The definitive Streisand biography arrives Oct 12, 2012!

William Mann is a terrific writer. His book on William Haines led to a reevaluation of Haines's work and his life. If you havent read it - do so. He manages to make Nancy and Ronald Regan almost sympathetic. (I kid you not).

His Katherine Hepburn bio is simple a revelation and definitive in every respect. His Elizabeth Taylor biography is luminous.

Mann has decided to now focus on the early life of Barbra Streisand. From birth to the night she wins the Oscar for "Funny Girl".

576 pages and that won't even cover from the age 28 onward.

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Updated On: 6/7/12 at 12:51 PM

What Mann is going to do is chart Streisand's stardom as a means to describe how that stardom changed the entertainment business forever.

It will be a biography but also a take on the world of entertainment before and after B.S.

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Yes...full of b.s.....

and I'm wrong. The book ends with the closing night of "Funny Girl" on Broadway.

It will be the most detailed look into Streisand's early days and it's affect on popular culture that we are ever going to read.

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Will she ever write her memoirs?

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I've read all his books multiple times, PJ. Something tells me we agree on other things as well but what's the fun of that...HA!

The Hepburn book is simply one of the greatest biographies of an entertainer I have ever read (It ranks with "Garbo" by Barry Paris and "Brando" by Peter Manso as revisionist and detailed to the point of minutia - just like I like it).

I think what Mann is going for is that without Barbra - everyone from Midler to Madonna to Gaga and Adele would have had to invent.

There was a "norm" for stardom. A normal way of looking, speaking, singing, behaving.

Barbra broke and destroyed "the norm"!

I actually had a chance to speak with Mann, briefly, and suggested he tackle Alain Delon one day because THAT'S a story waiting to be told...

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I heard his next book will be about Joanna Kerns.

PJ, You don't like Alain Delon? (LOL)!

and I only gave him the suggestion about 6 months ago so who knows??

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...says The New York Times.