Word: streisand
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Show Business: Launching her first tour in 28 years, Barbra Streisand speaks about her work and her pet peeves...
...Streisand recalls the times with girlish enthusiasm. "I was usually late to the theater every night. I used to try to get a cab on Central Park West, and half the time I couldn't get the cab. I would hail police cars, trucks, anything, with tears streaming down my cheeks, to try to get me to the theater. I was always late -- have to get in there, put on the clothes, get on the stage. And when ((method-acting guru)) Lee Strasberg came to see me, I said, 'I feel so bad I can't use your method...
...hard to imagine a piece of advice less likely to influence Streisand. Even those who find her a maddening perfectionist admit that few performers work harder. A musician who played in her Las Vegas show logged in 60 hours of orchestra rehearsal time, and says Streisand, unlike most singers, was present for almost every minute. Lyricist Marilyn Bergman, who with her partner and husband Alan helped write the script for Streisand's stage show, scoffs at her reputation as a difficult diva. "Barbra never says, 'That's good enough.' People who don't understand or appreciate this process might find...
...Streisand's friends also claim she has gotten a bum rap for her political activities. "I think she's a very, very serious person," says Larry Kramer, the AIDS activist who is working with Streisand on a screen version of his play The Normal Heart, which she will direct, produce and act in. "She's very interested in politics, she's very interested in the daily newspapers and journalism, and she's very interested in learning." Streisand fervently defends her attachment to the Clinton Administration during the Inaugural and after. "I think the press was jealous of the people...
...sure, few Hollywood stars have more effectively spent their money in pursuit of political passion. Her foundation has distributed $7.7 million to support a variety of liberal causes. Along with The Normal Heart (subject: AIDS), Streisand is also producing a TV movie about Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer, who was booted out of the military for being a lesbian (Glenn Close will star). She donated her Malibu ranch to an environmental conservancy and put up for auction millions of dollars' worth of art and furnishings that she had collected since the '60s. "I don't want to spend so much time being...