Barbra is no longer Evergreen.

I’m about to utter blasphemous words to some. Godhelpme.

Barbra Streisand is not a very good actor.

There, I’ve uttered it. Why, you ask, do I make this pronouncement, thereby offering myself up for vivisection?

Yesterday, I was channel-surfing, and ran across Streisand’s 70s opus A STAR IS BORN. (Truth be told, I saw the movie title on the video TV guide thingy, and thought I’d be greeted with the Garland and Mason. Foolish me.) I clicked over to see the last 20 minutes – where John Norman Howard is caught with some groupie, and Esther Hoffman Howard walks in and sees them, and there’s that big fight scene, and they end up boinking, and then they go out to that uber-70s cottage they built out in the desert, and John Norman Howard gets up and roars off in his sports car and wrecks and dies, and Esther Hoffman Howard mauls his body with grief, and then she’s back at their L.A. mansion and hears a tape of him, and cries and drools with grief, and then Esther Hoffman Howard goes on stage and sings a medley of one of her songs and one of his songs, and it’s all touching and very Behind The Music rock’n’roll. And she looks like an idiot trying to "rock out" during the last number -- kind of like "Yentl Goes Spice Girls" or something.

And what really surprised me was how my tastes have changed. I remember when that film came out – I was in early high school – and everyone was just ooh-ing and ah-ing over it. We all owned the soundtrack. “Evergreen” was played ad nauseum on radio stations.

I was struck at how BAD Barbra is. Maybe it was her ‘fro. Whatever it was, she was so over the top and….well “victim-like”, and little or no subtext. Erg. And another thing about Barbra – she’s really a “one note samba” when it comes to her projects, isn’t she? The recurring theme in most of her work is “ugly girl gets good looking guy who treats her like crap, which she probably feels she deserves because she has a big nose.” FUNNY GIRL. FUNNY LADY. THE WAY WE WAS. THE MIRROR HAS TWO FACES. A STAR IS BORN. I’m sure there are more. To be fair, there are exceptions, but methinks she’s beaten this horse to death…all this unlucky in love stuff.

Updated On: 12/8/03 at 12:11 PM

I was just thinking about her version of "A Star is Born" the other day. I thought I was the only one who felt the same way about her. What a relief!!! Thanks for sharing.

---

Magruder, you bring up a good point, especially re: WHAT'S UP DOC (that is the one with Ryan O'Neal, the screwball comedy?) I thought she was pretty good in that..and I've got to think that it's because she wasn't doing that "ugly girl victim" stuff. She had the power in that movie, she was funny.

The great Ms. Kahn made that movie for me...I don't think I remember a single thing Barbra said, but I still can hear Madeline's outraged "I am not A Eunice Burns, I am THE Eunice Burns!"

Now don't get me wrong: I love a lot of what Barbra has done but I think her acting could best be summed up by what happened at a UK press conference during promotion for Yentl..

When asked about her future plans she said she wanted so badly to one day act on stage Hedda Gabler and Cleopatra and all the great stage roles (a comment she had been saying since 1964)..but no one has ever asked her to play those roles..

A reporter then went:

"..but Ms. Streisand, you are a very,very wealthy woman...could'nt you just rent out a small theatre..hire a cast..hire a director... and mount a production of Hedda Gabler yourself?"

Barbra stared at him like he just took a dump on her art deco rug....

I am a huge huge Barbra fan. She is a brilliant singer and has many great moments on film: Funny Girl, Yentl, The Way We Were, On A Clear Day etc. and some bad moments. A Star Is Born is def. not her best performance,but to say that she can't act just because of one movie is a bit dramatic.

well then please name one actress who has not done roles that werent best suited for them...i think evergreen was not her best but it is an awesome leap to make that she cant act...if she couldnt she would never have survived this many years in a business so fickle and so vicous..although she has a tremedoous gift for singing...i personally believe she can act even if you dont.

Sometimes I get the feeling Barbra is more concerned with her back lighting and key lighting than the actual performance. You ever noticed that in MIRROR she always has this luminous glow on the back of her head -- even standing in the middle of a snowstorm?

