Hello, Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisa Part 6

Uptown in Central Park, however, Barre did notice the time. It surprised him how much it mattered that Barbra see him in this play. Maybe it was because of all the time he'd spent preparing her for the Lion, and he wanted some acknowledgment, some support, in return. Barbra always seemed so indifferent to Barre's own work, his own goals. As showtime neared, he kept peeking out to see if she and Bob were there yet. As the curtain went up, their seats were still empty.

It was a warm evening. Temperatures had reached eighty degrees that day, with humidity near seventy percent. People sat on the gra.s.s that surrounded the stage fanning themselves with their programs. The sun was dropping lower in the sky, turning the waters of Belvedere Lake pink. By the time Barre made his entrance in the second act, long blue shadows had stretched across the park. Taking "a quick gander" out at the audience, he could see through the dusky night that the house seats he'd reserved for Barbra and Bob were filled. Barbra must be there watching him, Barre thought. He felt that he played his scene better than ever that night and that the applause went on even longer than usual.

But when the play was finished and the footlights went out, he realized he didn't recognize the two people in the house seats. Barbra and Bob must have been too late, Barre realized, and their seats had been given away. Scanning the crowd, he spotted his errant friends hurrying toward the stage, "fighting their way upstream against the exiting crowd" as if they had just arrived.

As Barbra neared him, Barre asked her, "You just got here?"

"Uh, yeah," she admitted.

Bob stepped up, blaming their lateness on the subway and on how long it had taken him to get Barbra's clothes and makeup just right. "But she looks great, though, Barre," he said. "Don't you think?"

Yes, Barre thought to himself, she did look great. And looking great, he realized, had meant more to her than making it to his show on time. This show was the first thing he had done in New York "that had made any kind of a dent," he kept repeating to himself, "and she couldn't be bothered to come."

Unable to speak, he stood there "chewing on his fury." Meanwhile Bob kept up a running commentary in Barbra's ear about all the people who were admiring her. "There's a handsome man across the way staring at you," he whispered. "And another one over there. Look away. Look bored."

And Barbra, sweltering in her black turtleneck, did just that.

3.

Not long after, a contrite little girl knocked at Barre's door.

She didn't apologize-Barbra rarely said she was sorry-but she was clearly wrestling with guilt. Barre let her in. She seemed scared, unsure of herself. The insecurities she usually kept so well hidden were suddenly bubbling up into view. She seemed to need to talk. So Barre let her ramble.

She felt farblunget, she said. "All mixed up." The owner of the Lion, Ernie Sgroi, had persuaded his father, the proprietor of the Bon Soir, one of the most important nightclubs in the Village, to give her an audition. But did Barbra really want to keep singing for a living? Would it take away from learning her part for The Boy Friend, which required a French accent? Pacing around Barre's apartment, Barbra was confused, indecisive, and a little bit teary-a far cry from the poised creature in black who'd swaggered across the gra.s.s of Central Park just a few days earlier.

But it wasn't just her career that left her feeling farblunget, Barre sensed. Barbra's head was filled with thoughts, she said, and her tinnitus was ringing in her ears. She'd taken Barre's absence during the last few weeks of Henry V very personally. He knew that, but he couldn't decide whether Barbra's state of mind reflected the genuine feelings she had for him or just the narcissism he'd come to recognize in her,

Others, however, were inclined to be more sympathetic. Bob had come to believe that Barbra was "very much in love with Barre." Another friend thought Barbra's guilt over missing Barre's show had made her realize "how much she cared about him and how much she didn't want to lose him." After all, Barre was Barbra's first lover, which was a powerful connection for an inexperienced eighteen-year-old girl. She had come back to Barre now with as much humility and contrition as she could muster-never much in Barbra's case-but the fact that she was there at all spoke volumes.

She also needed him. She had the Bon Soir audition to prepare for.

Barre took her in his arms. He blamed Bob for "seducing" her into missing the show. Barbra had been "carried away" by her new friend, Barre believed, spellbound by the way Bob could transform her from an ugly duckling into a swan. So, sitting her down on the couch, he rea.s.sured her that he was still committed to helping her in any way he could. That seemed to make her relax, and for the rest of the afternoon they snuggled on the couch, practicing the French accent she was going to need for The Boy Friend.

But something else was bothering her. It may have been that day, or one very much like it, that Barbra announced she wanted to have her nose fixed. Having had a taste of what being beautiful felt like, she seemed hungry for more. All she would need to do, Barbra believed, was "change the tilt ... and take off a little bit." The b.u.mp in the center of her nose, she said, would be left intact because Bob had told her if she changed too much of her nose, she'd have to change her chin, too. Besides, she "loved her b.u.mp," she said. Her nose was her father's nose. When she thought about changing it, she felt disloyal.

