Barbra Streisand on “The Secret of Life”

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Speaker 5 This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker.

Speaker 6 Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour.

Speaker 7 Hi, sorry to be a little late.

Speaker 1 Not at all. How are you? Oh my God.

Speaker 1 How am I... Hmm.

Speaker 6 Do you recognize that that voice? Sure you do.

Speaker 7 Okay, let me see here.

Speaker 7 How about if I just do that? Is that okay?

Speaker 1 Poifict. Poifict.

Speaker 7 What song was that that I did that?

Speaker 6 I think you said poifict more than once in your career.

Speaker 6 For 60 years, Barbara Streisand has been a huge presence on the American scene. Singing at first in nightclubs when she was a teenager, She went on to conquer Broadway and Hollywood.

Speaker 6 Streisand was not a stand-up comedian, but she was and remains hilarious with a personality to match her talent. There's a string of firsts attached to her name.

Speaker 6 For one thing, she's the youngest person ever to achieve the egot. She was just 28 when she had already received the Emmy, the Grammy, the Oscar, and the Tony.

Speaker 6 With the movie Yentel, she became the first woman to star, direct, write, and produce a major studio movie.

Speaker 7 Anyway, you're interesting.

Speaker 1 Well, thank you. But you're not so bad yourself.

Speaker 7 No, I'm interesting.

Speaker 6 I got to tell you, I read your book.

Speaker 1 I loved it.

Speaker 6 What's it like to finish a memoir that's that ambitious, that complete?

Speaker 6 Is it a satisfying thing to go back over your life from beginning to its most recent days?

Speaker 6 What's it like emotionally?

Speaker 7 No, emotionally, it was a pain in the ass.

Speaker 7 I mean, the point is, I knew I should,

Speaker 7 you know, for the ages,

Speaker 7 for the next millennium, I should have a review of my life.

Speaker 7 But for years and years, I thought about it, but never did it, you know.

Speaker 6 Was it painful?

Speaker 7 Yeah, it was.

Speaker 1 What was painful about it?

Speaker 7 Oh, just...

Speaker 7 Thinking at my life growing up without a father

Speaker 7 and a father who was completely wonderful.

Speaker 6 I hear, I read. Your father was an academic who was gone by the time you were one or two, right?

Speaker 7 15 months old, yeah.

Speaker 6 So his death

Speaker 6 remained a mystery to you when you were growing up and even when you were writing the book?

Speaker 7 Yeah, yeah, because I, as I said in the book, you know, I would ask my mother,

Speaker 7 Why didn't you speak about him? Why didn't you tell me about my father? Reading about, he's so interesting. He was interested in sports and education.

Speaker 7 You know, he was an intellectual, but he was also, you know, an adventurer.

Speaker 6 And your mother is portrayed in this book

Speaker 6 as a very difficult presence.

Speaker 6 Withholding doesn't begin to

Speaker 6 describe it.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 7 I think, you know,

Speaker 7 I always thought growing up that my mother was jealous of me because she wanted to be

Speaker 7 famous. She wanted to be known as a great singer.

Speaker 6 Did you, by the process of writing this book, feel that you

Speaker 6 came to understand your mother better or to reconcile with her in some way, or is that

Speaker 1 really out of reach?

Speaker 7 Yes, I feel pathos now for my mother. I feel

Speaker 7 like I'm so sorry that she couldn't fulfill her dreams. My mother once told me she would stand with a broom and make believe it's a microphone.

Speaker 7 Or she went with her sister to

Speaker 7 interview at the Metropolitan Opera, but she was too scared to

Speaker 7 sing.

Speaker 7 Or, you know, she didn't want to travel from Brooklyn to go there. There was always some excuse.

Speaker 6 But did she ever get any nachas from your own success, or that was impossible?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 7 That was hard for her.

Speaker 7 But I mean, I've grown to, after that

Speaker 7 understanding of

Speaker 7 my mother, I feel

Speaker 1 sad.

