“My Name is Barbra” by Barbra Streisand

REVIEW BY MEREDITH MCKINNIE

“I was a personality before I was a person.”

For most of us, Barbra Streisand requires no introduction, but the megastar takes the liberty anyway – in a big way – with her 900-plus page memoir. If you’ve heard Streisand in interviews, you are privy to the tone and sentiment of this book. Barbra knows herself and what she wants, and always has. And she will tell you what she wants and how she wants it. She does not cower to titles, experience, or authority. To Streisand, “be”-ing a star is all about what one does, and with all of her endeavors, context is key. To put it mildly, Barbra knows best.

 Barbra begins at the very beginning, detailing the tragedy of her father’s death when she was only 15 months old, and the ensuing tenuous relationship with her mother. From Barbra’s perspective, her mother never understood her or even tried to, instead leaning into jealousy and resentment, always intent to bring Barbra down a peg or two. The act of loving was for the sentimental, and her mother was anything but. Intent on becoming a star, Barbra starts singing in nightclubs, rebuffs singing lessons, and charts her own path through the theater before becoming box-office gold. She infamously challenges directors and writers and is known for iconic roles in A Star Is Born, Funny Girl, and The Way We Were, in addition to countless plays and record-breaking albums. She details a bevy of love affairs with the likes of Marlon Brando, Joe Namath, Don Johnson, and Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. After a brief marriage in her 20s, Barbra raises her son Jason, finally marrying James Brolin in her fifties. Like her insistence of her work being her way, Streisand finds in Brolin a willing partner, one whose love language complements her own. In Brolin she found a collaborator for life.

I think even Barbra would classify herself as a control freak (and if memory serves, she does somewhere in the book), yet she doesn’t see this impulse as a negative quality, but rather the impetus for her continued relevance. Defining herself on her own terms has always been her statement, and this memoir is a continuation of that effort. Streisand relinquishes all the juicy details of her decades-long career and personal life. For those curious about certain parts of her life, each chapter is situated around a particular event – namely a movie, or album, or love affair. And like her editor, I believe the same story could be intimated in under 600 pages. But in true Barbra fashion, Streisand lives by her own rules, and who am I to suggest anything different?

“Looking back, it was much more fun to dream of being famous than to actually be famous.”