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Barbra Streisand details how her battle with stage fright dates back to experience in "Funny Girl"
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Date:2025-04-15 22:28:49
Despite her celebrated career, Barbra Streisand said that her performances have been shadowed by a fear of forgetting her lines — a fear that took root during her early days in Broadway's "Funny Girl."
She said the off-script, on-stage behavior of her "Funny Girl" co-star Sydney Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin's son, drove her into therapy and instilled a deep-seated anxiety about live performances.
"He kept talking to me on stage under his breath. Not looking at me in the eyes. You know, looking, like, at my forehead or my hair or something. And talking. Like a crazy person," she told "CBS Mornings" co-host Gayle King.
"And it was driving me insane," she said. "That threw me so off that I thought, 'What, what am I, what is my next line?'"
"I never lost that, that fear of performing, fear of forgetting my lines," Streisand said.
The Oscar-winning actress and singer details her anxiety in her new memoir "My Name Is Barbra," which is being released on Tuesday. Her struggle with stage fright was so intense that after forgetting lyrics during a 1967 concert in Central Park, Streisand avoided public performances for nearly three decades.
Her new book also details her childhood. With the loss of her father when she was just 15 months old and facing discouragement from her mother, she credits her pursuit of acting as a way to find a sense of belonging and love.
"Even though my mother said, 'You'll never make it as an actress. You know, you're not pretty enough,' or whatever, I thought, because I used to read movie magazines, right, and kind of dream, 'Is it, wouldn't it be wonderful?'" she said.
Her dreams and dedication have indeed paid off. Streisand's Malibu home has been personally curated, from her legendary garden to what she calls "the mall," featuring unique shops and an antique clothes room.
"I'm so finicky, and when I love something, I don't care how much it costs," she said.
Streisand recently celebrated her 25-year marriage to actor James Brolin, who said he asked Streisand to marry him three times before she agreed.
And Brolin shared a personal detail about their early relationship: "I had been literally — it's a wild word, but I had been celibate for three years saying, 'Who needs this?'" After two previous marriages, he said he wanted to avoid "getting involved in a lousy situation."
During an anniversary celebration, Brolin read her a letter, saying, "You know someone is right for you if you love to be with them all the time. And when I go, when I finally go, I will love you then."
"Home is not a place. Home is a person," he added.
As for who could play Streisand in a potential future film, she suggested she doesn't want to think about it yet.
"I don't know of anyone who can," she said.
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