Speaker 7 I feel sad for her, not angry anymore. It's a sadness that she was

Speaker 7 unfulfilled.

Speaker 7 She did have a lovely voice, a soprano voice, very different than mine, but a very pretty voice. And her father was, you know, would sing in the shul sometimes.

Speaker 7 So in other words, it's in the DNA, I think, in the vocal cords, you know?

Speaker 6 So much so that the way you describe it, you began singing, you had maybe one lesson. But it was like you emerged from Zeus's head with that voice.

Speaker 6 We hear it on your debut, the Barbers Dreisand album, and there is the Barbra's Dreisand voice fully formed.

Speaker 6 Now you say

Speaker 3 you're lonely.

Speaker 3 You cry the long night through.

Speaker 3 Well, you can cry

Speaker 3 me a river.

Speaker 3 Cry me a river.

Speaker 3 I cried a river over you.

Speaker 6 Is that accurate to say?

Speaker 7 Well, yeah, because the apartment building I lived in in Williamsburg, Brooklyn,

Speaker 7 had a beautiful sound in the lobby.

Speaker 7 I love the sound, the echo. I loved the echo in that lobby at five years old, you know, five, six years old.

Speaker 7 And so I would sometimes sing in that lobby with nobody there. I never would sing around anybody.

Speaker 7 But

Speaker 7 and to this day, you know,

Speaker 7 I'm very sensitive to the sound

Speaker 1 of

Speaker 7 the music that I'm recording.

Speaker 6 Tell me about this record of duets. This is something that Sinatra did in his time.
You've done a version of it in, I think, 2014,

Speaker 6 an album of duets with other performers. Is it accomplished by two people in the studio together, or do you send audio files back and forth?

Speaker 7 It depends. I mean, I like to just sing

Speaker 1 alone, actually.

Speaker 7 I mean, I did with Paul McCartney because we were filming it, but I had already, I went into the studio and did a couple of renditions of it, and that's what we played, even though I sang live in the studio.

Speaker 3 With fault

Speaker 7 yeah i just sang again

Speaker 7 but uh you know i liked my original one but a lot you know a line from here and a line from there whatever but i was singing with him so it really doesn't matter it's very easy to sing a song you like.

Speaker 6 So in 1971, Bob Dylan wrote a letter to one of his friends, Tony Glover, and he said that he had written Lay Lady Lay about you.

Speaker 6 And then in 1978, you had an exchange, I think an exchange of letters or flowers or something like that.

Speaker 1 Right, right, right.

Speaker 6 And then in 2025, many years later, you do this recording together. Had you been talking with him, communicating with him, the idea of doing something together?

Speaker 7 Well, my representatives tried to

Speaker 7 speak to him, I guess. You know, the fun thing is, is that we were both 19 years old in Greenwich Village, never met each other.

Speaker 7 I was at the bonsois and he was playing the guitar somewhere else.

Speaker 7 So,

Speaker 7 and I remember him sending me flowers and writing me a card

Speaker 7 in different color pencils, like a child's writing.

Speaker 7 And would you sing with me?

Speaker 1 And I thought, what would I sing with him?

Speaker 7 How could we get together on this?

Speaker 7 I couldn't understand it, you know,

Speaker 7 at that time. But it was sure wonderful

Speaker 1 to

Speaker 7 have picked a song, The Very Thought of You,

Speaker 7 that

Speaker 7 it was actually my manager.

Speaker 7 manager's favorite song that I never sang over 60 years of being with him.

Speaker 7 I sang it for his 80th birthday, where I gave him a party in my backyard. But

Speaker 7 that was it. And Bob loved that song.

Speaker 1 The little ordinary things

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 everyone

Speaker 1 ought to do.

Speaker 1 I'm living in a kind of daydream.

Speaker 7 It was a wonderful experience because he's very shy

Speaker 7 and like I am, but he was wonderful to work with.

