Hello, Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisa Part 32

Clearly relieved, Barbra did a little jig as she hurried out onto stage. She wore a short white dress and her hair was flipped out at the ends, with a big bun on top. She sang two songs for Sullivan. Her rendition of "Lover, Come Back to Me" turned out to be very hubba-hubba, conjuring up red-hot-mama Sophie Tucker. "Lover" was the flipside of Barbra's second single, which had just been released. As promised, Columbia had put more effort into this one, pressing twenty thousand copies and mailing demos to DJs all across the country. The front side of the single was the John KanderFred Ebb composition "My Coloring Book," recorded just a few days before, and Barbra also performed it that night on the Sullivan show. Kander and Ebb had written the song for Kaye Ballard, but when she'd wanted to perform it on The Perry Como Show, she was denied permission, because it was too serious and she was the show's comedienne. Enter Barbra, who recorded the song and made it her own, much to Ballard's exasperation.

"My Coloring Book" was Barbra doing what she did best, bringing an almost unbearable poignancy to a simple song about heartbreak. Marty immediately sent a copy to Ray Stark in California, and the producer, reportedly, was "bowled over." Whether his wife shared his opinion, no one was quite sure. Fran Stark had fallen utterly silent on the matter of Barbra Streisand. There were reports that she'd left the Bon Soir after Barbra's performance still adamantly opposed to her; others said Barbra's performance had won her over. What seems to have been the case is that, no matter her own personal feelings, Fran was simply deferring to her husband's judgment. But her silence fostered stories that Mrs. Stark was waging a fierce, one-woman, behind-the-scenes campaign against Barbra.

It was hard, however, to imagine such a position in the wake of the release of "My Coloring Book." The song might have been schmaltz, but Barbra's heartbreak was beautifully convincing. If anyone had doubted her ability to convey the range of emotions needed to play f.a.n.n.y Brice, all they needed to do was listen to this record.

The richness of the emotion apparent in Barbra's voice may have arisen from a new, and unexpected, understanding of the lyrics. She sang of watching the man she loved drift away: "Color him gone." As 1962 turned into 1963, Barbra and Elliott had suddenly found life in their little tree house was no longer quite so harmonious. Their hectic, yet sustaining, routine had been shattered by the closing of Wholesale. Barbra was still rus.h.i.+ng hither and yon, but Elliott, never good at being idle, just moped around the apartment. He was developing "terrible anxieties" waiting in the unemployment line. He felt, he admitted, like "such a failure collecting that $50."

For all his insistence that both men and women needed to "break tradition" in their relations.h.i.+ps with each other, Elliott found himself hopelessly stuck in an earlier view: He was the man and he was out of work, dependent on the income of a woman, so, ergo, he must be a failure. The fact that Barbra's success kept steamrolling along even after Wholesale closed-even if she herself was dissatisfied with its progress-was very difficult for Elliott. He had been the star-but Barbra had ended up making as much as he had in Wholesale, and now, while she got calls for nightclubs and television shows, he was schlepping down to the labor office.

One acquaintance thought it was "a bit of a self-pity party Elliott was throwing for himself." Since, in fact, those unemployment checks were just temporary. Elliott had very quickly landed himself another job after Wholesale closed. Although he wouldn't start until the following spring, Elliott had won the lead in the London revival of On the Town, to be staged at the Prince of Wales Theatre. But where the job should have made him feel more secure, it caused a whole new set of problems. Elliott wanted Barbra to go with him to London; if she didn't, who knew how long they'd be apart and what would happen to their relations.h.i.+p then. The uncertainty of all that frightened Barbra, too, so she may have genuinely considered director Joe Layton's offer of a part in the show. He proposed that she play Hildy, the man-hungry taxi driver who'd been brought to life on the Broadway stage by Nancy Walker-in a show, by the way, conceived and ch.o.r.eographed by Jerome Robbins. Taking a supporting role in another musical that starred Elliott would keep them together. It would also re-create the dynamic of the past half year.