Barre told her that she shouldn't change a thing, that she was perfect as she was. No doubt that's what she wanted to hear. It's what Bob had told her too, but no doubt she really wanted to hear it from Barre. Cuddling next to him on the couch, she wanted very much for their relations.h.i.+p to work out. By the middle part of the summer of 1960, all of their friends knew that Barbra had fallen deeply in love with Barre. And not a few of them wondered if that was really such a good thing.

4.

Walking back from lunch with his sister, Sheldon Streisand told Barbra to walk a few feet behind him. He was joking, but the runs in the backs of her stockings did embarra.s.s him. Never one to take jokes at her expense very kindly, Barbra bristled. "They're not ripped in front and I don't see them in back, so they don't bother me," she told her brother, and walked on ahead of him defiantly.

For a girl who was usually so fastidious about her appearance, the runs in her stockings bespoke just how strapped for cash she was that summer. The money from the Lion was over, and The Boy Friend was still weeks away. Sheldon had come to her rescue, securing her a job at the ad agency he worked for, Ben Sackheim, Inc. But Barbra could take only so much of his help. When Sheldon offered to buy her a new pair of stockings, Barbra adamantly refused. She was already in debt to her brother enough as it was, and being in debt to Sh.e.l.ly was too close to being in debt to her mother.

With a halfhearted gait, Barbra trooped back up the steps of the Plaza Hotel at Central Park and Fifth Avenue, where Sackheim had its offices. Stepping into the elevator, Barbra was well aware that Sh.e.l.ly shared their mother's concerns that she'd never make good. To a coworker, he called his sister "uncontrollable." The two siblings, so far apart in age, had little in common. They probably exchanged few words as they rode the elevator back up to the twenty-first floor. There, Sh.e.l.ly went one way, heading back to his office, where he worked as an art director, and Barbra went the other way, trudging glumly to the front desk. She'd been put in charge of the switchboard for two weeks, replacing the regular operator who was out on vacation. To alleviate the boredom, Barbra often answered the phone using different accents, usually French, practicing for The Boy Friend-a way, she said, to keep her "acting alive."

It may have been that day, or one very similar (they all blurred together for Barbra anyway), that Sh.e.l.ly suddenly reappeared over her shoulder and told her there was a problem. Barbra, it seemed, was keeping callers on the line so long, rattling on in all her "made-up foreign languages," that Sackheim employees couldn't get calls in or out. And if the problem wasn't her practicing accents, it was her penchant to gab with Bob, who was always amused by Barbra's inept mastery of the switchboard. Never entirely sure which person's extension was which, Barbra would be gabbing away with Bob when she'd suddenly announce that one of her lights was flas.h.i.+ng. Bob would eavesdrop as she'd say, "Good afternoon, Ben Sackheim agency" and then connect the caller as best she could-a process she often got wrong, plugging people together who hadn't called each other. Many times Bob listened in as Sackheim employees ordered lunch from a nearby deli, covering his mouth to m.u.f.fle his laughter as the deli's return call got routed to a person who insisted that, no, absolutely no, he had not ordered herring for lunch. Dissolving in laughter at his office fourteen blocks downtown, Bob couldn't help but imagine Barbra playing the tangled-up switchboard scene from Auntie Mame.

5.

They had become regular events, these little concerts in Barre's apartment. Barre would arrange and orchestrate Barbra's numbers, and Bob would do her makeup. Carole Gister sat among the usual UCLA clique in the living room, waiting for the show to begin. Barbra was on a stool in the kitchen, where Bob was touching up her lipstick. Carole understood these concerts were dry runs for Barbra's upcoming gig at the Bon Soir. The shy little runaway had certainly blossomed, Carole thought.

At her audition, Barbra had wowed Ernie Sgroi Sr. The Bon Soir was the closest the Village came to a posh supper club, the "Greenwich Village version of uptown Blue Angel," according to Variety. The New York World-Telegram called the venue "one of the lead funspots" in the Village, a "yock-laden place" given the number of comedy acts that alternated with the torch singers and jazz artists. Every night patrons would line up down the block from the Bon Soir's front door. Downstairs in the club's dark interior, regular joes rubbed shoulders with celebrities. Frequent headliner Kaye Ballard never knew who she might spot sitting in her audience. Sometimes it was Gregory Peck, other times it was Marlene Dietrich. Shows at the Bon Soir generated a real buzz, with patrons often returning two or three nights in a row.

