Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: In recognition of the upcoming Academy Awards ceremony, we offer
Speaker 1: you a special week of conversations from our archives with
Speaker 1: guests who have actually won an Oscar and one guest
Speaker 1: who was a current Oscar nominee. We begin with Barbara
Speaker 1: streisand Don't tell Me not to Live just sitting cut up.
Speaker 1: There really are no words to describe the talent, the career,
Speaker 1: the woman that is Barbara streisand Don't streisand first on
Speaker 1: the scene in nineteen sixty four with Funny Girl on Broadway,
Speaker 1: Right when it felt like the suburbs and McCarthy ism
Speaker 1: might go on forever, the Beatles show up on the
Speaker 1: Ed Sullivan Show, and on Broadway along comes this phenomenon,
Speaker 1: this totally new, unusual, gorgeous, nakedly ambitious Jewish girl from
Speaker 1: Brooklyn in close, so wildly bright they blow out your
Speaker 1: new color TV affection. She kept her name, she kept
Speaker 1: her nose, she kept that accent. She could not be
Speaker 1: more different from what wasp culture told women they should be.
Speaker 1: New York is just full of unusual and interesting girls.
Speaker 1: Who was starting out in the show business, but few
Speaker 1: of them have the style as early as this young lady.
Speaker 1: She's nineteen years old. Her name is Barbara Streisand and
Speaker 1: then she gets on stage. She's grounded, she's powerful, and
Speaker 1: she's got the greatest voice America has ever heard than
Speaker 1: a male. Over the following years, we also learned she's
Speaker 1: a great dress Here she is trying to win Redford's
Speaker 1: love in the way we were sure. I make waves.
Speaker 1: I mean, you have to, and I'll keep making them
Speaker 1: until your every wonderful thing you should be and will be.
Speaker 1: You'll never find anyone as good for you as I am.
Speaker 1: To believe in you as much as I do, I
Speaker 1: love you as much. Well not why Streisand develops a
Speaker 1: reputation for being difficult and for being a bit of
Speaker 1: a recluse. She gets married, divorced, has a kid, but
Speaker 1: all the while she just keeps getting better and more famous,
Speaker 1: until she's this unique character in American culture, a megastar
Speaker 1: on her own terms. Since we first met in ninet,
Speaker 1: we become friends. We talked at her home in southern California.
Speaker 1: By the way, still to do me a favor, take
Speaker 1: the clock and make sure it works like it needs
Speaker 1: batteries or wounder. Okay, thank you so much. You walk
Speaker 1: around the house and you have you just that just goes.
Speaker 1: How is this not taken care of? You? See, to
Speaker 1: work for somebody like you or me, you have to
Speaker 1: understand the artist's temperament. People don't see that. The time
Speaker 1: is wrong. I wasn't going to start with this, but
Speaker 1: I'll ask you. But I'll ask you because that instinctive
Speaker 1: I for detail and just thinking all the time about
Speaker 1: I want this, I want this, I want this. Is
Speaker 1: that what naturally propelled you into directing films? Yes? That,
Speaker 1: and also it was something that happened during the way
Speaker 1: we were where two scenes were cut out that were
Speaker 1: intrinsic to the value of the story. And it made
Speaker 1: me so crazy that they couldn't see that that propelled
Speaker 1: you went to that propelled me into it. I couldn't
Speaker 1: understand it. And it's hard to call all with a
Speaker 1: you know, a hit movie. I don't know if it
Speaker 1: was a hit at the time. Tell you the truth,
Speaker 1: it's grown to me. It was Warren Beatty said to me, once,
Speaker 1: is it until you take ultimate responsibility and you're willing
Speaker 1: to direct the movie you're gonna be constantly frustrated. And
Speaker 1: he said, you must consider that if it was so delicious.
Speaker 1: And it's like, you know, when you finally have the
Speaker 1: power to control your work, you you get very humble
Speaker 1: in a sense. It's like I wanted to give power
Speaker 1: away to other people as well. You know, I would say,
Speaker 1: to my standing, you run that course with the cameraman,
Speaker 1: this is the shot, but I want you to be
Speaker 1: able to tell me where to stand. In other words,
Speaker 1: it's a feeling of such gratitude where you you never
Speaker 1: have to raise your voice because everybody's finally listening. You
Speaker 1: don't have to get angry about anything they weren't listening before.
Speaker 1: Sometimes well sometimes when I would say things as just
Speaker 1: an actress, like this is what I'm telling you, this
Speaker 1: story the way we were, it went um on deaf ears.
Speaker 1: You know, they didn't agree with me whatever. But when
Speaker 1: you see something so clearly, um, that's wrong to me
Speaker 1: or what could be right? Or see I had such
Speaker 1: a great time directing Yental because I did it in
Speaker 1: England and in Czechoslovakia. In England, they're not afraid of women,
Speaker 1: powerful women, strong women because they had a queen. They
Speaker 1: have a queen and at the time they had the
Speaker 1: Prime Minister who was Margaret Thatcher. So I was shocked
Speaker 1: at the respect that I had as a first time director.
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe it. Um and the crew was so
Speaker 1: kind and just. It was the most wonderful experience, I
Speaker 1: must say. And even the Czechoslovakian government was wonderful to
Speaker 1: me because I needed Jews to be in the synagogue
Speaker 1: and pray and so for then, you know, it was
Speaker 1: during communist times, and they went to the Jewish community,
Speaker 1: thank God, and had them come so I didn't have
Speaker 1: to teach them how to be Jewish, you know, how
Speaker 1: to Jews. Jews was an Italian dresses Jews in New
Speaker 1: York where they have to say, well, how do you
Speaker 1: stand in a synagogue and how do you pray? And
Speaker 1: it was it was wonderful. And also well you know,
Speaker 1: when you have extras in Czechoslovakia, then they didn't give
Speaker 1: them lunch, so that the people would come with like
Speaker 1: bags of their lunch, which broke my heart. So I would,
Speaker 1: you know, give them our food, which we never had vegetables.