But Barbra knew it would be a career misstep. Playing Hildy would have typed her as a character actress and conceivably prevented her from ever being considered for a leading role. Agreeing to On the Town would not only have meant losing out on f.a.n.n.y Brice if that show made it to the stage, but also forfeiting, according to her agents, $100,000 worth of other offers-a year or more of television, nightclubs, and records-an estimate that Lee Solters made sure to supply Earl Wilson, who ran it in his column to explain why Barbra had turned the part down. The implication was clear: She had become too important to play a secondary part in Elliott's show.

The reality of that fractured their home life. One photographer who came to take photos of Barbra for some interview was witness to a noisy argument between the couple, with some "pretty heavy shouting," though the photographer couldn't tell "what they were shouting about." One day, Diana made a rare visit-every once in a while she still felt obliged to stop by with some soup-and found the atmosphere in her daughter's apartment to be "so thick with tension it could be cut with a pair of scissors," said a friend who was with her. Barbra was sulking in one corner and Elliott was in another, neither speaking to the other, which made things rather difficult, given how small the flat was.

One acquaintance thought their squabbling reflected more than just a case of clas.h.i.+ng egos or a contest over who was more successful. Their rancor grew even more, their acquaintance said, from a sense of "fear-a deep-rooted fear that everything was changing, and that without the glue of Wholesale, their relations.h.i.+p was coming apart."

For Barbra, it was a core dilemma. She wanted success and acclaim, everyone knew that; but she also wanted love. The decisions she'd be asked to make in the next few months would force her to make some hard choices between those two competing desires.

2.

In just twelve hours, the temperature in New York had plunged thirty-three degrees, bottoming out at five above zero. Snow blew into Barbra's face as she stepped out of the car, wrapped, almost certainly, in her caracul coat and wool hat. At least there was no one telling her that she should be wearing stockings and high heels.

Hurrying into the Columbia Records headquarters on Seventh Avenue, Barbra shook the snow from her coat and headed into the elevator. It was January 24, the second day of recording her alb.u.m. This time it was Studio A, at the top of the building, where she was working her magic. Yesterday, she'd recorded "A Taste of Honey," "I'll Tell the Man in the Street," and "Soon It's Gonna Rain," but today the agenda was more ambitious, with "My Honey's Lovin' Arms," "Keepin' Out of Mischief Now," "Come to the Supermarket in Old Peking," and "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" all on the roster. And if they had time, she'd record even more, as "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered," "Cry Me a River," "A Sleepin' Bee," "Much More," and, of course, "Happy Days Are Here Again" were set to be included on the alb.u.m as well.

If Barbra was tired-she was, after all, back at the Blue Angel every night, her name above the club's in newspaper advertis.e.m.e.nts-she didn't sound it. On these tracks, her voice was absolutely exquisite. Part of the reason why she sounded so good was the man she greeted as she slipped off her snowy coat: Peter Matz, the arranger and conductor Harold Arlen had recommended she work with on the alb.u.m. Right from the start, Barbra had adored the bespectacled, goateed thirty-four-year-old Matz, trusting his artistic instincts completely. He'd arranged for Marlene Dietrich and Noel Coward, and just this past year had been nominated for a Tony for his musical direction of No Strings. Coward had called Matz "vital and imaginative," and thought the young arranger knew "more about the range of various instruments and the potentialities of different combinations than anyone ... very exciting and stimulating."

Matz also had a sense of humor so dry that Coward's secretary called it "dehydrated." Delivering his droll observations with a straight face, Matz could make Barbra laugh, which wasn't easy, and which always went a very long way with her.

They'd worked out most of the songs ahead of time in Matz's West End Avenue apartment, just the two of them at the piano, while Matz's wife and two young sons listened from the other room. Matz took Peter Daniels's arrangements and expanded them for the orchestra, which Daniels considered "a big compliment." Although Matz had taken over as accompanist, Daniels still felt part of the collaboration and was set to go on tour with Barbra the following month to promote the alb.u.m after its release.

In a remarkably short time, Barbra had developed a working relations.h.i.+p with this new Peter that was nearly as smooth and fruitful as the one with Daniels. Janet Matz, sitting behind a gla.s.s part.i.tion the day of the recording, marveled at how fluidly her husband and Barbra worked together. She knew Pete could be a bit of a perfectionist, and sometimes two perfectionists clashed, but she saw "no conflict whatsoever" with Barbra. Pete "took cues from her," Janet observed. If he saw Barbra struggling with a note, for example, he might say, "Let's keep the strings out here," knowing intuitively how to solve the problem. All Barbra needed to do was lift an eyebrow and Matz would understand he ought to consider slowing down the tempo or changing the color of the piece. In the control booth, engineer Frank Laico thought some of Barbra's vocals were "very harsh at times," but with Matz's "colors she sounded so great."