Speaker 7 I mean, I was told you better not, he didn't want any,

Speaker 7 you know,

Speaker 7 direction.

Speaker 7 But

Speaker 7 when I talked to him about things and

Speaker 7 that I suggested, you know, he was so

Speaker 7 pliable. He was so open to suggestions.

Speaker 7 I mean, everything I heard about him just went out the window. You know, he stood on his feet for three hours

Speaker 7 with me.

Speaker 6 Does work mean something different to you? at this stage of your life than it did when you were 30, 40, 50 years old?

Speaker 6 Is it something that you're as obsessed with as ever or is it something quite different?

Speaker 7 Hmm, I never thought of that.

Speaker 7 It seemed like

Speaker 7 just great to record with people I trust.

Speaker 7 I was so shocked and

Speaker 7 happy that my voice was there

Speaker 7 and I was hitting those high notes and that I walked into the room after I sang that first take

Speaker 7 and everybody was applauding. You know, I was was kind of, you know, dazzled by their reaction.

Speaker 6 Is it there every day? Or is it some days it's there and some days it's not there?

Speaker 7 No, it was there every day I went into that studio. Aaron Powell.

Speaker 6 So would you perform again after the 2014 album? You did a round of live performances at a bunch of big places, Tonight Show, Good Morning America, and so on.

Speaker 6 And you've said more recently that you don't love performing live certainly as much as you might years ago.

Speaker 7 No, you know,

Speaker 7 I never really enjoyed,

Speaker 7 well, maybe when I was 19, I kind of got a kick out of it because I would just say anything on my mind and,

Speaker 7 you know, pick songs that were interesting to me to act as an actress because I never wanted to be a singer. I wanted to be an actress.

Speaker 7 So I looked for material that I could act, you know, from Broadway plays and

Speaker 7 to be silly, you know, singing Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

Speaker 7 You know, I was open to the audience and talking to them. Whatever I was doing was just

Speaker 7 about being in the moment, you know, things that I was experiencing in acting class. It was never to be a singer, it was to be an actress.

Speaker 7 So

Speaker 7 they were fun times, but I could stand in a little club like the Bon Sois. I didn't have to move.
Now, the only problem I have

Speaker 7 would be because my back hurts.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 7 You know what I mean? And I've always had a bad back. So it's not just age.
It's

Speaker 7 I was born with a fusion between my sacrum and my L5 or whatever they told me. And I don't like needles, so I've never had that.

Speaker 6 Oh, I've had the needle. Can I tell you something?

Speaker 7 Yeah, tell me.

Speaker 6 Works.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 7 You had a cortisone shot,

Speaker 7 huh?

Speaker 6 Like after the shot,

Speaker 6 they give you a little cup of ginger ale and a cookie, and I was weeping like a baby with gratitude. It was so, it worked so well.

Speaker 7 What was the name of your doctor?

Speaker 6 I swear to God, I'll send it to you.

Speaker 6 This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

Speaker 6 Free medical advice plus Barbara Streisand. We'll continue in a moment.

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Speaker 6 This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick and I'm speaking today with Barbara Streisand.

Speaker 6 Barbara Streisand is 83 and she's releasing a new album.

Speaker 6 I have no idea what number this is by now. I lost counted a million.

Speaker 6 But it is an album of duets and it features Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Dylan, Seale, and younger artists, including Sam Smith, Ariana Grande, and Tim McGraw.

Speaker 6 The album is called The Secret of Life, Partners, Volume 2. And I also wanted to talk about Streisand's recent memoir, which is called, Wait for It, My Name is Barbara.

Speaker 6 Because if you've been a star as long as Streisand has, the anecdotes pile up and up.

Speaker 6 Let me ask you about memory. One of the most fascinating aspects of this book is the sheer power of memory.
I know you used a researcher, but there are some things that researchers can't tell you.

Speaker 6 For example, you have a meeting with Marlon Brando,

Speaker 6 which is just hilarious. And you write, about three hours into the conversation, he looked into my eyes and he said, I'd like to fuck you.