Speaker 1: We had a cent to London or France or it
Speaker 1: to get vegetables. Because you know, their food diet was
Speaker 1: like hot trunk. I loved it, of course, bread and
Speaker 1: butter and hot chocolate in the morning with whipped creamers.
Speaker 1: I was one heaven and I wanted to be thinner
Speaker 1: but well, and every day I would not every day,
Speaker 1: but every few days I would bring in past these,
Speaker 1: you know, with that delicious dough in the meat inside.
Speaker 1: And we'd always have the most delicious teas that I'd
Speaker 1: bring in those cream like doughnuts shaped like a hot
Speaker 1: dog from Whimpys, and you know, eat this delicious cream
Speaker 1: with the doughnuts. Oh my god, it was so good,
Speaker 1: and they it was very sweet. Because the whole crew
Speaker 1: wrote a letter that's one of my prized possessions, I
Speaker 1: must say. And they wrote this letter to the newspapers
Speaker 1: and it said that you know, Ms try said something
Speaker 1: like Ms try Sand never raises her voice and has
Speaker 1: a smile for us every day, and it's like not
Speaker 1: the stories we've heard about her, and no newspaper would
Speaker 1: publish it, but it figures it's like Hillary Clinton, as
Speaker 1: you said, the upside of that experience where the Yente
Speaker 1: was working in a culture where the power of women
Speaker 1: was just accepted and I'm crestfall and to say the
Speaker 1: least about what happened here, not just because this guy won,
Speaker 1: but I really do think misogyny and well, in four
Speaker 1: I did get some sort of award from women in
Speaker 1: film directing Yental, and a lot of my speech was
Speaker 1: about women against women, because the reviews of Yente from
Speaker 1: women were vicious, you know, in other words, they didn't
Speaker 1: even talk about this celebration of womanhood, that a woman
Speaker 1: could not only you know, make dinner and have babies,
Speaker 1: but she could have an select she could want to study,
Speaker 1: be something more. What do it men do? Just equality?
Speaker 1: You know. So to read a review that said her
Speaker 1: she wore a design in the New York Times, she
Speaker 1: wore a designer yamaka. Now everything, every piece of clothing
Speaker 1: in that movie was authentic. That same year there was
Speaker 1: the film directed by Ingmar Bergmann Fanny and Alexander. They
Speaker 1: wore the same yamica, but nobody attacked that film. I
Speaker 1: love detail, so I would, you know, for years, I
Speaker 1: would do research about Polish Jews, about these Jews that
Speaker 1: Jews everything, the Evil Institute in New York um talking
Speaker 1: to scholars studying Talmud, just to bring that because I
Speaker 1: do believe that when you study like that and do
Speaker 1: the research, you don't have to act that It's like
Speaker 1: the camera picks up the truth, even just behind your eyes,
Speaker 1: in the sound of your voice, whatever it is mine.
Speaker 1: You know. I had this wonderful shot, I thought, as
Speaker 1: it cuts from a chicken coop to me sitting behind
Speaker 1: the bars up separated from the men in the shool,
Speaker 1: and that shot was attacked by this woman critic, Janet Maslin.
Speaker 1: Her name was now she could attack my lip sincer.
Speaker 1: That's true. I'm a terrible lip sinker. I can't do
Speaker 1: it because when I did movies like Funny Girl or
Speaker 1: Hello Dolly, you know, they record the soundtrack three months
Speaker 1: before you shoot, and I have to be in the
Speaker 1: moment as an actor. I don't know how I'm going
Speaker 1: to feel when I actually perform it. So that's why
Speaker 1: when I did the movie Star Is Born, It's all real,
Speaker 1: it's all um, I had a relic I did not want.
Speaker 1: I needed to be free, to be in the moment,
Speaker 1: so we recorded on the spot. What do you call
Speaker 1: that live? It is all live? And then what I
Speaker 1: would do is um. Because I had final cut on
Speaker 1: that movie, I could control those things. Um, we would
Speaker 1: shoot the close ups first, so where the performance really counted,
Speaker 1: and then I would just choose it right on the spot, okay,
Speaker 1: I think, And I would do about one to four takes.
Speaker 1: You know, all these stories about me like I do
Speaker 1: millions of takes, most of them are false. And so
Speaker 1: let's say I would take take three, you know, and
Speaker 1: then move the cameras back to do the wider shot
Speaker 1: because you didn't have to see me close, you know,
Speaker 1: not doing the lip sync. Good. I did a documentary
Speaker 1: film about Can. It's ostensibly about Can and Ryan Gosling.
Speaker 1: We corner him at at an hotel. I think I
Speaker 1: saw it. Jimmy Toback and I did this thing called
Speaker 1: Seduced and Abandoned, and we get Gosling at the Beverly
Speaker 1: Hills Hotel or the bel Air Hotel. I should say,
Speaker 1: any long story short, as he has this beautiful explication
Speaker 1: of how agonizing it is to shoot films, and just
Speaker 1: in that kind of Arthur Murray by numbers way, we
Speaker 1: have to shoot a match to this, to this. It
Speaker 1: can't be fresh and it's painful. And that's why I
Speaker 1: love long takes, because I think I'm from the theater
Speaker 1: and we had to do a whole show, right, So
Speaker 1: I don't like pieces. I mean, you I the fun
Speaker 1: of directing to me is designing the shot, the camera
Speaker 1: accommodating the actors. So the actors. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: scenes in Gentle that you can see like this. They're
Speaker 1: all in one move practically. In other words, we come
Speaker 1: in through a door and I'm in the foreground, let's say,
Speaker 1: But he who's following me, the my lead actor who
Speaker 1: was Mandy Pattinken at a time, and he still is
Speaker 1: but um, you know, we see him standing there, and
Speaker 1: then he comes forward and I sit down. He becomes
Speaker 1: he's standing up with the camera never moved, but you
Speaker 1: see everything. Then the camera moves as we're together, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't cut. And then he has you know, when
Speaker 1: when he leaves me, you see him go out the door.
Speaker 1: He slams the door and the camera moves in a
Speaker 1: little bit. As I'm thinking about it, that's the scene.