The collaboration with Matz worked so well, his wife believed, because he had "a strong personality" that matched Barbra's own. "Pete wasn't afraid of telling anyone off" if necessary, and so there were times when he bluntly told Barbra to just trust him and stop bellyaching. But neither was Matz someone who needed to have his way all the time. "Other people's ideas didn't threaten him," his wife said-the way Barbra had seemed to suspect Laurents or Weidman or Rome had felt threatened when she'd suggested changing something in Wholesale. To her delight, Matz was open to hearing what she thought, and sometimes he actually used her ideas. He discovered that two and a half years of nightclubs and Broadway had taught this young woman with no formal training an awful lot. Barbra's musical abilities, Matz concluded, were "monumental."

Yet still the Columbia bra.s.s wasn't sure of her. Mike Berniker was "walking a tightrope," Matz observed, "between the upstairs guys" and those in the recording studio. The execs were still telling Berniker, "Look, we can't spend a lot of money on this, we don't know if this woman is going to sell records." So the orchestra was doled out to Matz in small combinations in different sessions, rather than as one big band as he would have preferred. One session would have a small string section; another one, a rhythm section and four trombones. All because the guys in the suits still weren't sure this eccentric kid with the big voice would make them any money.

Undeterred by their lack of faith in her, Barbra took her place beside the microphone. Outside, the wind and snow were raging, but Barbra stayed supremely focused on the task at hand. She put everything out of her mind-the winter storm, the moneymen's doubts, the fear and anxiety she felt at home-and began to sing. Listening to her, the man conducting the orchestra was filled with far more faith in her potential than the record executives possessed. Before the year was out, Peter Matz believed, Barbra Streisand "would be a very big star."

3.

Lee Solters had his work cut out for him. Just as he was about to inaugurate a major publicity blitz for Barbra, all seven New York newspapers, plus two Long Island dailies, went on strike. That had happened on December 8; the strike was now approaching its second month. That meant no New York reviews for Barbra's alb.u.m, set to be released in a few weeks, nor any for her Blue Angel engagement. In fact, to get the word out that she was even at the club, Max Gordon had advertised in the Wall Street Journal, which wasn't affected by the strike. But most significantly, the strike meant no New York coverage of Barbra herself-no profiles, no interviews-a critical loss at a very critical time. For, as Arthur Laurents had heard, Barbra was continually haranguing her publicists and agents, "Get me out there! Get me something new!"

Solters picked up the phone and started dialing. In his raspy Brooklyn accent, he pitched stories about this twenty-year-old sensation who'd stopped the show cold and was kooky as all get-out and possessed the voice of an angel-the standard talking points when pitching Barbra. With the strike on, Solters knew he'd have to rely on the syndicated columnists, even if most of the people who did the important hiring wouldn't see items run in the Idaho Falls Post Reporter or the Corpus Christi Times.

Some columnists, however, such as Earl Wilson and Dorothy Kilgallen, had their columns clipped and mailed regularly to Broadway producers and managers, and Wilson, at least, could be counted on to give Barbra good press. He'd just declared her the "hottest young comedienne in the country." Solters secured a number of such syndicated pieces during the strike and made sure to clip and mail them himself if necessary to get them into the hands of the city's movers and shakers.

And if the articles Solters arranged lacked New York visibility, they made up for it in their enthusiasm toward Barbra. Robert Ruark, whose thrice-weekly column for the Scripps-Howard newspapers was further distributed through the United Features Syndicate, wrote about everything that made him "glad, sad or mad." And Barbra Streisand made him glad. "She packs more personal dynamic power than anybody I can recall since Libby Holman or Helen Morgan," Ruark wrote after seeing Barbra at the Blue Angel. "She is the hottest thing to hit the entertainment field since Lena Horne erupted, and she will be around fifty years from now if good songs are still written to be sung by good singers."

