My Name Is Barbra

Streisand was always convinced she would be a star, noting in her prologue, “I wanted to be an actress ever since I was a child...maybe from the moment I was taken to my first movie, and stood up on the seat so I could see the screen” (14). She went to great lengths to become an actor, using music as a way to become known before being cast in her first Broadway play. Yet she quickly realized that fame isn’t everything she’d hoped it would be: “Looking back, it was much more fun to dream of being famous than to actually be famous [...] Fame is a hollow trophy” (1155). For one thing, the press fixated on her appearance because she was a successful woman who did not fit traditional beauty standards. One of the first reviews she received when she was 19 called her “an ‘amiable anteater’” (12)—a description mocking her prominent, aquiline nose. Streisand notes several other things her nose was called in the same year, emphasizing how often her looks were commented on over her talent. Dealing with fame has meant accepting often misogynist and antisemitic criticism that she cannot respond to.

Though Streisand enjoys making art, having a public image has often unnerved her, which has led reporters to believe she is ungrateful for her fame. Streisand bristles at the idea that fame makes her different than anyone else. For instance, when she cut short an interview because she didn’t feel well, the journalist’s response was not sympathetic: “[The journalist’s] attitude was basically, You’re rich and famous and you’re not allowed to have a headache” (798). She is also irritated that the public, and especially the press, believes that she owes them something because they know who she is. She gets mad when people ask her to sing on command, as she doesn’t even sing in her own home and writes that “they think they own you, because they paid for that album” (544).

Overall, Streisand is surprised by how much her fame seems separate from her lived experience as a normal person. Though she frequently describes herself as “rather ordinary” (14), her image is of a controlling, tyrannical, temperamental diva. Though she wants to change this perception, she knows that she cannot control the content produced to sate a demand for gossip that sells: “most reporters had some preconceived idea of me, and that’s what they were going to write. It almost didn’t matter what I actually said. […] it’s much harder to make a positive piece interesting. It’s the negative pieces that get all the attention” (291).

However, Streisand also uses her fame tactically, performing at fundraisers, campaigning for politicians, and raising money for charities. Though she does not always appreciate her celebrity, she understands how it can benefit others.