Funny Girl? — Page 4

shameless? In using the name of the tone deaf, offkey singing, obnoxious personalitied Mikalah Gordon of AMERICAN IDOL embarassment IN the same paragraph with the name Barbra.........well, you should probably be banned forever from ever seeing a musical live in a theater for the rest of your life. There has to be some sort of punishment for making that statement!!! :)

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Updated On: 3/26/05 at 11:43 AM

does no one here know the names of Lauren Frost (who played the young Streisand in Barbra's last concert tour) or Mayim Balik, star of television's BLOSSOM and the young Bette Middler in the film BEACHES?

I think they'd both be reasonably obvious considerations to play Fanny.

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Bwaybaby109, right???? Doesn't Lauren Frost seem like a reasonably obvious candidate, being that she was Streisand's "mini me" in concert?

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Jwei123, in Streisand's last concert tour(the title escapes me at the moment-but you can get it on dvd-I saw it on tv) Lauren Frost played the young Streisand and had a fabulous singing voice. Later that year, she appeared on the American Film Institute Awards special when they honored Streisand. Lauren Frost again appeared as a "young Streisand" and sang a song entitled something like "ON THE WAY TO BEING ME" a song about Streisand's career and life from beginning to present. Frost was great performing it and Streisand seemed to love watching Lauren Frost's performance. The song was written by Hamlisch and the Bergmans and went on to win an Emmy.

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Updated On: 3/26/05 at 02:17 PM

TONY tends to come across as very rude and pompous even when there's no need for it. Don't sweat it, BwayBaby109.

"Broadway Style, Streisand is not now, nor has she ever been, anything closely resembling Fanny Brice. Have you never seen Fanny Brice perform on film?"

I'm sorry, WISHIHADATONY, that I was not clear in my initial posting. I have only seen snippets of the real Fanny Brice so I am not intimately familiar with her either as a performer or person. BUT, I was under the impression that she posessed a brassy, somewhat crude sense of humor which I do not see in Sutton at all. That is what I meant to say. Additionally, and please correct me if I'm mistaken, but wasn't Barbra partly selected to play the role because of her strong physical resemblance to Fanny?

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Updated On: 3/26/05 at 08:46 PM

"wasn't Barbra partly selected to play the role because of her strong physical resemblance to Fanny?"

mmhmmm it's true! I have heard that several times so obviously, it's a given fact."

I don't think anybody thought Streisand resembled Brice physically, but she certainly had the quirky/offbeat/Jewish thing going on, which made her a much closer kin to the real Brice then Mary Martin, Anne Bancroft, and Carol Burnett, who were all offered the role and turned it down.

As I've read it, Jule Styne was the one who really pushed for Streisand to get the role. He was simply head over heels in love with her singing voice, and thought she could be taught the rest of the things she'd need to pull off the role.

And for the record, for anyone unfamiliar with Brice's film work, her humor was very ethnic -- specifically, VERY Yiddish.

That brand of humor was watered down a bit for Streisand who wasn't the same kind of comedianne.

So I guess, I could imagine some people imagining Sutton Foster as an adaptation of the Fanny adapted for Streisand.

But Foster playing Brice as she really existed would make about as much sense as Julie Andrews playing Golda Meier.

Updated On: 3/27/05 at 09:55 PM