Current:Home > MyBarbra Streisand details how her battle with stage fright dates back to experience in "Funny Girl" -Infinite Edge Capital
Barbra Streisand details how her battle with stage fright dates back to experience in "Funny Girl"
View
Date:2025-04-18 07:07:47
Despite her celebrated career, Barbra Streisand said that her performances have been shadowed by a fear of forgetting her lines — a fear that took root during her early days in Broadway's "Funny Girl."
She said the off-script, on-stage behavior of her "Funny Girl" co-star Sydney Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin's son, drove her into therapy and instilled a deep-seated anxiety about live performances.
"He kept talking to me on stage under his breath. Not looking at me in the eyes. You know, looking, like, at my forehead or my hair or something. And talking. Like a crazy person," she told "CBS Mornings" co-host Gayle King.
"And it was driving me insane," she said. "That threw me so off that I thought, 'What, what am I, what is my next line?'"
"I never lost that, that fear of performing, fear of forgetting my lines," Streisand said.
The Oscar-winning actress and singer details her anxiety in her new memoir "My Name Is Barbra," which is being released on Tuesday. Her struggle with stage fright was so intense that after forgetting lyrics during a 1967 concert in Central Park, Streisand avoided public performances for nearly three decades.
Her new book also details her childhood. With the loss of her father when she was just 15 months old and facing discouragement from her mother, she credits her pursuit of acting as a way to find a sense of belonging and love.
"Even though my mother said, 'You'll never make it as an actress. You know, you're not pretty enough,' or whatever, I thought, because I used to read movie magazines, right, and kind of dream, 'Is it, wouldn't it be wonderful?'" she said.
Her dreams and dedication have indeed paid off. Streisand's Malibu home has been personally curated, from her legendary garden to what she calls "the mall," featuring unique shops and an antique clothes room.
"I'm so finicky, and when I love something, I don't care how much it costs," she said.
Streisand recently celebrated her 25-year marriage to actor James Brolin, who said he asked Streisand to marry him three times before she agreed.
And Brolin shared a personal detail about their early relationship: "I had been literally — it's a wild word, but I had been celibate for three years saying, 'Who needs this?'" After two previous marriages, he said he wanted to avoid "getting involved in a lousy situation."
During an anniversary celebration, Brolin read her a letter, saying, "You know someone is right for you if you love to be with them all the time. And when I go, when I finally go, I will love you then."
"Home is not a place. Home is a person," he added.
As for who could play Streisand in a potential future film, she suggested she doesn't want to think about it yet.
"I don't know of anyone who can," she said.
- In:
- Barbra Streisand
veryGood! (77)
Related
- Nearly 400 USAID contract employees laid off in wake of Trump's 'stop work' order
- Former NBA, Kentucky basketball star Rajon Rondo arrested on gun, drug charges
- Ava DuVernay gets her 'Spotlight' with 'Origin,' a journalism movie about grief and racism
- 2024 Grammys Preview: Five big questions ahead of Sunday’s award show
- Selena Gomez's "Weird Uncles" Steve Martin and Martin Short React to Her Engagement
- Greyhound bus crash in Alabama leaves at least 1 dead and several injured
- Federal appeals court won’t revisit ruling that limits scope of Voting Rights Act
- TikTok’s Favorite Work Pants From Halara Are 40% off Right Now & Totally Worth the Hype
- Will the 'Yellowstone' finale be the last episode? What we know about Season 6, spinoffs
- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. mulls running for president as Libertarian as he struggles with ballot access
Ranking
- NHL in ASL returns, delivering American Sign Language analysis for Deaf community at Winter Classic
- Teachers strike in Boston suburb enters its eighth day, with tensions fraying
- Our E! Shopping Editors Share Favorite Lululemon Picks of the Month— $39 Leggings, $29 Tanks, and More
- Zimbabwe opposition figure gets suspended sentence after nearly 2 years in pretrial detention
- North Carolina justices rule for restaurants in COVID
- Judge denies Alex Murdaugh's bid for new double-murder trial after hearing jury tampering allegations
- Utah is the latest state to ban diversity, equity and inclusion efforts on campus and in government
- Man convicted in Door County bar fire that killed two people
Recommendation
Bodycam footage shows high
Best Super Bowl LVIII player prop bets for Chiefs-49ers you can place right now
At least 2 people hospitalized after Amtrak train hits milk truck in Colorado
Gisele Bündchen mourns death of mother Vânia Nonnenmacher: 'You were an angel on earth'
'Squid Game' without subtitles? Duolingo, Netflix encourage fans to learn Korean
ACLU warns Supreme Court that lower court abortion pill decisions relied on patently unreliable witnesses
Anchorage hit with over 100 inches of snow − so heavy it weighs 30 pounds per square foot
Bill targeting college IDs clears Kentucky Senate in effort to revise voter identification law