Biographers can only speculate about Barbra Streisand's early career. Here is the first book to offer the real story behind this entertainment legend written by the man who helped bring Barbra to the world.
The time is 1959 in New York City; the scene is a quaint 9th Street apartment with candles, play scripts, and a guitar-the place struggling actor Barry Dennen calls home. He shares this space with a young, ambitious, starry-eyed actress named Barbara Streisand.Their friendship was instantaneous, and then evolved into a love that could have only existed during those exuberant, youthful days in the New York theater scene days that burned themselves into Dennen's memory.
My Life With Barbra: A Love Story is a moving, fascinating, intimate portrait of Streisand, the three years she shared with Dennen, and the on-again, off-again relationship he has had with her for 30 years. When they met, Dennen explains, it was Streisand's dream to make it as a stage actress. But he helped her discover her real talent, singing. She came to him looking for friendship, and he introduced her to the fabulous history of nightclub singing and cabaret. Through the richly textured performance education Streisand received from Dennen, the thrift shop threads their friend Terry Leong turned into stunning star outfits for her, and the tender touch of makeup artist Bob Schulenberg, Barbara became "Barbra" and was empowered to eventually realize that dream of fame through finding a "style" that set her apart from the rest.
Dennen, a masterful writer with an encyclopedic memory, takes us back to the 1960s ,off Broadway performing arts scene that was an intense, seminal time in Streisand's life-the experiences which began the metamorphosis of the awkward, unsure, shy young girl into the mesmerizing, electrifyingly talented woman we know today.
In this detailed look back at his and Barbra's days of struggle as performers, Dennen recalls Streisand's first efforts at acting. as well as her auditions and singing debuts at The Lion and the Bon Soir nightclubs; their coffee shop talk of hopes and dreams; their sexual exploration and wonderment; Streisand's mysterious need for family privacy; her early influences; his work as her mentor, urging her to be confident in her appearance and to allow her life experiences to inspire her stage work; and the way she has never "looked back" to that important, defining past.
Drawn from Dennen's personal experiences with Streisand, his diaries and letters from that time, My Life with Barbra takes a close look at the early years of one of today's most powerful American entertainers. From her eye-popping first smash-hit as a brand-new Broadway Star in I Can Get It For You Wholesale, to her starring role in Funny Girl Dennen offers you front row seats to the making of a megastar. A treasure-trove drawn from his scrapbooks, never-before published photographs, and letters makes this book of memories a unique and enduring collector's item.
BARRY DENNEN (Los Angeles, CA) is a 35-year veteran of the stage and screen, and a well-known Hollywood script writer. He has had starring roles in Cabaret, Jesus Christ Superstar, and was featured in The Shining, Ragtime, Titanic, Murphy Brown, L.A. Law, and many other major television shows and films.
250 pp (Rare Photographs) ISBN 1-57392-160-2 Cloth