Speaker 1: But it's what's fun about that is that we're all
Speaker 1: on our toes. You can't make a mistake. And most
Speaker 1: of these shots that I do that there's no coverage.
Speaker 1: That the greatest one of the very little coverage the
Speaker 1: actors played the scene in the frame. That's right now now,
Speaker 1: in the time that you made films, the many years
Speaker 1: you've made films, successful acting and not directing, successful as
Speaker 1: a director and producer, and all those things. Where there
Speaker 1: are people that you wanted to work with, whether people
Speaker 1: you sat there, guy, I'd love to make a film
Speaker 1: with that person because you've been in such a privileged
Speaker 1: place and had these people available to Was there a
Speaker 1: director that you dreamed of working with you didn't get
Speaker 1: to work with. Well Ing Ma Bergman is a person
Speaker 1: that contacted me to do a remake of The Merry Widow.
Speaker 1: And I was so excited, you know, and I came
Speaker 1: to um Sweden and we embraced and it was this
Speaker 1: wonderful embrace, you know. I mean he, I can't explain
Speaker 1: what that what that's like. It's was just he he
Speaker 1: sort of understood me, and I understood him without any words.
Speaker 1: And the first act of that screenplay was fantastic, I mean,
Speaker 1: very body uh kind of shocking. I loved it, you know.
Speaker 1: So then and when I have letters now, I forget
Speaker 1: things until I have to go into my archives and
Speaker 1: look at this stuff. Letters from him and notes that
Speaker 1: I wrote back to him talking about this film and
Speaker 1: what happened the second act. You know, he says we're
Speaker 1: going to be collaborators, and the second act was not
Speaker 1: very good. I thought it was like like Jevas Amadeus.
Speaker 1: I'm sure the first act was extraordinary to me in
Speaker 1: the movie, and the second act was, I don't know,
Speaker 1: just somehow repetitious. It It didn't go far enough in
Speaker 1: the story, you know. And that's the way I felt
Speaker 1: about this. And all of a sudden it was gone.
Speaker 1: The collaboration was over. We never made the film, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't quite believe it. I mean, the fact that
Speaker 1: I didn't like certain things in the second act did
Speaker 1: he liked? Well, he never defended it. It was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that's right and so but I
Speaker 1: would have loved to work with Berto Lucci. And you
Speaker 1: know what I did. I realized this now and looking
Speaker 1: back at my life, I turned down Alice doesn't live
Speaker 1: here anymore. I turned down a lot of films actually
Speaker 1: because I was lazy. I'm basically I'm a dichotomy here,
Speaker 1: a dichotomy lazy and um, I don't know what the
Speaker 1: word is, restless, restless maybe, yeah, like wanting to create
Speaker 1: about you. It would be called the lazy and the restless.
Speaker 1: Oh no, that's a very good time, exactly exactly. I
Speaker 1: love to take a vacation and do nothing. I like
Speaker 1: to have no appointments. And I think that's a condition
Speaker 1: in my mind of people who have tremendous not so
Speaker 1: much financial success, but create of success. I mean there's
Speaker 1: a famous actress who I won't name you. Wait, you
Speaker 1: know what do you want to take a sip of
Speaker 1: soup on your Do you want soup to I'll have
Speaker 1: a soup. I mean we kind of say no. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean this is a I'm irish. It's bad luck
Speaker 1: to say no to soup? Is that in Ireland? I
Speaker 1: just made that up? Oh just put that over here.
Speaker 1: Oh see, I just brought this table from the back
Speaker 1: and we need another table maybe over here because this
Speaker 1: is me, so soup, don't rebout me. I'm great. I mean,
Speaker 1: in other words, people know we eat, right, so if
Speaker 1: they hear it's okay, good good, good good, because I
Speaker 1: always like to eat. Oh really know you know you
Speaker 1: won't mm hmm. That is delicious, isn't it unhealthy? Um?
Speaker 1: What were we talking about restless and lazy. When I
Speaker 1: would talk to McCartney about the Beatles, he said to me,
Speaker 1: is it was hard work. Later on when they gain
Speaker 1: creative control of their material and it's like anybody, then
Speaker 1: they take a year to do another album. But in
Speaker 1: the beginning they really worked like dogs, you know. And
Speaker 1: for you, I'm wondering in the beginning when you do Broadway,
Speaker 1: are you out there and you're just so pumped and
Speaker 1: excited and you're young, and everyone's glorifying you and loving
Speaker 1: what you're putting out there, and you really love you said,
Speaker 1: they're going, I don't want to do this show eight
Speaker 1: times a week, like what happened to you in the beginning,
Speaker 1: where you excited and game in the In the beginning,
Speaker 1: I wanted to prove myself. I wanted to prove to
Speaker 1: my mother that I could be a success. You know.
Speaker 1: It comes from that. It's like really deep. It's deep
Speaker 1: and quiet. It's not loud, by the way. It's not
Speaker 1: what makes Sammy run. It's quiet. It really is um.
Speaker 1: But again, you can feel that passion, you can feel
Speaker 1: that need to be seen somehow. Because I wasn't seen
Speaker 1: much by my I didn't I love my father. How
Speaker 1: your dad passed away fifteen months but my mother said
Speaker 1: that after he died, I would climb up on the
Speaker 1: window waiting for him to come home, because I used
Speaker 1: to do that, I guess as a baby, and wait
Speaker 1: for him and he would come home. And in a sense,
Speaker 1: I've idolized my father because he was a PhD. He
Speaker 1: was a teacher, which I so respect teachers, and he
Speaker 1: wrote poems, and he was artistic, and he was an
Speaker 1: athlete as well as a debater, you know, and he
Speaker 1: was in part of French dramatics and English literature. And
Speaker 1: I didn't read his thesis until many years later because
Speaker 1: as an actress when I was sixteen, I was fascinated
Speaker 1: by Eleanora Dusa and Sarah Bernhardt, wanting to be an actress,
Speaker 1: and my father's book bos were tied up in the
Speaker 1: basement of our Brooklyn apartment, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, all
Speaker 1: the great novels. I read, uh, what do you call it?
