15 My Name is Barbra -Barbara Streisand (Audible)
I thought I was never going to get to the end of this 
I've been listening to it since the beginning of the year, mainly when cooking and ironing, maybe I just don't do enough of either 
which is why this audio book seemed to last a lifetime, well Barbra's lifetime, she's packed a lot in!
I remember her making a marked impression on me from the first days of Funny Girl, not only for her unconventional beauty, but also she was my namesake, a name I wasn't overly fond of until she became such a presence, customising it by dropping a vowel, I kind of wanted to copy that at the time, after all that vowel wasn't really necessary, but no, there was only one Barbra and undoubtedly she was unique in her heyday.
I preferred her recounting of her early years, which were somewhat impoverished and dysfunctional. Her father died when she was very young and the lack of father-daughter relationship that was never to be, because of his early demise seemed to be something she yearned for all of her life. He, as an academic was clearly someone who she desperately aspired to emulate and although he was lost to her from an early age, she felt his presence in so many ways over the years, that comes across very much in this book. She had a difficult relationship with her mother who she presents as critical and un-supportive and found the force of nature that was Barbra as a daughter far too difficult to handle. Into her childhood came a step father and there was no preamble to that pivotal change in her life, one minute he wasn't there and then he was, when he was out of the blue introduced to Barbra as her mother's new husband when they picked her up from summer camp when she was about 8. There was no love lost between her and this newly unwelcome man in her life, in fact he barely acknowledged her presence or referred to her by name and when he did was always disparaging. It was a fairly short- lived relationship before he abandoned her mother, leaving her with 3 children, Barbra, her older brother and a new half sister. With little means of support the family found themselves squashed into a small Brooklyn apartment with her maternal grandparents.
Barbra's burning ambition was always to be an actress, the singing was merely a byproduct of that. In fact she goes to great pains to say, in spite of having the wonderful voice she has, she doesn't really enjoy singing, it's not something she does in the shower, singing to her is work only! Armed with an abundance of talent and a shed load tenacity she managed to realise her ambition, eventually landing the role on stage of Fanny Brice in Funny Girl and the rest is pretty much history.
So that was the first and probably, for me, the most interesting part of her memoir, she was pretty candid in what she revealed even to mention that she did a bit of casual shoplifting in her poorer days, and for which she is highly embarrassed about now, but that all came to an abrupt ending when she almost got caught. She talked about her first marriage to Elliot Gould when they were both very young when they met on stage, he struggled to get recognition in the wake of her rapid ascent, trailing behind and their eventual split, drifting apart through various factors such as working apart too often and his descent into drugs. Of course he did find his feet eventually and his career took off too and the marriage gave her, her adored son Jason who she is clearly very close to.
There were snippets about the close friendships she formed with various well known names, Marlon Brando, Omar Sharif her co star in Funny Girl and the shared kiss on film, and quite a few off set, that caused ructions for him in his native Egypt, possibly they found that romantic interaction between a Jewish woman and a Arabic man a step too far 
She doesn't really define whether either of those were lovers or just good friends, Robert Redford is another close male relationship but that was and is definitely just a close friendship.
Where I think the book gets bogged down is the somewhat tedious detail about filming, and to a lesser extent recording, she knew how and what she wanted but her vision wasn't always shared by directors and producers. The Way We Were, and the two films she directed herself Yentl and The Prince of Tides, I'd never seen the later two, but she practically went through them frame by frame, I did think, "no need to now, they been described in such fine detail, they'll be no surprises" She is indeed lavish of her praise of those behind the scenes, particularly cinematographers who went to the enth degree in helping her achieve her end result, and much of that praise went to the English crews she worked with at different junctures, and it does seem she is an avowed anglophile with a love of London and England per se. Contrastingly she has also, clashed swords with many along the way, a whole host of directors, writers and comes across as quite chippy in her view of those with dissenting views to her own, stating that much of that is because she is a woman, which could well be a fair assessment, but at times she presents a very pedantic side of herself. but I'm sure she won't be the only person in Hollywood who hasn't always enjoyed good working relationships. All of this is relayed in immense details, way too much imo, the problem is when it's an audio book you can never know how long a particular section will go on for, if I'd had the physical book, I'd definitely skipped over such overly detailed interludes. I couldn't help thinking taking into account how she's given the reader an insight into the control she exercises over her directorial work, whether the editorial staff at Penguin/Random House tried delicately put it to her that her mighty tome could be trimmed down I conjured up her dulcet Brooklyn toned reply in my head "not a word!"
She has in her own words kept journals, such detail of happenings decades ago would be lost in the mists of time for most people. There is a lot of intricate information about her gowns, her collecting of antiques, paintings even, she is a great fan and sometimes collector of Klimt and Modigliani in fact there was a painting that she really wanted by the latter and was so upset when she couldn't get it, claimed "well I'll just paint it myself" which I kind of found highly amusing in a "I really wanted that Michelangelo but I couldn't afford it, so I'll just have to paint it myself" sort of way
One of her other great interests is politics and formed very close friendships with not only Bill and Hillary Clinton, but Bill's late mother who was almost a surrogate mother to her, not getting on very well with her own, she related a story about how when she was doing a New Year Eve benefit concert having invited her own mother, who did arrive at the venue but after a while left saying something along the lines of "It's NYE I don't want to be hanging around here I want to go out and have a good time" one of the many slights her mother dealt her but Bill Clinton's mother gave her the matriarchal support that her own mother couldn't give her.
Her wealth has given her the opportunity to be philanthropic and throw her weight behind some very good causes, one in particular i remember, putting money into how heart attacks present differently in women after she found out that little research had been done on that. I hadn't really followed her over the years, so much of this was unknown to me. She is an avowed democrat and understandably is repulsed by the ascent of Trump who amongst his other vices she proclaims as a liar. Her loathing of lying is something that reoccurs again and again, because, in her words her mother lied to her as a child, and whilst I understand her loathing of Trumps untruths, it did stand out that in her lavish praise of Bill Clinton which is pretty ongoing, his porky pies seemed to wash over her somewhat. Similarly, as an avowed feminist, his shabby treatment of women didn't get a mention.
Apart from Bill Clinton she formed close relationships with other politicians, the late Pierre Trudeau and Shimon Peres, to name but two. For Barbra like many Jewish people, Israel was a kind of spiritual home, she went there quite a few times for concerts and benefits and even sets up an educational foundation in her father's name. and whilst she winds her memoirs up lamenting the state of the world, I did wonder as a liberal Democrat of how she perceives the current parlous state Middle East relations under the auspices of the intransigence that is displayed between Netanyahu and Hamas.
The final part of her memoirs is pretty much devoted to her happy marriage of nearly 25 years to the actor James Brolin and the contented blissful life they share.
All in all an interesting life, but too heavy on technical detail which I imagine is of little interest to those not involved in the world of filming. It wasn't the joy to read, or in this case listen to, that I have found other biographies. For example the last one I read, One, Two, Three, Four, The Beatles In Time, far less weighted down in tedium which made it so much more of a pleasure, that's my opinion. If you aren't a Streisand fan I wouldn't bother.
Bit of a lengthy review, but a lot of words need a lot of words!