Yet while the piece was a paean to Barbra's talent, style, and personality-"the next musical she makes will see her name over the t.i.tle," Ruark wrote, which certainly went right into Barbra's press kit, highlighted for any prospective employers to see-it also spent a considerable amount of ink on her appearance. In 1963, Barbra Streisand's difference-her "otherness"-was so striking that people couldn't help but comment on it. "Her nose is more evocative of moose than muse," Ruark wrote, suggesting only the Blue Angel could have "established a girl with a b.u.mpy nose and the unwieldy name of Streisand as a candidate for immortality." As the night went on, Ruark concluded, Barbra became "beautiful in your ears."

While Ruark's point was that appearances shouldn't matter, Solters decided a little counteroffensive was necessary when it came to Barbra's looks. He seems to have gotten an early look at Ruark's column, for nearly simultaneously, Earl Wilson's column carried what seemed like a reb.u.t.tal: "A b.u.mp on a girl's nose doesn't make any difference," Wilson quoted Barbra as saying. "After all, what is s.e.x appeal but the b.u.mps not only on a girl's nose but elsewhere?"

This became the new meme. Rather than just sit back and wait for the next snide comment about Barbra's "anteater nose," Solters now presented her as the girl who would "never get her nose fixed." She was defiant, proud of herself just as she was. No one need ever know she'd once considered a little reconstructive surgery.

Another piece orchestrated by Solters at this time was written by Mel Heimer, a Yonkers-based columnist for the King Features Syndicate, whose "My New York" column was a perfect venue for Barbra, especially during the strike. This one pushed that other recurring meme-Barbra the kook-and firmly established the term as being synonymous with the performer. "There is a full-blown, top-drawer kook in town," Heimer reported. "Miss Streisand has a good part of New York in the air, wondering if she's for real. Miss S. is a slim, slightly round-shouldered sort who, even when being interviewed, seems to have her eyes and ears fixed on the sight and sound of far-away flutes." (Rarely has an interviewer described Barbra's ambition better.) "She will do anything to arouse attention, the first requirement of a good kook." (As examples, Heimer gave the "born in Madagascar" line and the bit about the nightgown being worn as a dress.) "These nights she's doubling into places like the Bon Soir and Blue Angel to sing, and all I can only hope is that meeting normal people won't standardize her." (Barbra's kookiness, then, was something to love.)

The most unusual publicity Solters was able to wrangle for his client that strike-hobbled winter was inclusion in a "Singing Valentines" spread in the February issue of Show magazine. Various celebrities were photographed in amusing situations accompanied by a Valentine's verse. Barbra was shot from above hooked up to a cardiogram machine-how much kookier could one get?-while curled in a fetal position, her hair loose and her eyes closed. "Roses are red, cardiograms are blue," her verse went. "I'm Barbra Streisand ... so nu?" An asterisk led to a definition of nu as a "central European" word to describe a mix of a.s.sertion, weltschmerz (world weariness), and wonder. "Miss Streisand," the magazine a.s.sured its readers, "uses it here to mean Happy Valentine's Day."

Finally, there was more of that old publicity trick of strategically placing questions in syndicated "TV Mailbag" columns. "I think Barbara Streisand is a very exciting performer," wrote one correspondent, who, of course, was really Solters, misspelling her name purposely and making sure to mention her single "My Coloring Book," which had just been released. "What else has she done?" he wanted to know. The answer, also written by Solters, pointed out the correct spelling was "Barbra," and revealed that she was "packing them in every night at the Blue Angel"-a nice bit of publicity for that show since the local papers weren't able to report on it.

This was extraordinary coverage for a young woman who no longer had a regular television or Broadway show to make her newsworthy. The flurry of publicity that Solters managed to rake up for Barbra during the winter of 196263 proved how valuable he could be to her. Not only was he attempting to drum up business for her at the Blue Angel, but he was also keeping her long-range goals in mind as well. To Mike Connolly, the gossip columnist for the Hollywood Reporter, Solters seems to have pa.s.sed on a few juicy, if unsubstantiated, tidbits. Connolly had just announced that Barbra was set to fly out to the Coast to do an episode of the television show Stoney Burke, a Western series starring Jack Lord. "From there," Connolly continued, it would "be just a step for Barbra to star in The f.a.n.n.y Brice Story." If there was ever talk about Barbra appearing on Stoney Burke, it was just that-talk-and certainly any announcement about starring in the Brice story was still just wishful thinking. But that hardly got in the way of a good press agent like Solters. Besides, he knew the Hollywood Reporter was read every day by Ray Stark, and of all the people he didn't want forgetting Barbra during this interval, Stark was on the top of his list.