Speaker 1: Nancy Drew Mysteries. I read movie magazines, you know, and
Speaker 1: dream that someday maybe I could be famous. Did you
Speaker 1: have that dream? Then? When you were here, I would
Speaker 1: have my pint of coffee ice cream, briers and sit
Speaker 1: in my bed and dream, go to the movies sometimes
Speaker 1: on a Saturday afternoon. The Lowise Kings. We had the
Speaker 1: greatest ice cream, and we also well, yeah, you're you're,
Speaker 1: you're like me. Somebody'll say, what was the best part
Speaker 1: of the summer, I'd say, what is this restaurant that
Speaker 1: has the best coffee ice cream with chocolate covered handelnuts?
Speaker 1: Watching who in the on screen? If to the extent
Speaker 1: you want to say, or we call somebody you watched
Speaker 1: with Visio, Yeah, that's it. I want to do something
Speaker 1: like that. Not dar Day. I mean, really it was well.
Speaker 1: I loved Marjorie Morning Star because I knew the summer
Speaker 1: places in where I was sent to camp in the Catskills,
Speaker 1: or my mother and stepfather when they came to visit me.
Speaker 1: I didn't know my mother was married, and I said,
Speaker 1: I'm going home from here. What do you mean you
Speaker 1: didn't know your mother got married. She never told me
Speaker 1: because he was a boyfriend for a while, I guess
Speaker 1: he was around. No, I never met him before, but
Speaker 1: when I insisted, see I was as I was a
Speaker 1: strong kid. So my mother came to visit me with
Speaker 1: the stranger, and I said, I'm going home. I'm not
Speaker 1: staying here another day longer, so we have to pack
Speaker 1: me up. I think I was seven and a half maybe,
Speaker 1: so for a long time of your youth you were
Speaker 1: raised by him. He was on the scene when homes
Speaker 1: in your life, he's in my life, the stranger. How
Speaker 1: did he handle you? Didn't like me, he didn't like you. Why,
Speaker 1: it's exactly right. Was the connection with him such as
Speaker 1: it was, because the connection with your mother also was
Speaker 1: a bit thinner than you might have liked compared to
Speaker 1: your feelings for your father. I grew up in a
Speaker 1: house where my dad was my idol. I idolized my
Speaker 1: dad and my mom. My older sister and I, we
Speaker 1: were her lieutenants, chores, chores, And your mom didn't push
Speaker 1: him or cajole him, or try to get him to
Speaker 1: never your Your relationship with your mom was a little
Speaker 1: less than it wasn't your feeling towards your father well,
Speaker 1: or your head over heels in love with your mother? No, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: I I felt that she didn't know me, She didn't
Speaker 1: know could she. I don't think my mother knows me either,
Speaker 1: But I've seen now in my life. She couldn't she
Speaker 1: wasn't capable. My mother never said to me, my mother's alive.
Speaker 1: And I wrote this in my book. She never once
Speaker 1: to me, what's it like to be you? When you
Speaker 1: get up there and do that? What do you enjoy it?
Speaker 1: To understand me? And I'm her son and her oldest son.
Speaker 1: And where was the conversation about when I go through
Speaker 1: in my life and my career. My mother never nothing
Speaker 1: about that. My mother's love was shown through food she
Speaker 1: would bring me when I was a young actress, you know.
Speaker 1: And I moved away from home when I was sixteen,
Speaker 1: from Brooklyn to New York. Got an apartment right next
Speaker 1: to me. I graduated high school at uh sixteen erasmus, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I graduated in three and a half years so I could.
Speaker 1: I doubled my science and math, which I loved. I
Speaker 1: love those subjects. You were desperate to get out of Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: I was desperate to be an actress, to get away
Speaker 1: from real life. Not a singer and actress, an actress,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. And my my singing was when I was
Speaker 1: five and six and seven on the stoop in Brooklyn
Speaker 1: with the girls, you know, singing and harmonizing that was
Speaker 1: my singing, but my love was wanting to be an actress.
Speaker 1: And so that's when I went to the library Street
Speaker 1: Library and read the plays of these great actresses, you know,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to be a classical actress. So part
Speaker 1: of me still feels like a failure. You know. When
Speaker 1: I wanted to do I wanted to play after I
Speaker 1: was well known. I wanted to play the two Cleopatra's,
Speaker 1: the one uh Caesar and Cleopatra and Anthony and Cleopatrick. Right,
Speaker 1: so one is a child fourteen years old who I
Speaker 1: thought it should be Orson Wells or Marlon Brando, fat,
Speaker 1: you know, and then I would be even little well
Speaker 1: fed um and hiding, you know from this man, and
Speaker 1: then play the woman Cleopatra. And the television stations I
Speaker 1: wanted to do it on TV, they said, well, is
Speaker 1: it going to be a musical. I mean, you're gonna
Speaker 1: add music. It's like they can't see that you could
Speaker 1: do both. I mean, though you have to do the
Speaker 1: music with the you know, absolutely awful feeling. I wanted
Speaker 1: to play Romeo and Juliet and I got to do
Speaker 1: it finally for Lee Strassburg at the studio, and it's
Speaker 1: one of my I can't find the letter that they
Speaker 1: wrote me too. Well, that's a whole long story, but uh,
Speaker 1: to invite you to join the studio. Yeah. But when
Speaker 1: I first auditioned for the studio, I was fifteen and
Speaker 1: I was doing it with another guy who asked me
Speaker 1: to just be in it. But they wrote me a
Speaker 1: letter to say, do your own audition, And then when
Speaker 1: I did, they found out I was fifteen and they
Speaker 1: said come back when you're you know, eighteen. It's probably
Speaker 1: a nice way of saying no, but um. So that's
Speaker 1: why it was terrible. When I was in on Broadway,
Speaker 1: I wrote on my play bill, I am not a
Speaker 1: member of the Actor's Studio, because all the actors who
Speaker 1: were would say a member of the actors Studio, and
Speaker 1: I was piste off at them, you know, um, but
Speaker 1: that was interesting. I did some of my best work
Speaker 1: then when I was fifteen and sixteen, I played media,
Speaker 1: you know, and did that great Aria after she killed
Speaker 1: her kids, and you know, she says a line like,
Speaker 1: you know something about this wound in the middle of myself.
