Woman's Day
March 26, 1984
Barbra Streisand's New Direction as a Homemaker
Despite her enormous success, Barbra Streisand has remained publicity-shy. In a rare ‘at home’ interview, the star revealed to Peter McDonald that she has a new passion — for the domestic life
Barbra Streisand has established herself as a great singer, a fine actress and, more recently with the film Yentl, as an acclaimed film director. Now she is ready to tackle one more role — that of homemaker.
“l don’t know how women do it,” she said, bewildered. “l break an egg and get gook all over my hands and then all over the kitchen. Maybe I can direct a movie, but make a bed...
“l’m really trying to learn to cook. But l’m a total slob in the kitchen. l don’t even know how to make coffee and that’s terrible.”
The renewed interest in making a home for herself and her teenage son, Jason (by ex-husband Elliott Gould), is part of a quiet, personal transformation in which she has confronted the ghosts of her past and “learned to love myself”, to enter what she senses may be the most enjoyable period of her life.
In the Hollywood talk of Barbra’s one-woman triumph, Yentl, the personal change has gone virtually unnoticed.
“I'm in a much more positive space,” she confided to Woman's Day. “l’m seeing much more of the glass half-full rather than half-empty as I have my whole life.
“I've always worked out of negative energy. l became famous to prove to my mother l was worthwhile — ‘See, l’ve done it despite you’.”
She chuckled at herself and the irony of it all. “Wrong!” she said, continuing gently. “Well, it catches up with you at a certain point.”
In designer clothes, amid a stunning array of tasteful furnishings, she was every inch the superstar. But as the hour wore on, the formidable talent and personality seemed to take on a new dimension.
The most obvious sign of this “new” Barbra was in her attitude towards her own life which, since her impoverished youth in Brooklyn, had been dominated by work and the drive to succeed.
Now her career, at least for the moment, was taking a back seat while she caught up with some of the pleasures of adolescence she never experienced in her teen years, she said.
“l’ve always wanted to go back to school,” she said, revealing that she was doing courses at not one but two Californian colleges.
“l’m studying the psychology of male and female differences. It’s so stimulating and I want to take more courses, in philosophy.
“I don’t know how long it’s going to take for me to go back to work. For the moment the things I would like to do are for my own pleasure.
“I loved the classics when I was in acting school when I was 14 or 15 but no one would let me do them. So now I’ll do them myself — Hedda Gabler, Joan of Arc, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet.”
Her delight in these new-found pleasures is what encouraged the 41-year-old mother to face the challenge of homemaking.
Equally important to her new outlook has been a reconciliation with her mother, who discouraged her show-business ambitions by repeatedly telling her she wasn’t pretty enough.
“Now we’re making peace with one another,” she said. “I’m really accepting her and realising she only wanted the best for me.
“When she tried to discourage me from being an actress it was because she thought I would suffer unhappiness and pain and rejection. Maybe it’s a projection of her own fears of wanting to be successful and never having the courage to try it. If she hadn’t been the negative person she was I might not be here now.
“The turning-point was when my mother got sick and all of a sudden I realised I wanted her to live and know she did the best she could and give her the credit she deserves.”
Barbra has mellowed to the point where she has been able to call something of a truce with the press, her “oldest adversary”.
“l don’t know what it is, but something went into another gear and I don’t care what is said about me any more,” she said.
There is still one personal battle, however, that she still hasn’t quite won — reconciling herself to stardom.
“I'm still shocked by it,” she confessed. “I don’t understand it. I mean, what is expected of you as a star?
“I don’t consider myself a star. It’s the work that interests me. I’ve never liked being seen and being photographed.
“Do you know what an effort it is for me to dress up? Even this outfit today is hard for me to wear. I usually wear a sloppy sweatshirt and my hair is kind of messy.”
Since she was 15 she has maintained a special bank account, her “security blanket”, in which she deposits only money she feels is truly hers.
It now totals around $17,000 and added recently to such amounts as the $750 her mother gave her as a wedding present was her director’s fee for Yentl.
“The only other money from my career that has gone into that account,” she said. “was the $50 a day l got for renting my car on On A Clear Day.”
For all the pain and insecurity she has suffered getting to this new plateau in her life, Barbra would do it all over again if she had the choice.
“Somehow we‘re all here to learn some kind of lesson,” she said. “I guess it could be called paying dues.
“There are some things that aren’t necessarily good but you've got to go through them to grow. No, I don't regret anything.”
End.
Page Credits: This article is from the David s Collection — Courtesy of Joseph Goodwin
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