My Name Is Barbra

The loss of Virginia inspires Streisand to take her concert on tour. In each US city where she performs, she donates money to schools whose funding for art and music has been cut. She doubles the number of shows at her first stop in London to try to accommodate demand. Prince Charles attends a show, leading them to become friends. After her shows in Detroit, Streisand contracts viral tracheolaryngitis; she feels terrible when she has to postpone a few concerts. She films and edits the concert for a TV special, which wins five Emmys.

Streisand continues to be involved in politics; she always asks experts questions to better understand the state of the world and the nation. At this time, she sees “how [her] political consciousness and [her] creative life were converging” (1003) and considers scripts that would address this convergence. One film does not get made, but Streisand does make the controversial film, Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story (1995), a drama that addresses anti-gay bias and discrimination in the military. Streisand and Cis Corman also make TV movies that touch on the political and social topics she cares about. When she is asked to speak out on the same issues, she finds it harder than doing so in her art, yet she agrees to give a speech at Harvard about the duties of the artist as a citizen.

Streisand wants to finally make a movie with a happy ending, unlike most of her others. She directs The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), a romantic comedy with dramatic themes that explores how beauty impacts relationships. While audiences love the movie, Streisand feels that it is misunderstood by many critics. Streisand goes to the Oscars when the film is nominated, but suddenly begins bleeding during the ceremony because of her endometriosis.

In the middle of editing The Mirror Has Two Faces, Streisand is invited to a dinner party by a friend who wants her to meet actor James Brolin. She ends up hitting it off with Brolin immediately. He convinces Streisand to cancel her plans for editing that night and takes her home, where the two talk until the early hours of the morning and sense their relationship has potential.

The next few times they meet seem disastrous to Streisand, yet Brolin is persistent in asking her out and she is inspired by the romantic success of her last character, so she says yes. Though their professional schedules don’t align, they continue talking and building their relationship, with Brolin proposing marriage almost from the beginning. Though Streisand is hesitant, she takes the relationship more seriously than many of her previous ones, and the couple learns to listen to one another and work through their issues. She agrees to marry him in 1998 in a small wedding ceremony in front of all of their happily married friends.

To kick off the new millennium, Streisand is asked to sing on New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas once again. In the year 2000, she takes that concert on tour to Australia. However, as she and Brolin are constantly hounded by the paparazzi, she announces that these concerts will be her last. She continues her political involvement, campaigning for Al Gore’s presidency and urging Democrats in Congress to present a united front. In the early 2000s, Streisand wins multiple lifetime achievement awards.

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Streisand feels compelled to sing at the Emmys as a small way of giving back to the victims and survivors. Streisand is with her mother when she dies in 2002; President Clinton calls to console her about Diana’s death as she had done about Virginia’s death earlier. After eight years of not performing in a movie, Streisand accepts a role in the comedy Meet the Fockers (2004), where she realizes that her male counterpart is getting paid over three times as much as her.

Streisand feels less ambitious, but also recognizes that she has recently only agreed to projects she is passionate about. She decides to do another concert tour to raise funds for causes she cares about and takes the tour across Europe, including Germany, a place she previously refused to perform. She becomes particularly interested in research on women’s heart health, raising awareness and participating in efforts to decrease the number of women dying from heart disease from one in three to one in four.

Politics and philanthropy are Streisand’s primary passions in the mid-late 2000s. She releases her album Love is the Answer (2009) and continues to receive honors for both her political and artistic work. Yet she is still unsure of herself when it comes to her rare live appearances. In her next concert series, Back to Brooklyn, she is thrilled to perform with her son Jason, who also has musical talent. In 2013, she receives another award for her achievements in film—an ironic honor since she is still not able to get films approved, especially a script she had been developing since 1984.

Streisand dreams of playing the overbearing stage mother Mama Rose in a film version of the musical Gypsy, as she thinks it would bookend her film career perfectly and the story reminds her of her relationship with her own mother.

Streisand turns down most awards she is offered around the time of writing this autobiography, but during those awards she does accept, she often runs into Robert Redford. She asks him to consider making a sequel to The Way We Were.

In 2016, Streisand prepares for more albums and a possible tour. Simultaneously, she helps Hillary Clinton with her presidential campaign and continues to speak out against the hypocrisy and bigotry of Clinton’s opposition.

Also in 2016, Streisand is heartbroken when her beloved dog Sammie dies; she has her cloned shortly after.

Streisand continues to speak out against the state of American politics and writes lyrics for the album Walls (2018) featuring her ideas. Just after it is released, a fire ignites near her home, and she is forced to evacuate. Around the same time, Streisand learns that her co-producer for Gypsy sold the rights for the film. After these setbacks, Streisand is cheered when she is asked to perform at a summer music festival in London in 2019, which Erlichman convinces her to do twice more in the United States.

Streisand cares about the principle of truth above all else. She discusses how this concept is disintegrating, particularly in American politics. Though she recognizes the importance of her artistic contributions, Streisand also wants to be remembered for her philanthropy, which she continues to focus on. She appeals to her readers to use their voices and their votes to “make this a more fair, just, and compassionate world” (1153).

Streisand realizes she wants to step out of the spotlight for some time: “Looking back, it was much more fun to dream of being famous than to actually be famous [...] Fame is a hollow trophy” (1155). As she writes the memoir, she also edits what was supposed to be her first album recorded at the Bon Soir in 1962, which she plans to finally release; she looks forward to recording more music. For her most recent birthday, she receives a painting her mother had commissioned of Streisand and her father but that was never finished. In an attached letter, her mother tells her stories about her father for the first time in her life. Diana also apologizes to her.

Streisand notes that she writes this book for her grandchildren so they can know the truth about her life, though she is currently content with them just knowing her as their “Gamma.” She ends her book with lyrics from one of her best-known songs: “I think I truly am one of the luckiest people in the world” (1160).