented. ‘One thing was sure – Barbra and Moore were incompatible and she was the producer, star and director.’

  Moore was quickly replaced by George Segal, whom Streisand had worked with so well years before in The Owl and the Pussycat. Then right before Christmas the director of photography Dante Spinotti and his eight-man crew were replaced by Andrzej Bartkowiak, who had worked with her on Nuts, and new technicians. This was a major change. The director of photography sets the tone of the picture. Streisand was not happy with the way she looked in the daily rushes or with the shots that Spinotti had filmed. ‘She had been complaining about the camera work almost from the beginning of the production,’ one person on the set said. ‘There were too many gauzes around the lens. Her eyes – one of her best features – got very soft.’

  Two days later she dismissed Alan Heim, an Oscar-winning film editor and replaced him with Jeff Werner, who had also worked with her before. The winter months were brutal. Exterior shots had to be postponed, interior sets constructed in overtime hours. A movie that had originally been budgeted at $35 million dollars quickly escalated by many millions, to the shouts and fury of the studio executives. Streisand was on edge and the set was bristling with palpable tension. Cis Corman, who was co-producer, was more diplomatic than Streisand and did her best to smooth relations between the major cast and crew members and Streisand. Even Jeff Bridges, who has a reputation as being easy going, found her difficult. ‘[She] can piss you off, but if I get pissed off, I can’t work. So I don’t allow myself to get there,’ he said at the time.

  The set was closed, no outsiders allowed. When they were on location, shooting a scene in a store or a restaurant, the area was blocked off and guards patrolled with walkie-talkies. ‘The whole team [cast, director of photography, crew, security] is a walking thermometer for You Know Who,’ one observer reported. ‘The word would pass – she’s feeling OK ... she’s getting make-up ... she’s left the trailer ... she’s due momentarily ... she’s coming.’

  On a rare morning in January, New York Post entertainment reporter Cindy Adams was permitted on the set, an indoor antiques and collectable bazaar with 100 booths on 25th Street, which was transformed into an ‘Annual Antique Spring Market’ for the scene being shot. (Streisand had cased it earlier and bought numerous pieces for the penthouse.) This meant that in the midst of New York’s winter freeze – the coldest, snowiest January in fifty years – the cast had to wear light spring clothes. The crew arrived at 5 a.m. to set lights, camera angles, dress the walls with early American quilts. Streisand entered at 9 a.m. ‘in a little pink cardigan and promptly rearranged the lights, camera angles plus whatever else could be rearranged. Renata, her handsome assistant with the long blonde hair, at her side,’ Adams related.

  The scene to be shot had Streisand studying an early American patchwork quilt in a wall showcase as a short distance away Segal asks Bridges about his sex life with his mousey wife, ‘So, did you do it already?’

  The scene had not yet met with Streisand’s approval by the time lunch was called. At 9 p.m. that evening, having munched on a sandwich for dinner, she was watching the dailies and making notes for the following day’s work, deeply involved with the movie she was making, struggling to bring it to realisation as she envisioned it. Mirror now belonged to her, possessively. She was totally immersed. She returned to her apartment about 11 p.m., studied her lines for her next day’s scenes, fell asleep exhausted and was up and working on them again by 7 a.m. in the morning.

  So consumed was she with the production of Mirror that she had allowed to slip from her attention the fact that her option on The Normal Heart, which she had never given up believing in, had expired on 2 January. When Kramer’s representative pressed for a dedsion on her part to either renew her contract or allow Kramer to take it elsewhere, she made no reply. Finally, as April approached, Mirror still shooting and overages mounting, Streisand insisted she would make The Normal Heart once her present commitment was complete and she had been able to sign a male star and a director, having decided she would not direct herself. Jason called Kramer and suggested that he (Jason) would be up for director if Kramer could convince his mother that he could do it. Kramer was hoping for a more experienced director and thought this might not be a good idea.

  Then, on 8 April, Kramer, who had still had no further word on whether Streisand would pick up her option, was interviewed by Variety in an article that was reprinted and excerpted widely: ‘This woman has had this play since 1986, She doesn’t own it any more and my health is deteriorating and I would very much like to see the movie made while I’m alive. She was all set to make The Normal Heart about a worldwide plague, and at the last minute she switches to a film about a woman who gets a face-lift. I didn’t think that was decent of her to do to me, her gay fans and the people with AIDS she talks so movingly about.’ And he added, ‘My ten-year journey of futility with Barbra to make The Normal Heart has been almost as long as my fight as an AIDS activist to end this plague.’

  Streisand then issued a public statement: ‘I am painfully aware of the ticking clock. Therefore, I am now stepping aside and will no longer be involved with the project. I wish Larry only success in getting The Normal Heart made.1 I personally have a strong commitment to projects that reflect and further the needs of the gay community.’

  ‘Barbra was deeply hurt by Larry’s attitude and the harsh coverage she received in the press over the now abandoned property,’ a close friend confided. ‘I think The Normal Heart was almost as important to her as Yentl had once been. And Larry had made a great impression on her, brought her a special awareness of both the plague and the gay community. But once he went public, she went ice cold on him. She felt she had put in almost as much in the project as he did, that he should have understood how much she cared, what it meant to her. She took it as a personal stab.’

  On 15 April she sent Kramer a fax accusing him of being self-destructive, of having acted unreasonably, of demanding too much for himself when she had not received compensation for the many years she had worked on the movie. ‘I love this project – and I was trying to get it made ... for your sake as well as mine ... I have to finish Mirror as you would have wanted me to finish Heart.’ And then she as
ked him to stop making statements that Mirror was a movie about a woman with a face-lift, requesting that he read the script before making unjust judgments.

  Things grew worse on the set of Mirror after the fracas over The Normal Heart and anonymous interviews were given to the press by at least two members of the crew about the difficulties on the film and Streisand’s frenetic behaviour, tantrums and all-round ill-humour. Ultimatums were levied. No one was to speak to any member of the press or their jobs would be on the line. ‘This is my first major film,’ one associate told me. ‘I’m scared shitless. She has the power to make it difficult, if not impossible, for me to do another film with TriStar, and with the manic way she has been acting I have little doubt she would do so if she knew I was talking to you. Every day I walk out on the set and I can’t believe what I am seeing and hearing. There is a dark cloud of fear, of apprehension, of wanting the filming to end. But now, just when we all thought that was about to happen, she has decided she must reshoot a major sequence. That’s another five to seven days’ work, not to mention the reconstruction of a set. I know I’m going to turn off my phones and my pager and sleep for four days when the last shoot is in the can. Barbra? She has a summer of supervising the editing ahead of her, then the advertising and publicity campaign, working out the release and distribution. And she is not going to let go of this film until she drives everyone and herself working on post-production crazy.’

  In her defence, Richard LaGravenese says, ‘I love Barbra. She is terribly maligned, misunderstood.’

  ‘Be careful of the wishes you make, they may come true,’ Stephen Sondheim has written. Streisand has always wished for more than what she has – be it career, money, achievement, love. Streisand wished to be a great star and it happened, but not without her constant attention to what she was doing and how she could achieve her goal. With Elizabeth Taylor, she is one of only two behemoth Hollywood survivors, albeit the only one of the two who is still in the business of making movies. Unlike Taylor she has not had to fight drugs, weight problems, multiple divorces, tragedy and severe and frequent illness. She does not move her fans to tears or her friends into becoming protective shields. And her greatest triumphs are not in the distant past. Without Taylor’s natural, spectacular beauty, a mother to goad her, or anyone to guide her, she was forced to invent herself, make herself over, sell the world on what and who she was and she is still in there selling, pushing.