Speaker 1: What a brilliant line. I mean, I am a woman
Speaker 1: and I with this wound in the middle of myself. Um,
Speaker 1: I was good. Then do you see you're saying this
Speaker 1: wound in the middle of myself at the actor's studio?
Speaker 1: You know that was that was for um? Just I
Speaker 1: did it in class? That scene from media? Where was
Speaker 1: your class? You know what I would do? Then I
Speaker 1: would Um I had another name, so I wanted I
Speaker 1: didn't want to miss anything, So I went to two
Speaker 1: different acting classes and gave a different name in one,
Speaker 1: and then I used to to make money. You've got
Speaker 1: four dollars and five cents. It was to be an
Speaker 1: usher in the theater. So I would love to go
Speaker 1: see the plays. But in a sense, I didn't have
Speaker 1: enough money to see all the play. So I I
Speaker 1: became an usher in the theater so I could see
Speaker 1: the play. But meanwhile, I was sixteen seventeen, that kind
Speaker 1: of age. I knew that I would be famous because
Speaker 1: I would hide my head so they wouldn't see me
Speaker 1: my face showing them to their seats, because I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, when I become famous, they're going to recognize
Speaker 1: me as the girl to showed them to their seats.
Speaker 1: So how do you figure that that? That's something I
Speaker 1: can't explain you. Really, there's a part of you that
Speaker 1: knew you would end up doing what you did. And
Speaker 1: I don't you know. And my mother didn't believe in me.
Speaker 1: She's she kept telling me what your father did. Become
Speaker 1: a teacher. You get you know, you get time off,
Speaker 1: you get vacations, free vacations, summer's yeah, learn to type.
Speaker 1: And that's when I let my nails grow along so
Speaker 1: I couldn't type. I believe me. I wish I could type.
Speaker 1: Now I have to dictate everything into all those things, French, typing,
Speaker 1: cooking with with your mother. Did she eventually come around?
Speaker 1: I mean, how could she not come around with everything
Speaker 1: you've done. I think I was really just trying to
Speaker 1: prove to her that I I could be famous. By
Speaker 1: the way, as soon as I became famous, I didn't
Speaker 1: like it. I don't like fame. I don't like stardom.
Speaker 1: I only like the work, the creative work, that's all
Speaker 1: I like. No shore pep that's streisand singing Lasha kio
Speaker 1: pianga normally more of the domain of the world's great
Speaker 1: opera singers like Renee Fleming, good yeah cool. Fleming told
Speaker 1: me that she tried and struck out on two other
Speaker 1: genres before she landed on opera. Had I grown up
Speaker 1: in New York City, the singer songwriter thing might have opened.
Speaker 1: Doors might have opened. I mean, I sang on television
Speaker 1: in high school winning some talent show playing a song
Speaker 1: that I wrote. Then I tried to pursue jazz then,
Speaker 1: and that didn't work. Despite the fact that Eastman had
Speaker 1: a phenomenal jazz department, I just couldn't get in. She's
Speaker 1: about to mix it up again. Her Broadway debut is
Speaker 1: set for next spring in a revival of Carousel. Take
Speaker 1: a listen to the rest of Rene Fleming story on
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing Dot Org. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're
Speaker 1: listening to Here's the Thing. With no formal voice training
Speaker 1: and no money to kick start a career, Streisand relied
Speaker 1: on raw talent to build herself up and the wiles
Speaker 1: of a man who happened to hear her at a
Speaker 1: small Greenwich village club called the Bon Soir. Martyrlickman was
Speaker 1: a music manager and almost as young and hungry as
Speaker 1: Barbara herself. He used his slim Rolodex and razors sharp
Speaker 1: pr instincts to help build Barbara's image into what it
Speaker 1: is today. I met Marty at the Bons when he
Speaker 1: came one night. I was nineteen, and he saw me
Speaker 1: as the first act, the opening act, and said, if
Speaker 1: you ever need me, kid, I was. I was kept
Speaker 1: over at the bonsa many times, but then I couldn't
Speaker 1: get a job. Finally I got a job and they
Speaker 1: were paying me something like seventy dollars a week or
Speaker 1: a hundred dollars. A hundred dollars a week. But I
Speaker 1: could eat, you know, so if people wanted me to
Speaker 1: sit down, I would order a baked potato, sour cream
Speaker 1: and chives and butter. So but I couldn't make a living.
Speaker 1: I really needed more. So I called Marty and I said,
Speaker 1: you know, is there any way you could get me
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty dollars a week. Marty told me
Speaker 1: many years later that he actually paid the fifty dollars
Speaker 1: because they wouldn't go for the the raise. That's why
Speaker 1: he's such a great person. He invested in me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you've been with him now for how long? And it's like, well,
Speaker 1: we separated for a while. For a few years. He
Speaker 1: didn't get along with. The man in my life at
Speaker 1: the time was John Peters. I've read the story before
Speaker 1: or something like that. But then, believe me, we got
Speaker 1: back as soon as I could. So that period is
Speaker 1: over fifty years. But if you take out that, what
Speaker 1: does he do for you now? What does he provide you?
Speaker 1: And what does he provide for you? Now? You trust
Speaker 1: him everything? He reads scripts, you know, and my full
Speaker 1: on manager. Today is his birthday, by the ways, eight
Speaker 1: years old, Happy birthday, Martyr. I was watching these um
Speaker 1: you know, not just old cabot shows where um famous
Speaker 1: actors would come on. Is it a spring roll? Is
Speaker 1: it meat? I think this one is a vegetarian? Or
Speaker 1: are you a vegetarian? I don't I don't need beef.
Speaker 1: Does there eat the light one? Yeah? I think it's chicken?
