The last 60 years have seen little Barbara Joan Streisand from Brooklyn, New York grow into a celebrity icon known worldwide as one of the greatest voices in modern music history. The singer-actress-producer-activist – and notorious perfectionist – has spent two-thirds of her life in show biz, and certainly has plenty to celebrate.
In the past year alone, her latest release,The Essential Barbra Streisand – a double-CD set compiled by Columbia Records to fete the artist's 40 successful years with the label – has hit the top of the international charts, and has just gone gold. The two-time Oscar-winner was one of the highlights of this year’s Academy Awards, when she reunited with her The Way We Were co-star Robert Redford, to present him with a lifetime achievement gong. And the star, famously phobic about performing in public, brought the house down with a powerful surprise appearance at the Emmys last November.
For now, however, it seems the famously driven performer who chose to cut back her workload – “I like being semi-retired,” she said recently – is concentrating on her family, including husband of nearly four years, Jim Brolin. “When you get a happier life, you don't have the need to express yourself in another way,” she told the Los Angeles Times. “You express yourself with the people you love.” The notoriously private celebrity is particularly focused on her personal life right now, as she is coping with the death of her mother, Diana Streisand Kind, who passed away just weeks ago, aged 93.
Home is where her heart is, and we can expect it to be that way for some time, according to Barbra. “Woody Allen asked me about a movie, but I didn't want to give up my summer,” she said in the Times interview. “I care about my personal life more than my work now. I didn’t want to be away from Jim for four months.”
But that doesn’t mean Barbra’s famous drive has disappeared – the focus has just, well, shifted. “There are plenty of things for me to still be compulsive about around the house," she assures. “I bought a portrait recently of George Washington that was painted during his lifetime… I want it next to this chair, which is also from the 18th century. I'm trying to find the right navy velvet so it'll be the colour of his jacket and I want just the right gold thread so I can put his initials on a pillow.”
She adds: “That's just me, the perfectionist, and it takes a lot of time.”
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
