Hello, Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisa Part 9

They made their way into S. Klein's department store. Klein's sold clothes, dishware, toys, and furniture, and even offered a full-service pet department. At the moment, the store was pus.h.i.+ng a sale on RCA color televisions "just in time for the World Series." Color television was something Barbra could scarcely imagine, but Phyllis hadn't brought her to the store to look at TVs. She hurried her across the polished wood floor toward Klein's "Fas.h.i.+on Annex."

The day before, Sgroi had approached Phyllis with a problem concerning Barbra that, in his opinion, was even more serious than her tardiness. "The little black lady in charge of the restroom," Sgroi told Phyllis, "overheard some of the ladies complaining about Barbra's outfits." The eavesdropping attendant had promptly rushed the tidbit to Sgroi, who came to Phyllis pleading, "Would you take Barbra out and get her some clothes she can wear on stage?" If the buzz about her sloppy appearance continued, Sgroi worried, it could stall her career-and hurt his ticket sales.

Phyllis took great umbrage at the suggestion that Barbra was "sloppy"; in fact, the teenager was fastidiously put together, Phyllis believed. It was just that she dressed in her own idiosyncratic style. Phyllis, in fact, thought Barbra "looked good in anything." She was "a real beauty," Phyllis thought, with "beautiful lips, s.e.xy legs, all the right curves, those beautiful hands with those long nails." She told Sgroi he was a "crazy Charlie" for wanting Barbra to change her style.

But Sgroi was insistent. He flattered Phyllis by calling her "terribly chic," pointing to her wardrobe full of Chanels and Trigeres. Sgroi pleaded with Phyllis to give Barbra a makeover. Predictably, the manager didn't offer to pay for it. But wanting to help out her young friend, Phyllis agreed to take Barbra shopping.

And so they embarked on a frustrating day of traipsing from boutique to boutique, trying on dozens of dresses. For Barbra, it was a world very different from the thrift shops she was used to. She despised department stores as a rule. They were "too dear," she said, and the salespeople "so unpleasant and haughty." Besides, they wouldn't bargain. It wasn't surprising that nothing caught Barbra's fancy on her outing with Phyllis. "None of this stuff is me," she said.

So it was on to Klein's. But it seemed that this, too, was a lost cause. Then Phyllis spotted the store's "Designer Room," which contained "original designs created by America's foremost 'name' fas.h.i.+on houses"-and all at S. Klein bargain prices between $39.99 and $150. Here, Phyllis hoped, was their answer. Slipping Barbra into what she called "the dress of the year"-a black knee-length Chanel she'd seen in Vogue and Harper's Bazaar-Phyllis stood back to admire her friend. Barbra looked gorgeous, Phyllis declared-sophisticated and all grown-up. Reluctantly, Barbra agreed to the dress, and Phyllis hurried to pay the cas.h.i.+er. It was getting late, and they had a show to do that night.

A few hours later, at the Bon Soir, Phyllis observed the dress hanging forlornly from a hook in the dressing room while Barbra b.u.t.toned up her usual antique thrift-shop garb. "I'll wear the dress tomorrow night," Barbra said. "I already had this all laid out. I'll wear the dress tomorrow. Or maybe on the weekend."

Phyllis just smiled. n.o.body, she realized, told this kid what to do.

4.

At a little candlelit Italian eatery on Cornelia Street, the waiter asked them if they wanted a bottle of wine with dinner.

"I don't think so," Bob said. "She's performing in a couple of hours."

But Barbra insisted it was fine. She'd enjoy a little drink. There was talk up in Albany of raising the state drinking age from eighteen to twenty-one, so she might as well get it while she could. Besides, a night out with Bob allowed her to forget, for a little while anyway, the tensions with Barre and the stresses of the Bon Soir.

Sipping her wine, laughing as she twirled her spaghetti around on her fork, Barbra began to lament the "drudgery" of having to sing every night. She missed the old days when she and Bob-or Barre or Terry or Cis or any of her friends from the Theatre Studio-could just wander around the city, unrestricted by time. Now she had to be at the club every night by nine o'clock-though she often pushed it as late as she could, to nine thirty or even ten. Looking over at Bob and slurring her words ever so slightly, she told him she could not wait for this gig to be over. Then she surprised him by ordering another bottle of wine.

By the time they were rus.h.i.+ng up Sixth Avenue in order not to be late to the club, Barbra was tipsy. Bob watched uneasily from her dressing room as she headed out onto the stage when Jimmie Daniels called her name. "Keepin' out of mischief now," Barbra sang. "I really am in love and how ..."

