Barbara Joan Streisand
Barbra Streisand is the only artist to win all major entertainment awards: Oscar, Tony, Emmy, Grammy, Golden Globe, CableACE, and Peabody. She made her film debut in Funny Girl 1968, winning the Academy Award for Best Actress, and later directed Yentl 1983. With 47 gold albums and over 71 million records sold in the US, she is the best-selling female artist of the 20th century.
Barbra Streisand by the numbers — life, work, and family.
The relatives of Barbra Streisand — parents, partners, children, and siblings.
Barbra Streisand — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.
Born in 1942 in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, New York, Streisand lost her father Emanuel at 15 months old. Raised by her mother Diana, a singer turned secretary, she attended Beis Yakov Jewish School and later Erasmus Hall High School, where she sang in the choir alongside Neil Diamond. She studied acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute and HB Studio, dreaming of becoming an actress from a young age.
Streisand debuted on Broadway in 1962’s I Can Get It For You Wholesale, earning a Tony nomination. The following year, her first Columbia album The Barbra Streisand Album won multiple Grammys. In 1964, she starred as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl on Broadway, and in 1968 she reprised the role in the film, winning the Oscar for Best Actress. She followed with musicals Hello, Dolly! 1969 and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever 1970, then expanded into comedies like The Owl and the Pussycat 1970 and What’s Up, Doc? 1972. Her dramatic turn in The Way We Were 1973 produced the hit title song. She made her directorial debut with Yentl 1983, becoming the first woman to win a Golden Globe for Best Director. In the 1990s, she broke records with #1 albums Back to Broadway 1993 and Higher Ground 1997, and became the only artist with #1 albums in four consecutive decades eventually six.
Streisand married Elliott Gould in 1963; they had a son, Jason Gould, in 1966, before divorcing in 1971. She later had relationships with hairdresser-turned-producer Jon Peters, Baskin-Robbins heir Richard Baskin, and others including Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and tennis champion Andre Agassi. In 1998, she married actor James Brolin. She has been a committed environmentalist, donating her 24-acre estate to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.
Streisand is the only EGOT winner to also receive a Peabody and CableACE. She has been honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Kennedy Center Honors, and AFI Life Achievement Award. Her foundation supports numerous causes. She broke barriers for female directors and remains the only woman to win a Golden Globe for Best Director as of 2021. With 71.5 million albums sold in the US, she is the best-selling female artist of the 20th century. She remains a prolific singer, actress, and director who redefined entertainment.
Browse the complete filmography of Barbra Streisand — every film, TV show, and documentary credit, ranked by popularity.
Could not load more credits.
Barbra Streisand's bibliography — every authored, edited, and co-written book, ranked by edition count.
Could not load more books.
Every award, honor, and recognition received by Barbra Streisand — Grammys, hall-of-fame inductions, civic honors, lifetime achievements.
A wall of memorable lines from Barbra Streisand — lyrics, interviews, and off-the-cuff remarks captured over a lifetime.
Oh God, Don’t Envy Me, I Have My Own Pains.
The Audience Is the Barometer of the Truth.
I Am Simple, Complex, Generous, Selfish, Unattractive, Beautiful, Lazy, and Driven.
I Arrived in Hollywood Without Having My Nose Fixed, My Teeth Capped, or My Name Changed. That Is Very Gratifying to Me.
When I Sing, People Shut Up.
I Just Became a Singer, Because I Could Never Get Work as an Actress.
My Friend Quincy Jones Says We Won Our First Grammys Together in 1963. I Have No Recollection. I Don’t Even Remember the Room. When He Showed Me the Picture, I Remembered What I Wore. but It’s Like Awards Don’t Mean Anything.
If I Hear a Record Once, I Usually Never Listen to It Again. I Rarely Listen to Music Unless It’s Billie Holiday.
My Mother Never Really Thought I Could Become Anything.
Little-known facts about Barbra Streisand — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.
Every year, she and Shirley MacLaine celebrate their joint birthday together.
She is one of the elite actors who won an Oscar for their first film role, Funny Girl 1968.
On December 17, 1976, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6925 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.
She was the first woman to win a Golden Globe Award as Best Director; as of 2013, she remains the sole winner.
She is the first woman since the silent era to direct, produce, write, and star in a feature film; she also sings in Yentl 1983.
She is the only artist to receive Oscar, Tony, Emmy, Grammy, Golden Globe, CableACE, and Peabody awards.
The theatre dressing room scene in Funny Lady 1975 in which James Caan and Barbra toss powder in each other’s faces turned into a surprise for Barbra as she only expected a light dusting but James, conspiring with director Herbert Ross, heaped a powder storm on her with dramatic and humorous effect; it is one of her personal favorites.
When she and Neil Diamond had a smash hit in 1978 with You Don’t Bring Me Flowers, it was not the first time the Brooklyn-born superstars had sung together; while students at Erasmus High School, they both sang in the school choir.
She has had the same assistant, a woman called Renata, for 37 years.
She is the only person to achieve Billboard #1 albums in each of the past six decades: 1964 People, 1974 The Way We Were, 1976 Greatest Hits Vol. 2, 1978 A Star Is Born, 1980 Guilty, 1985 The Broadway Album, 1993 Back to Broadway, 1997 Higher Ground, 2009 Love is the Answer, 2014 Partners.
