Barbra Streisand is an American singer, actress, director and producer, and one of the most iconic figures in music and film, the only recording artist in history to have earned number one albums over six consecutive decades. She has received the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award, the Kennedy Center Honor, the National Medal of Arts, France's Legion d'Honneur, and America's highest civilian honour, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She founded The Barbra Streisand Women's Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai, helping to raise awareness and push for more research into women's heart disease, the leading cause of death among women. Through the Streisand Foundation, which she established in 1986, she has supported national organisations working on preservation of the environment, voter education, the protection of civil liberties and civil rights, women's issues, and nuclear disarmament. In 2021 she launched the Barbra Streisand Institute at UCLA, a forward-thinking institution dedicated to finding solutions to the most vital social issues.
'I have been patiently waiting for Barbra Streisand’s autobiography for 54 years….My Name is Barbra is a Streisand obsessive’s dream come true. It addresses all the rumours and misrepresentations of her long and extraordinary life, from nearly missing out on A Star is Born to dating Pierre Trudeau, Omar Sharif and Marlon Brando. The wait has been worth every word!' * Richard E Grant, Sunday Times * A brilliant memoir * Hillary Clinton * This enormous, poignant memoir from the ultimate showbusiness trouper shows that you can never have it all (even if you’re Barbra). The writing is great and the likeable formidable personality shines through . . . deeper than the average celebrity memoir * The Times * The book is crammed with delicious details of backstage arguments, bewildered suitors and at least one incident of falling off a London bus * BBC * Chatty, candid, a 970-page victory lap past all who ever doubted, diminished or dissed her, with lingering high fives for the many supporters . . . generous dollops of chutzpah … Nobody put Barbra in the corner. There are just so many scintillating Streisands to contemplate over so many years: singer, actress, director, producer, philanthropist, activist, lover, mother, wife, friend, autobiographer. . . There’s something exuberant and glorious about Streisand’s photo dump of self-portraits and party pics. Indeed about this whole dragged-out banquet of a book. You might not have the appetite to linger for the whole thing, but you’ll find something worth a nosh * New York Times *