Speaker 1 I was taken aback, you say. That sounds awful, I said.
After a moment of thought, he said, okay, then I'd like to go to a museum with you.

Speaker 6 And you say, now that's very romantic i'd like that that's exactly right i don't think i guess you can't forget that if that's what happened with marlon bando but then possibly the greatest line in the whole book to my mind is you say you can't remember if you slept with warren beaty now i don't think anyone has ever written that line in the history

Speaker 6 in the history of sex or hollywood or anything

Speaker 7 i know i slept in the bed with him

Speaker 7 but i can't remember if we actually had penetration

Speaker 7 i swear to god i can't

Speaker 1 there are certain things i block out i didn't think that i would ever say this in my entire life but it might be that i'm calling on barbara strife's head is that possible you're calling what i'm calling bs on that you can't remember that's

Speaker 1 that's right

Speaker 7 Well, I'll bet he remembers that. I can't, but I know we're still friends.

Speaker 7 And every year on my birthday, birthday, he calls me and we have a wonderful talk about our lives and our children and so forth. You know, so we're still friends.
I met him when I was 15 years old.

Speaker 7 And he was 21, I think.

Speaker 1 Wow. Wow.

Speaker 6 Now, I happen to know that there's a big, apparently there's a big running offer on the table for you from Scott Rudin and Barry Dealer, who've been dying for you to do Gypsy on Broadway.

Speaker 7 How do you know that?

Speaker 1 You know, I'm a reporter.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 7 But why would I ever do anything on the stage again like that?

Speaker 1 I mean, it was horrifying.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 7 I liked, you know, I loved the rehearsal process.

Speaker 7 I loved learning.

Speaker 7 you know, every day and experimenting and all that.

Speaker 6 Now, would you do another, would you do a film version of Gypsy, something something like that, where it's not as physically correct?

Speaker 7 That's what I wanted to do. I had the script.

Speaker 7 I talked to Stephen Sondheim. I had it all down in my head, the musical numbers, even.

Speaker 7 I had it in my head, what I wanted to do with it. And

Speaker 7 unfortunately,

Speaker 7 And it was my one squabble with Stephen,

Speaker 7 was that he said, you can direct it or star in it, but I don't want you to do both at the same time, even though I did it three times before.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
Stephen Sondime, right?

Speaker 7 Yeah, he just never really wanted

Speaker 7 to have it made again. I said, but the other one with, and

Speaker 7 he knew he and Arthur Lawrence hated the first time

Speaker 7 it was made with Rosalind Russell, who couldn't sing. And they mixed up the play.

Speaker 7 I wanted to bring back more of the the play because Arthur wrote a brilliant play, but I had musical ideas and so forth.

Speaker 7 It was such a sadness to me that I could never end my career like bookends, you know.

Speaker 6 But let's make some news here. Are you saying it's now still a possibility?

Speaker 7 No, I can't because of my back.

Speaker 1 Even a film.

Speaker 7 Oh, a film.

Speaker 7 A film, you know, I thought I could play it because I happened to look young for my age,

Speaker 7 which I I like.

Speaker 1 I like.

Speaker 7 But that's interesting about, you know, making Yentel into a musical, because this is interesting for me because I love

Speaker 7 spirituality and

Speaker 7 miracles, you know, little miracles.

Speaker 7 So I hadn't been to see my father's grave ever.

Speaker 6 Where is he buried?

Speaker 7 In Long Island, in a cemetery on Long Island.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 I didn't even notice at the time until my brother, who had taken a picture of me standing there, sent me the picture.

Speaker 7 And in a week, I looked and saw that,

Speaker 7 oh my God.

Speaker 7 The tombstone next to my father's.

Speaker 7 I was wondering whether to make Yentil into a musical or not, you know.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 1 there

Speaker 7 on the next tombstone, right next to my father's,

Speaker 7 was the name

Speaker 7 Anshal.