And a word to the posters that are having visceral reactions to criticisms of Streisand, warranted/unwarranted they may be: I think you may be getting a little over-emotional about her. Don't -- she doesn't get over-emotional about you, her fans (except when she stands to make money off it). Well, perhaps her website audience.

Updated On: 12/8/03 at 02:28 PM

I think What's Up Doc was her best non musical. The off beat, wacky, Lucille Ball type of comedy role suited her well at that time. Other than that one movie, i have never seen her in a non musical where I thought she was good. I liked her in Funny Girl and Hello Dolly because the acting didn't really need to be all that great. it was the music that made those movies singing is Barbra's one true talent. i don't really consider A Star Is Born to be a musical, it's more a movie with music in it.

---

LOL If you thought her version of "A Star is Born" was bad, try watching "All Night Long."
A lot of actors have done some bad acting, or made poor choices as far as films, but I don't think there's any denial that she is an icon in many mediums.
I'm a huge Barbra fan, but compared to Judy's version of "A Star is Born", even I was dissapointed in Barbra's version.
There are very few Barbra movies that I don't enjoy, and it's not just because she's a personality. I am actually able to get past Barbra and see a character in a movie. I think she's one of the greater actresses.

---

I agree with MusicMan re Sunset. She might've really brought that off, because she could've used her own admitted insecurities and narcissism, blended like a DNA molecule, to get inside Norma's anxiety. But she'd need to give herself over to someone like Mike Nichols, an actor's director, and stop, finally, worrying about which side of her face was being photgraphed. (The nadir of that syndrome was her appearnace on Rosie O's show, when the entire set was moved, and Rosie lied and pretended it was her choice...) She'd blow the Webber scores off the screen. It's not really too late -- better Norma than, say, MAME. I'm tired of watching her try to look beautiful.

Which brings me to NUTS. I'm shocked to read so much enthusiasm for that performance. I remember snickering at the thought of Barbra as a top shelf call girl, charging 500 bucks to do what Monica L. did for free. Glibness aside, I couldn't "buy" it, and found it strange leap of faith on her part.

---

On one level, it is sad that Barbras' rise coincided with the decline of the movie musical. But she could have kept it chugging along very nicely had she desired (as awful as YENTL may seem now, it did make money). While she was still viable box office, proiducers were willing to star her in musicals. It's just that right after YENTL, Barbra seemed to gradually lose enthusiasm for making ANY kind of film. And for all her talk about just being a director, she hasn't shown much excitement for doing that, either. By the time of the MIRROR HAS TWO FACES, she turned into a parody of herself.

NUTS was unintentional camp from the start. I remember the audience at the late lamented Regency theater tittering when she maked her first appearance in the lineup of inmates...with about fifteen baby spots giving her frizzy hair an angelic, star-like halo (It's not as if she's Loretta Young, fer Petes' sake). By contrast, the scene where Barbra the spike-heeled vixen enters the bar with every man at the bar turning around and practically giving her wolf-whistles elicited loud guffaws and derisive laughter as if to say "Honey, the only way you'd elicit THOSE looks would be if you walked into the Spike."

I used to think that she'd relax a bit with age and marriage. Maybe recapture her sense of fun and not be such a hyper-nitpicking 'perfectionist' (would that she be so picky over her choices of material!). But instead she's gotten crazier and even MORE vain and self-deluded. I hoped for MAME, or SUNSET...or even a character part. But she has too much star vanity and yes, insecurity to allow herself to do a role. And to allow ANYONE to direct it.

I am resigned to her never making another film.

---

Master, I'm renting NUTS and taking another look. You're right -- seeing it with an audience (I was on the Upper West Side) was an 80s experience.

One irony not lost on any of us: Now, she could play "Dolly" and find new, real pathos and power in the role -- tossing out the odd Mae West touches she used out of desperation in her 20s. She's the right age, and it would tap her comedic and dramatic strengths without a lot of straining.

---