She seemed okay, and Bob breathed a sigh of relief. But it wasn't long before he began to notice a couple of missed lyrics. Anxiously he stood and peered out at Barbra from the wings. She wasn't messy or slurry, but she wasn't the disciplined creature she usually was out there. Her timing was off, just by a fraction, but it was enough to cede control of the show to her audience. When people began singing along with her and clapping their hands to the beat, Bob knew she had lost them. They were having fun, but this audience would not leave the club enthralled as their predecessors had, telling their friends that they just had to get down to the Village to see this girl. Tonight Barbra had not been extraordinary. Bob felt she had "broken the illusion."

Afterward, he told her plainly, "We shouldn't have had the wine. That was a bad show, Barbra."

She reacted angrily. "They come to see me. Whatever I do, that's what they get."

But Bob could tell she was troubled. He hadn't needed to tell her it was a bad show. She'd known it, even if she wouldn't admit it.

Barbra stewed. She kept insisting she'd been fine, that Bob was overreacting, that the audience had been pleased, that it was her show and she could do it any way she wanted to. This d.a.m.n singing business was taking away her life! But for all her defensive blather, never again did Bob see her take a drink before a show.

5.

Heading into the dressing room, Phyllis noticed that the black Chanel dress, which had been hanging on its hook for days, was now wrapped in paper and placed in a box.

She turned to see Barbra hovering nearby, unusually timid.

"Phyllis," the girl asked, "would you mind very much if I took that dress back and bought fabric instead and used it to make a dress that I design myself?"

Phyllis looked at her. How sweet the kid was for worrying that she might hurt her feelings-or maybe, Phyllis thought, Barbra was just worried she'd "blow a gasket," since Phyllis had paid for the d.a.m.n thing. No matter what motivated Barbra's timidity, Phyllis just smiled at her.

"Of course, baby," she said. "In fact, that's exactly what you should do."

Barbra beamed.

Phyllis had no idea if the kid would make it in s...o...b..z. It was a tough racket, after all. But even more than talent, which she had in spades, Barbra had something else, Phyllis thought. She had the courage to be herself-which would either boost her to the top or keep her forever on the bottom. Watching the kid head back to Klein's, the dress tucked under her arm, Phyllis figured if she had to bet, she'd lay odds with the former.

6.

Tonight Barbra was on fire.

"Every note was perfect," said the man who was sitting in the front row looking up at her, impressed and surprised by this ungainly neophyte. "Every move she made, every gesture, every lift of her eyebrows was on target."

The man's name was Ted Rozar. His broad-shouldered, six-foot-plus frame was barely contained in the small chair on the Bon Soir floor. An entertainment manager by occupation, Rozar had come down to the Village that night to see his client, comedian Paul Dooley, who'd taken over from the departing Tony and Eddie. Dooley was performing material written by another of Rozar's clients, David Panich. At Rozar's side was a third client, Orson Bean, who had told him before the show began that this Streisand kid was a "knockout." But Rozar hadn't expected to be as impressed as he was.

It was an exciting period all around. Just ten days before, John F. Kennedy had been elected president. The air vibrated with newness, change, and youth. Maybe some of that came through in Barbra's performance that night. Yet what lifted her up most was the review she had long been waiting for, which had just been published days earlier.

"A startlingly young, stylish and vibrant-voiced gamine named Barbra Streisand is one of the pleasures of a club called the Bon Soir, " Arthur Gelb had written in the New York Times. "[Patrons] seem to enjoy the way she sidles up to a microphone and gargles love songs into it in Spanish, French and broken English."

Gelb was the same reviewer who had given Barre a mention that summer. And now Barbra had gotten her own name in the Times, with considerably more ink than Barre had received.

What's more, Gelb hadn't just liked her voice and her banter (lately she'd been throwing out a few phrases in other languages, including Yiddish). He'd also called her "stylish." Barbra took great satisfaction from that. So much for those bluenoses in the ladies' room who'd made disparaging remarks about her clothes.

Ted Rozar thought she was perfect. Everything about her-"her voice, her look, her way with the audience"-was "superb." Leaning over to Bean during the applause, he whispered that Barbra was a cross between Eydie Gorme and Lily Pons. He said he wanted to represent her.

So, after the show was over, Bean took Rozar backstage.

"Barbra Streisand!" Rozar called out in his big, booming, deep-throated voice. She couldn't have avoided him even if she'd wanted to. Rozar's giant frame towered over her and he took her face into his large hands. She looked up at him with wide eyes.

"Barbra Streisand," he repeated. "I love you."

And with great dramatic flair, he kissed her on the cheek.

"My name is Ted Rozar. Do you know who I am?"

She said she did. Orson Bean had already filled her in.

"Do you have a manager?" Rozar asked.