Speaker 1: Is it Isn't that good? I remember I was sitting
Speaker 1: in your apartment years ago. I was a very hungry
Speaker 1: one work and just Corman was there and you were
Speaker 1: going to do Prince of Tie. I came to meet
Speaker 1: with you. I remember the print sometimes and you're woman
Speaker 1: who took care of your apartment came in and you said,
Speaker 1: you said, yeah, I'll eat a little something. I could
Speaker 1: eat a little something. I could eat a little something.
Speaker 1: And she would to bring us some cruder tay or
Speaker 1: crackers or whatever some spreads. You looked at me and
Speaker 1: you said, oh god, I kind of you know. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get ready to do a movie and I love
Speaker 1: to eat. And I said to you, I go, if
Speaker 1: we do this movie together, I'm gonna hire us a chef.
Speaker 1: I'll pay for it, and this chef will come down
Speaker 1: and we're gonna eat whatever the fun we wanted. That's
Speaker 1: why I loved you. And you look at you look
Speaker 1: were like, wow, we could be away just forget about,
Speaker 1: you know, driving ourselves crazy with all the let's go
Speaker 1: down and make the movie. You haven't good. If we
Speaker 1: feel like eating, we eat, and we don't feel like eating,
Speaker 1: we don't eat. We have to go. And then you
Speaker 1: cast what's his name in the nick I'm kidding, yes,
Speaker 1: because he had to be a white looking Southerner. You
Speaker 1: know what I mean. You're in New York. I love
Speaker 1: that movie, did now watching those old you know cavots,
Speaker 1: and on comes Brando and on comes this one and
Speaker 1: that one from that generation of Bella Fonte when he
Speaker 1: was young and all that civil rights activism. Were you
Speaker 1: active then as well? I was supporting Bella apps for
Speaker 1: Congress in like nineteen seventy nine, seventy I even supported
Speaker 1: Mayo Lindsay, who was a Republican, because I liked him.
Speaker 1: I liked the way he spoke, you know, I thought
Speaker 1: he was a leader. He was a leader, and he
Speaker 1: was fair and he was believed in justice, and I
Speaker 1: just liked him. He was also adorable looking. Um So,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like, you know what happened when I
Speaker 1: sang in Houston, by the way, before the storm. I
Speaker 1: invited the Bushes President H. W. Bush, I mean, Umte
Speaker 1: and Barbara Bush to come to my concert. And they
Speaker 1: came and I gave him socks because I heard he
Speaker 1: collect socks. And came backstage and she brought me a
Speaker 1: pin and I gave her something. And they were just
Speaker 1: so lovely. Even now. I wrote them to see if
Speaker 1: they were okay. How's their house? And they said, we're fine,
Speaker 1: we're in Maine and this and that, you know. In
Speaker 1: other words, you know, he had dignity, He had great dignity,
Speaker 1: and she was an advocate for women's rights. I like
Speaker 1: good people. That's why I can't quite understand what's happened
Speaker 1: to this country. And it all it goes back to
Speaker 1: women to women against women. Yesterday I was watching Hillary
Speaker 1: being interviewed by somebody and the first question was so
Speaker 1: rude by the woman, Well, how do you know that
Speaker 1: the Democrats even want you around? When I when she
Speaker 1: was running, there were three women who interviewed her as well,
Speaker 1: and they were so the faces scrunched up, you know,
Speaker 1: on television, going well, so are you trustworthy? Are you
Speaker 1: not trustworthy? I mean, they would like shockingly rude attitudes.
Speaker 1: And I told her chief of staff, you know, I
Speaker 1: think you should be interviewed by men. They're going to
Speaker 1: be nicer to her than the women of white women
Speaker 1: voted for Donald Trump. Now, how do you figure that?
Speaker 1: I saw her on the view this morning, and I
Speaker 1: think I would have said if he was in my
Speaker 1: space like that, I don't think you have to call
Speaker 1: him a creep, but you could say, you know, you're
Speaker 1: going to get your own time, They're gonna they're going
Speaker 1: to ask you a question, and would you like me
Speaker 1: to stand behind you in the shot? I don't think so,
Speaker 1: So if you don't mind, can you do that? If
Speaker 1: she did that to him, I used that phrase and
Speaker 1: appended to a lot of things. If she had done
Speaker 1: that to him, if she had said that about him.
Speaker 1: So you sing at Clinton's inauguration, you're close to Clinton.
Speaker 1: The old Clinton years and the nineties they were and
Speaker 1: they were great. And I have my criticisms of Clinton.
Speaker 1: I have my criticisms of him and his policy. What
Speaker 1: did you criticize about his poeticist peace is a quaint idea?
Speaker 1: Now you never hear these people running for office talk
Speaker 1: about peace and a policy and a strategy to get
Speaker 1: us to peace. We were in a state of perpetual war.
Speaker 1: We spend trillions of dollars and I may trillions with
Speaker 1: a tea that we don't have, that we don't I mean,
Speaker 1: I am, I am. I make it very simple for myself.
Speaker 1: I read. I have a copy. I carry it around
Speaker 1: in a folder of my favorite writings that I have,
Speaker 1: And one of them is Eisenhower's Farewell Addressed and the
Speaker 1: cointing the phase of the Military Industrial Couple complex. Send
Speaker 1: it to me. But he says, you know, every missile
Speaker 1: that is fired, we lose this, and every bomb that
Speaker 1: we dropped we cost us this. And he refers to
Speaker 1: this world in arms, Eisenhower's and Eisenhower the last man
Speaker 1: to be elected president by acclamation, a man who did
Speaker 1: not want the job, and everyone around him said, you
Speaker 1: won World War two, you got to run for this job.
Speaker 1: You gotta do this. And Eisenhower, the hood ornament of
Speaker 1: the American military machine, walks out the door and says,
Speaker 1: watch out for these people. He wanted the military, military
Speaker 1: industrial military industrial complex. And he basically say, they make
Speaker 1: money from war. They have too much power. And we've
Speaker 1: lived and it keeps getting progressively worse and worse and
Speaker 1: worse where And I don't think Clinton was Hillary Clinton
Speaker 1: voted for the war in Iraq. It was the one
Speaker 1: thing that really upset that. That was almost a deal
Speaker 1: breaker from me, almost. But you have to remember this
Speaker 1: because I've discussed this with her and President Clinton. She
Speaker 1: at the time thought that Bush would keep his word.