4.

Backstage at the Shubert Theatre, where Barbra had dressed every night for Wholesale not so long ago, Barry Dennen was practicing the lead role for the national touring company of the Broadway smash, David Merrick's Stop the World-I Want to Get Off. He wasn't practicing the lead because he had the lead-that had gone to Joel Grey-but because he was the lead's understudy. Still, after so much summer stock and off-Broadway, Barry was exultant that he was "in a Broadway theater at last." It was his "first real, important job." The company planned to open in Milwaukee, but for now they were rehearsing at the Shubert, where the Broadway version was still running. In the process they'd gotten to know some of the Broadway cast, including the director-star Anthony Newley. On this afternoon, Newley popped his head out of his dressing room and invited Barry and a few others to come in and hear a new alb.u.m of a "really fabulous performer ... [a] wonderful singer."

For some reason, Barry felt uneasy. Inside the dressing room, he discovered the reason for his dread when Newley held up the alb.u.m for them to see. On the cover was a photograph of Barbra, emerging from the shadows, standing in front of a microphone in a herringbone vest, her red lips pursed in song. Her eyes were heavy with the mascara and false eyelashes Barry had seen Bob give her dozens of times in his apartment. The Barbra Streisand Alb.u.m was the simple yet effective t.i.tle.

Newley dropped the disk onto the record player. "Cry Me a River" was the first track, a song Barry had never heard Barbra sing, but which, in its earliest renditions, had been all about him. Other tracks were more familiar. Barry had been the one to teach Barbra "A Sleepin' Bee" and "Keepin' Out of Mischief Now." Barbra had never heard these songs until Barry had played them for her. Now they were on her alb.u.m. But the hardest of all to hear was "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" Barry still remembered the day they'd dreamed it up, almost as a joke.

Looking around at his fellow actors as they enjoyed the alb.u.m, Barry wondered how he might explain to them his "part in Barbra's story." He realized it would be impossible. He'd probably sound bitter, or jealous, or regretful for not treating her better-or, worse still, as if he were trying to name-drop. It was hard to believe that saying he knew Barbra Streisand-the skinny kid with the shopping bags-might now be considered name-dropping. Overcome with emotion, Barry slipped out of Newley's dressing room, making his way out to the empty theater. There, slumping down into a seat, he buried his face in his hands.

5.

Standing in front of a distracted crowd at the Cafe Pompeii at the Eden Roc Hotel in Miami Beach, Barbra might have been forgiven for thinking that the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. Here she was, back on a nightclub tour, singing to rooms that were sometimes half empty and almost always noisy. But she was on tour to promote her alb.u.m, which needed all the help it could get. Released on February 25, The Barbra Streisand Alb.u.m-a t.i.tle she'd settled on after Columbia had suggested Sweet and Saucy Streisand, which had made her nauseous-had gotten off to a lackl.u.s.ter start, despite a decent (albeit somewhat late) review from Billboard, which predicted it "should draw an enormous amount of play from the good radio stations."

So far that hadn't happened. Barbra's alb.u.m was overshadowed by blockbusters from, among others, Joan Baez, who'd released a live concert alb.u.m, and Peter, Paul, and Mary, who were riding the wave of their number one hit, "Puff, the Magic Dragon." Barbra, however, was doing her best to drive up sales. Her tour had been arranged by Marty and Joe Glaser, the president and founder of a.s.sociated Booking who had taken over as her nightclub agent, which showed how high Barbra had risen in the agency's esteem. She'd kicked off things at the beginning of February at the Revere Frolic, a seaside theater outside Boston, where she performed two shows nightly. Although Billboard thought Barbra was "getting the kind of reception [at the Frolic] accorded artists on their way up," the Boston Globe advertised her as "Miss Marmel Steisand," clearly having no idea who she was.