For her audition, Barbra had brought along Barre, Bob, and Burke McHugh to provide support. Not surprisingly, she'd sung "A Sleepin' Bee," since all the arrangements had already been worked out. It was the first time Bob had ever heard Barbra sing. He was so impressed, so moved, that when they all decamped afterward to the Pam Pam for French fries and coleslaw, he'd been unable to speak.

Sgroi had been equally impressed, but he'd wanted to make sure this ambitious little tyro could actually work an audience. So he'd told Barbra to come back that night, where he'd slip her in as a "surprise guest" on the bill. In between numbers by comedian Larry Storch and the jazz trio the Three Flames, Barbra came out on stage to sing "A Sleepin' Bee" as well as one other song, a new orchestration that she and Barre had worked out. It was a strange, whimsical choice, and it was this song that she came out of the kitchen singing at her little concert in Barre's apartment. Carole Gister and the rest of the UCLA contingent were stunned. The song on Barbra's lips was "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" from the Disney cartoon The Three Little Pigs.

It had started as a joke. One day while rehearsing for the Bon Soir audition, Barbra had said she "wanted to do something completely wrong" and out of place for the "sophisticated, posh little nightclub." Sophistication "annoyed" her, she told Barre. She felt like going in there and singing "a nursery rhyme or something."

A bell went off in Barre's head. He knew part of the reason Sgroi Jr. had recommended Barbra to his father was her irreverent style. So he located the sheet music for "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" in an old record shop, brought it home, and was stunned by how "double-entendre" the lyrics were. Barbra would sing them just as they were written, he decided, but with a little of her own razzmatazz.

That razzmatazz was evident from the moment she stepped onto the stage the night of her surprise tryout at the Bon Soir. As soon as the spotlight was on her, Barbra removed the gum she'd been chewing and stuck it on the microphone. It was something she often did during practice, and both Barre and Bob had suggested she keep it in the act. As they predicted, the audience howled with laughter. Barbra would tell people she'd forgotten the gum was in her mouth, but that, too, was part of the act, part of the saucy, impertinent stage persona they were developing. So when she capped her set with her s.e.xy rendition of "Big Bad Wolf," the cheers went through the roof. "Kid, you are going to be a very great star," headliner Larry Storch told Barbra. Right on the spot, Sgroi hired her for a two-week run starting September 9 at $108 a week.

For the crowd in Barre's apartment, "Big Bad Wolf" went over just as well. Barbra bounded throughout the living room, looking into the faces of each person present, trilling lots of tra-la-las and rolling her r's. "Forrrr the big bad, very big, very bad wolf, they did not give three figs!" Her voice was full and rich and utterly confident. But after she was finished and her friends all applauded, she covered her face with her hands and blushed a deep scarlet.

She was uncomfortable with their acclaim. Singing just came too d.a.m.n easy. "It just seems the right sounds come out of me in the right way," she said. Barre thought singing came so effortlessly for her that Barbra "didn't consider it valuable." At the end of the night, as people filed out of the apartment praising her voice as a "gift from G.o.d," Barbra's att.i.tude in response was "Well, yeah, but that's not what's important." Her voice wasn't anything that she had worked on or studied for. To become an actress, she'd worked very, very hard, harder than she'd ever worked for anything else. But when she sang, Barre said, it was as if she were "on automatic pilot."

He remained convinced her voice was her ticket to the top, however, and he tried to persuade her of the same. She wanted to be successful, didn't she? She wanted to find a way to beat all those agents who wouldn't take her on at their own game, didn't she? She wanted the whole world to know who she was, didn't she?

Barre pulled her close to him on the couch and kissed her forehead. "When you make your first record, promise you'll let me produce it." She nodded against his chest. "Promise?" he asked again, lifting her chin so he could look her in the eyes.

She returned his smile. "Cross my heart," she said.

6.

Transistor radios all over the city were blaring the summer's number one hit "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" as Barbra lugged the last of her stuff out of Fifty-fourth Street and downtown to Barre's via the hot and sweaty subway. Likely this was one of the times she dreamed about a future as a successful actress being "chauffeured around" the city. But for now, Barbra hauled her bags herself across the stifling subway platform then up the grimy steps to Sheridan Square.

By now, the concierge of Barre's building knew her; the guy who ran the elevator greeted her by name. Since returning to Manhattan from her two-week run in The Boy Friend, Barbra had been living with Barre. His friends now officially considered them a couple. The only person who didn't know they were together was Barbra's mother, who thought Barbra was living with a girlfriend. But Cis was pleased to see Barbra looking and acting so happy for a change, even if, as was Barbra's custom, she kept most of her friends separate from each other. Barre had met Cis only once, briefly at the Lion, despite Barbra's describing her as her "best friend."