Speaker 1: Bush and they were supposed to go to the u N.
Speaker 1: They were supposed to have weapons inspectors um make sure
Speaker 1: that there was you know, nothing there that that wasn't done.
Speaker 1: We had weapons inspectors because I used to talk to
Speaker 1: Scott Ritter, who was a weapons inspector there for seven years,
Speaker 1: and he said, there are no weapons left and if
Speaker 1: there were any chemical weapons, they have a shelf life there.
Speaker 1: They don't work, that's what we saw. But they weren't
Speaker 1: even allowed to even complete anything. They certainly never went
Speaker 1: to the U, to the U N. And all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, you know there were in the war. Without
Speaker 1: picking someone in a current menu of candidates, what do
Speaker 1: you think we need to run in to beat Trump?
Speaker 1: What kind of person think is going to take? Forget
Speaker 1: about man or woman? Is gonna be a person who
Speaker 1: does water, who says what, who says the truth, truth
Speaker 1: is everything. I mean, that's what kills me. I love
Speaker 1: the truth. I love the power of the truth. You
Speaker 1: have to believe that person, and you have to believe
Speaker 1: they stand for what American values are supposed to mean,
Speaker 1: not like in the new Gingrich way of whatever that
Speaker 1: is American values, but to be for justice, to be
Speaker 1: for diversity, to be respectful, to accept change, to accept change.
Speaker 1: That in New York, I'll never forget the Daily News.
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, this is a fact. I suppose when
Speaker 1: the when the census came out in or two thousand,
Speaker 1: you have ten years of the Daily News put on
Speaker 1: the cover that white New Yorkers were now the plurality
Speaker 1: that they were under, that the city had now become
Speaker 1: fifty one literally Black, Asian, Hispanic, and so forth, that
Speaker 1: white New Yorkers and all five boroughs represented less than
Speaker 1: and I thought, well, that may be true, but what
Speaker 1: are you promoting when you write that? And that's going
Speaker 1: to happen in this country? White privilege as we understand it,
Speaker 1: and white people. I'm not saying we're gonna become Rhodesia,
Speaker 1: but it's I think that people who accept change, what
Speaker 1: choice do you have but to accept change, that this
Speaker 1: world we live in is gonna become more and more
Speaker 1: diverse in terms of people's sexual identity and women in
Speaker 1: power and things like that. And I find that the Democrats,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm very critical of them as well. The
Speaker 1: Democrats will say almost anything to get elected. I don't
Speaker 1: think so well. I think the Republicans will say anything together,
Speaker 1: Like there's a difference for Democrats almost anything, and the
Speaker 1: Republicans will say the Democrats are too nice. That's what
Speaker 1: I've signed, Yeah, they don't. I always wanted to run
Speaker 1: because I'm not very nice, and I wanted to be
Speaker 1: the you'd probably be a hit. I wanted to be
Speaker 1: the more two fistic Democrats. That's what that's what it
Speaker 1: should be. You have to say it like it israt
Speaker 1: You have to be tough. That's actually what I said
Speaker 1: when I first met Obama. I said, we did a
Speaker 1: fundraiser for him and it raised eleven million dollars that night,
Speaker 1: and um, I sat with him for and I said,
Speaker 1: are you tough enough? That was my first question to him.
Speaker 1: Of course I'm tough, you know, But I mean, this
Speaker 1: is a terrible thing to say. But okay, and I
Speaker 1: know it can't be done. But when Russia was suspected
Speaker 1: of invading our democracy, I thought to myself, why aren't
Speaker 1: they postponing the election? How do you have an election
Speaker 1: now when Russia is hacking us? Do it over? Don't
Speaker 1: we do it over? That's what I thought. And whenever
Speaker 1: I've said it to anybody, they go, you can't do that.
Speaker 1: Why not? It is weird and the result of the
Speaker 1: election it is entirely false. But let it stand, because
Speaker 1: to change the country couldn't happen. No, I mean, look
Speaker 1: at the difference. I'm going to write an article actually
Speaker 1: about this next week about the difference in America. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the difference in America. What it would be like if
Speaker 1: hill we were president, Do you realize that women and
Speaker 1: girls could hold their head up high? She and Angela
Speaker 1: Merkel would be running the free world to see the Woman.
Speaker 1: You know, Wonder Woman movie. It was fantastic because women
Speaker 1: were in charge. Women are nurturing, and women can be
Speaker 1: tough and make decisions that are based on compassion and wisdom.
Speaker 1: You know, even in the Jewish religion, women the Orthodox
Speaker 1: Jewish religion, which I am not, but men have to
Speaker 1: say certain prayers every day, but women have to say
Speaker 1: less prayers because they are closer to God, because they
Speaker 1: are creative. They they birth babies, they feed those babies,
Speaker 1: they nurtured them. After it does my wife reminds me
Speaker 1: of that every day. Actually, well that's good, different remember now,
Speaker 1: but it is true. But I think what we're missing
Speaker 1: with Trump is compassion, kindness, respect. What I like that
Speaker 1: you said is that we're missing honestly and honesty is everything.
Speaker 1: Could we just be honest, We'll get through everything. We
Speaker 1: can't understand the news It was like he was a farce.
Speaker 1: He was a disrespectful woman. But don't you see stress,
Speaker 1: Stress is causing me to eat you know more than
Speaker 1: I I'm on the side get hot I'm something grilled cheese. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: it's and it's you know, I found out that when
Speaker 1: you're stressed, you cortisol levels raising, and cortisol makes you
Speaker 1: gain weight. Yes, so I was. I was away with
Speaker 1: some friends for a week. I didn't read a book.