Speaker 7 And Anshel is a very, it's not like the rest of the people in this, you know, in the cemetery, it was, you know, Moisha and, or Robert or Sam or whatever. Anshel, I never saw that.

Speaker 7 That's the name in Isaac Singer's book that Yentel changes her name to as to be a boy, to be a man.

Speaker 7 Now, what is that? That gave me the sign

Speaker 7 to make

Speaker 7 Yentel a musical.

Speaker 7 Papa,

Speaker 3 can you hear me?

Speaker 1 Papa, can you see me?

Speaker 3 Papa, can you find me in

Speaker 3 the night?

Speaker 7 So, there are things in my life that are like that.

Speaker 6 Do you listen to music all day long?

Speaker 1 Never. You never listen to music? No.
Why?

Speaker 7 I don't know. I just don't feel like it.

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 7 You know, if I listen to music, I like

Speaker 7 Collis or or somebody like that, you know?

Speaker 1 Maria Collis.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I rarely ever do.

Speaker 7 I mean, my husband always puts on the radio and then I shut it off or I listen to,

Speaker 1 yeah.

Speaker 6 You sound like you really hated, not hated, but

Speaker 6 well, hated performing.

Speaker 1 It made you, didn't make you happy at all.

Speaker 7 No, that's right. I did not like performing.
Yeah. If I saw one person in the audience in the front like not a paul applauding i thought what's wrong what didn't he like did that ever happen

Speaker 7 once

Speaker 1 well it's very ridiculous i bet you remember the date oh god i remember that his feet wouldn't touch the floor he was very short obviously hell with him and i thought

Speaker 7 i was so curious as

Speaker 7 why would you sit in the front row

Speaker 7 and not applaud? Did you not like the song? I was fascinated. You know, did you not like the way I looked, sounded? What? What was it? Why wouldn't you

Speaker 7 kindness out of niceness? No, I don't. I don't remember the song.
I just remember looking at him, think, it turned out to be.

Speaker 7 one of my old writers

Speaker 7 from the early days when when I first started to sing in shows, you know, was it in the 1970s?

Speaker 6 I want to ask you this.

Speaker 1 When you're doing a record or a movie

Speaker 6 or something, when you're in your 30s or 40s, I assume you're still, ambition is part of the picture. Do you feel that at this stage of life, you are beyond ambition and it's there's a different

Speaker 6 approach to whatever project that you decide to take up?

Speaker 1 Well, I don't know if I want to

Speaker 7 do anything that's called a project. I'm really enjoying

Speaker 7 the secret of life, you know?

Speaker 1 Can you tell us what that is?

Speaker 7 I love my grandchildren.

Speaker 7 I love family. I craved

Speaker 7 to have a family, you know.

Speaker 7 I love my son, you know, we're closer than we ever were. Did you ever hear his voice?

Speaker 1 I haven't.

Speaker 7 Oh, you should hear his voice. He has a magical voice.
We did a duet together, too.

Speaker 1 How much would I cry?

Speaker 6 Barbara Streisand, thank you so much. It's just such a pleasure talking with you.

Speaker 7 Oh, it's nice to talk to you, and I've always enjoyed your writing. Well, thank you.
Thank you.

Speaker 7 Yeah, it's wonderful.

Speaker 6 Well, and I'll get you that doctor's name.

Speaker 1 And how much do I love you?

Speaker 1 I'll tell you.

Speaker 6 Barbara Streisand is Barbara Streisand. Her new album is called The Secret of Life, including duets with Bob Dylan, Ariana Grande, Tim McGraw, and a slew of others.
I'm David Remnick.

Speaker 6 Thanks for listening. I hope you'll join us next time.

Speaker 5 The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbis of Tune Yards, with additional music by Jared Paul.

Speaker 5 This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Summer.

Speaker 5 with guidance from Emily Botine and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Barish, Victor Guan, and Alejandra Deckett.

Speaker 5 The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Torina Endowment Fund.

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