During the filming of Hello, Dolly! 1969, she and co-star Walter Matthau fought bitterly; he disliked her so intensely that he refused to be around her except when required by the script. He is famously quoted as telling her that she had no more talent than a butterfly’s fart. He is clearly seen in the audience at her One Voice 1986 concert at her Malibu ranch, where invitation-only guests paid $5,000 per couple to help establish the Barbra Streisand Foundation.
She is the female artist with the most albums sold in the United States.
Despite extreme peer pressure, she has always refused to get a nose job.
She is a close friend and Malibu neighbor of Irish actor Pierce Brosnan.
Both of her husbands, Elliott Gould and James Brolin, starred in Capricorn One 1978.
She lost the 1964 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical nominated for Funny Girl to Carol Channing, who won for Hello, Dolly! – a role Streisand played in the movie version Hello, Dolly!, 1969.
She is the only Oscar recipient for both acting and songwriting.
She is one of the only 12 people who are an EGOT – one who has at least one of all four major entertainment awards: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. However, Barbra won a Special Tony Award, not a competitive one.
Her favorite modern actress is Meryl Streep.
At the Golden Globe Awards ceremony in 2018, she slammed the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for not recognizing the work of female directors. Streisand won one of the prestigious gongs for Yentl 1983 in 1984, but while presenting at this year’s ceremony, she pointed out that no other woman has won in the Best Director category before or since.
She is one of only five actors/actresses to have both a #1 single and an Oscar for best actor/actress; the others are Frank Sinatra, Jamie Foxx, Cher, and Bing Crosby.
While a struggling artist in the early 1960s, she lived at 1157 Third Avenue in Manhattan over Oscar’s Salt of the Sea Restaurant. She shared the tiny $62-per-month apartment with Elliott Gould, who later became her husband.
She holds the record for highest grossing single concert, with $14,694,750 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on December 31, 1999.
She had her late dog Sammie cloned.
She was named the best-selling female singer of the 20th century, with more than 68 million records, 47 Gold, 28 Platinum, and 13 Multi-Platinum certifications.
Big Business 1988 was originally written for herself and Goldie Hawn. When they both turned it down, the project became a vehicle for Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin.
She prefers to be filmed from the left.
She is close friends with Dustin Hoffman and Dick Van Dyke.
She is capable of ordering a complete meal in Chinese, a talent she acquired while working as a cashier in a Chinese restaurant.
At Erasmus High School, she said she had an unrequited crush on a schoolmate who later achieved international renown – chess genius Bobby Fischer.
She claims she hasn’t smoked a cigarette since the age of thirteen; she didn’t inhale when she had to pretend smoke in a movie, such as Funny Girl 1968 or The Mirror Has Two Faces 1996.
In a controversial decision, she was allowed to become a voting member of the Academy before her first film, Funny Girl 1968, even being released, and won the Oscar in a tie with Katharine Hepburn in The Lion in Winter 1968 a few months later.
On December 3, 2003, her invasion-of-privacy suit over aerial photos taken of her Malibu home and shown on a web site dedicated to the California coastline was thrown out of court by a California judge; she claimed it would encourage stalkers.
She is the artist with Grammy Award nominations in the most categories – 9.
She is the mother, with Elliott Gould, of actor Jason Gould.
She is the ex-stepmother-in-law of Diane Lane.
In 2006, she donated $11,750,000 to the Barbra Streisand Foundation, numerous civil liberties, environmental, and civil rights organizations dedicated to democratic values.
She is the solo artist with the longest time span between first #1 and latest #1 albums 45 years between People and Love is the Answer.
She discovered that she was pregnant with her son Jason Gould when she was starring in the London production of Funny Girl.
She was once a switchboard operator.
Nick Nolte claims to have rejected her advances, and that she even asked him to move in with her, per Nolte’s memoir Rebel: My Life Outside the Lines 2018.
Her paternal grandparents, Isaac Streisand and Anna Kesten, were Austrian Jewish immigrants from Galicia; her maternal grandparents, Louis Rosen and Ida Friedland, were Russian Jews.
She has the second most gold album certifications 47 behind Elvis Presley.
She has appeared in one film selected for the National Film Registry: Funny Girl 1968.
According to biographer Christopher Andersen, Streisand was banned from the White House by First Lady Hillary Clinton after she discovered the superstar had stayed the night in March 1993 while she was out of town.
Columbia Pictures wanted to cast Shirley MacLaine as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl 1968, but Ray Stark, who produced the Broadway show and was Brice’s son-in-law, insisted on Streisand. Several co-stars later blasted Streisand and director William Wyler for many scenes being cut. Columbia considered Frank Sinatra for Nicky Arnstein, which she vetoed. The final number My Man was filmed live because she hated lip-syncing.
While attending the funeral for President Bill Clinton’s mother, she heard a church choir sing On Holy Ground; it moved her so much that she recorded it for her album Higher Ground.
She has dated men ranging from 23 years older former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to 28 years younger tennis champion Andre Agassi. Other notable ex-paramours include Jon Peters, Richard Baskin, Barry Gibb, Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood, and King Charles III.
She was the first choice for Sally Bowles in Cabaret 1972, which she turned down because she wanted to move away from musicals; the role went to Liza Minnelli, who won an Oscar.
She has sold 71.5 million albums in the United States.
Quick answers to the questions readers ask most about Barbra Streisand.
Celebrities similar to Barbra Streisand — same craft, ranked by reach.
🇺🇸 United States
🇨🇦 Canada
🇺🇸 United States
🇺🇸 United States
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
🇺🇸 United States
🇺🇸 United States
🇺🇸 United States
🇺🇸 United States
🇺🇸 United States
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
🇺🇸 United States