Speaker 1: I played games, which I played to fall asleep at
Speaker 1: night because after looking at TV and reading the news,
Speaker 1: I I can't all asleep, so I have to play backgammon.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm gin so. I mean, it was such
Speaker 1: an interesting thing for you, who's an eater too. Every
Speaker 1: day we had bread and butter, you know, every day
Speaker 1: we ate pasta in Italy. Every day we had desserts
Speaker 1: with sugar. We gained nothing maybe two hours. We just
Speaker 1: let it go, not having to wallow with her. I'll
Speaker 1: never forget Kathleen Turner. She said this on this show.
Speaker 1: She was one of my first guests. And I said
Speaker 1: to you, you were married your husband Jay, you got
Speaker 1: divorces and you never got married again. I said, do
Speaker 1: you do do you miss that? Do you want to
Speaker 1: be with somebody? And she said, alec, I put the
Speaker 1: key in the door of my apartment, and the thing
Speaker 1: that makes me most happy as I know that there's
Speaker 1: nobody on the other side of that door I walk in,
Speaker 1: I can do whatever I want to do. I don't
Speaker 1: have to ask anybody's permission. And she really was happy
Speaker 1: to be single, and you you don't like to be single,
Speaker 1: but I was for a long time. But no, I
Speaker 1: like looking forward to my husband coming home and you know,
Speaker 1: waiting for him to so we could eat together. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and he enjoys food too. I mean, we just take
Speaker 1: trips up to Santa Barbara just to get an ice
Speaker 1: cream cone from McConnell's, my favorite flavor of Brazilian coffee,
Speaker 1: which they don't sell in points in the market. You
Speaker 1: have to go there or like now, I can't have
Speaker 1: it in my freezer because I'll eat the whole pint.
Speaker 1: I just start with a little and a cone just
Speaker 1: you know, well it's melting around the edges and I'll
Speaker 1: just eat that part and just no, it's gone to me.
Speaker 1: There's that familiar sound. I'll be watching the news and
Speaker 1: it's like ten o'clock and night I'd be eating a
Speaker 1: late night pint of ice cream, and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, I hear that unmistakable sound of the spoon
Speaker 1: scraping the bottom of the I go, oh my god,
Speaker 1: how did that happen? But how come your thin? How
Speaker 1: did you lose weight? I started sugar. Sugar was my nemesis.
Speaker 1: I'm pre diabetic and my numbers were tragic. And they
Speaker 1: said to me, you're gonna start shooting over and they
Speaker 1: said you're gonna start having to shoot insulin if you
Speaker 1: don't get with us. So I still, uh, do bad
Speaker 1: things of you now and nowhere near. I mean, I
Speaker 1: was somebody that ate. I was. I was truly. I
Speaker 1: can say this without without hesitation. I was an ice
Speaker 1: cream addict, Greaters having Greater's ice cream. You have to
Speaker 1: look one day, when you're cheating, you have to try McConnell's.
Speaker 1: Do you like coffee, Okay, that's the greatest coffee. They
Speaker 1: were so sweet mcconnald's. Because when I did my last
Speaker 1: movie with Seth Rogan, I had to eat ice cream.
Speaker 1: So I said, I have to have the ice cream
Speaker 1: from Santa Barbara. But I had them try something that
Speaker 1: Will Writes used to do that went out of business.
Speaker 1: They had chocolate covered chocolate that sounded so Brooklyn. Chocolate
Speaker 1: covered chocolate covered almonds in the coffee ice cream, so
Speaker 1: I asked them to make that flavor. But now people
Speaker 1: develop nut allergies, so they hardly put nuts. You have
Speaker 1: nut allergies, What do we care about people without allergies?
Speaker 1: And we don't have No, we do care about them.
Speaker 1: But now I just read they discovered a drug that
Speaker 1: will take away nut allergies. Do you ever read the
Speaker 1: magazine called The Week? I love The Week, and I
Speaker 1: read an article in there that talked about as a
Speaker 1: drug now to take away not allergies. My last question,
Speaker 1: you're fagging into trouble because I want to take you
Speaker 1: to dinner and have the McConnell's wait if you want
Speaker 1: to come back now, I will. And that is when
Speaker 1: you sing, you know, people will hear your voice and
Speaker 1: they melts them. It really gets to them. You know,
Speaker 1: you're the greatest female vocalist of all time. Oh you're
Speaker 1: so sweet. I don't know other women who I love.
Speaker 1: I'm not dismissing them, but you're the greatest female vocalist ever.
Speaker 1: What a compliment. And when you go into the studio,
Speaker 1: when you go to record, I'm assuming there's a passion,
Speaker 1: there's a connection as a soul. I love recording because
Speaker 1: it's private and there it's just me and the music.
Speaker 1: You know, I could look like crap. I don't have
Speaker 1: to dress up. I don't have to put makeup on.
Speaker 1: And it's just it's just the sound and the musicians,
Speaker 1: the the the instruments and what I can hear and
Speaker 1: and say, oh, I could hear a string line here
Speaker 1: with a sound. And I don't read music, but I'll
Speaker 1: have to go. You know, it's that that note. What
Speaker 1: is it? I don't know, but it's that chord, that chord,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, it's just that's fun for me.
Speaker 1: Does that singing make you happy that you can do that? Um? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does. I can hear things that I thought, oh shoot,
Speaker 1: I should have done that over it's not the right take.
Speaker 1: I mean whatever, but no. I I liked when when
Speaker 1: we put out a new album and serious radio plays
Speaker 1: my songs twenty four hours a day, and I happened
Speaker 1: to have the radio on. I think that was good,
Speaker 1: very sweet. Imagine. I want to say, I love you.
Speaker 1: I love you too. You're the greatest, You're the greatest.
Speaker 1: More live more. The more I learned, the more I
Speaker 1: really like it, The less I know each step I
Speaker 1: take pop, I have a voice, page, I turned, I tice,
Speaker 1: I travel, leave the more to give, you can fle
Speaker 1: So why settle fun? Just stoppa s. I can't hear you, Papa,
Speaker 1: I can see you, Pa. I can't feed you. This
Speaker 1: is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing,
Speaker 1: h