Barbra Streisand

Barbra Streisand, born Barbara Joan Streisand on April 24, 1942, in Brooklyn, New York, is an American singer, actress, songwriter, and filmmaker whose career has spanned more than six decades. Her father, Emanuel Streisand, a high school teacher, died in August 1943 at age 34 from complications of an epileptic seizure, leaving the family in near poverty. Her mother, Diana, had been a soprano in her youth and later worked as a school secretary and bookkeeper. Streisand grew up in Brooklyn alongside an older brother, Sheldon, and a younger half-sister, singer Roslyn Kind, born after their mother's 1950 remarriage to Louis Kind.

Streisand's early education began at the Jewish Orthodox Yeshiva of Brooklyn and continued at Public School 89. In 1956 she enrolled at Erasmus Hall High School, where she was an honor student in modern history, English, and Spanish and sang in the Freshman Chorus and Choral Club alongside classmate Neil Diamond. She graduated in January 1959 at age 16. Her ambition was primarily to become an actress, a goal sharpened when she saw The Diary of Anne Frank on Broadway at age 14. She spent time studying the biographies of stage actresses including Eleanora Duse and Sarah Bernhardt, and read the acting theories of Konstantin Stanislavski and Michael Chekhov. Her first stage experience came during the summer of 1957 as a walk-on at the Playhouse in Malden Bridge, New York, followed by roles in Picnic and Desk Set. She later took a backstage job at the Cherry Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village.

Streisand's Broadway career ran from 1962 to 1964. Her first Broadway appearance was in I Can Get It for You Wholesale, for which she received a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical in 1962. She subsequently starred in Funny Girl, earning a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical in 1964. During this same period she began performing in nightclubs and made guest appearances on television, while also signing with Columbia Records. Under that arrangement she accepted lower pay in exchange for retaining full artistic control of her recordings, a condition that remained in place throughout her career.

Her Columbia debut, The Barbra Streisand Album, was released in 1963 and won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Over the course of her recording career she accumulated 31 RIAA platinum-certified albums, among them People (1964), The Way We Were (1974), Guilty (1980), The Broadway Album (1985), and Higher Ground (1997). She became the first woman to place 11 number-one albums on the US Billboard 200, a run extending from People through Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway (2016), and remains the only artist to reach number one on that chart in six consecutive decades. Five of her singles topped the US Billboard Hot 100: "The Way We Were," "Evergreen," "You Don't Bring Me Flowers," "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)," and "Woman in Love." The Recording Industry Association of America ranks her as the third-highest certified female artist in the United States, with 68.5 million certified album units, and Billboard named her the greatest solo artist in the history of the Billboard 200 chart as well as the top Adult Contemporary female artist of all time. Her worldwide record sales exceed 150 million.

In the latter 1960s Streisand moved into film. She starred in the 1968 screen adaptation of Funny Girl and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for that performance. Further film work included the musical Hello, Dolly! (1969), the screwball comedy What's Up, Doc? (1972), and the romantic drama The Way We Were (1973). She won a second Academy Award, for Best Original Song, for writing the love theme from A Star Is Born (1976), becoming the first woman recognized by the Academy as a composer in that category. With Yentl (1983), she became the first woman to write, produce, direct, and star in a major studio film; the picture won an Academy Award for Best Original Score and a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Musical. Streisand also received the Golden Globe Award for Best Director for Yentl, becoming the first woman to win that award, a distinction she held alone for 37 years. She subsequently produced and directed The Prince of Tides (1991) and The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996).

Streisand's accolades include ten Grammy Awards — among them the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and the Grammy Legend Award — nine Golden Globe Awards, five Emmy Awards, four Peabody Awards, two Academy Awards, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, the Honorary Palme d'Or, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.