Streisand: Her Life (104 page)
Read Streisand: Her Life Online
Authors: James Spada
Tags: #Another Evening with Harry Stoones, #Bon Soir Club, #My Passion for Design, #Ted Rozar, #I Can Get it for You Wholesale and Streisand, #Marilyn and Alan Bergman, #Streisand Spada, #Mike Douglas and Streisand, #A Star is Born, #Stoney End, #George Segal and Streisand, #Marvin Hamlisch, #Dustin Hoffman and Streisand, #The Prince of Tides, #Barbara Joan Streisand, #Evergreen, #Bill Clinton Streisand, #Ray Stark, #Ryan O’Neal, #Barwood Films, #Diana Streisand Kind, #Sinatra and Streisand, #Streisand Her Life, #Omar Sharif and Streisand, #Roslyn Kind, #Nuts and Barbra Streisand, #Barbara Streisand, #Barbra Joan Streisand, #Barbra Streisand, #Fanny Brice and Steisand, #Streisand, #Richard Dreyfuss and Streisand, #Amy Irving, #MGM Grand, #Emanuel Streisand, #Brooklyn and Streisand, #Yentl, #Streisand Concert, #Miss Marmelstein, #Arthur Laurents, #Columbia Records, #Happening in Central Park, #Don Johnson and Streisand, #Marty Erlichman, #Judy Garland Streisand, #Jason Emanuel Gould, #by James Spada, #One Voice, #Barry Dennen, #James Brolin and Barbra, #Theater Studio of New York
The
Los Angeles Times
said that “about the only negative to report is that the movie has what’s described as numerous glamour shots of Streisand’s body parts filmed through what looks like a Vaseline-coated lens.” This prompted the film’s cinematographer, Stephen Goldblatt, to send his own letter of protest. “Your spies must be myopic,” he wrote, “because there are no such shots in the movie and we have never had to use a ‘Vaselined’ lens to photograph Streisand. She is fortunate enough not to need that kind of help.”
T
HE PRINCE OF TIDES
premiered in rain-soaked New York on December 9. Back in Los Angeles, Streisand heard the resoundingly positive news: her labor of love was an audience-pleasing triumph. According to Liz Smith, “Not a single person I spoke to after this premiere had anything but raves for the Ni
ck Nolte
-Streisand film... [and] nothing could dampen the evening’s ‘high’ over the romance of
The Prince of Tides
.
It’s too bad Streisand wasn’t on hand to enjoy her triumph.”
Escorted by Jon Peters, Barbra did attend a gala Los Angeles premiere on December 11, and no one in the wildly enthusiastic crowd complained about the length of her nails, the shots of her legs, or mist-covered camera lenses. After the disappointment of
Nuts
and the esoteric quality of
Yentl
,
the consensus was that
The Prince of Tides
had the potential to be the biggest Streisand film since
A Star Is Born
.
When the film went into wide release on December 25, audiences and the majority of critics around the country embraced it with huge box office, rave reviews, and gold-plated Oscar predictions.
Most reviews praised the film’s extraordinarily strong performances, especially Nolte’s best-of-career turn, and Barbra’s sure-handed, fluid direction. The film grossed $90 million domestically to make it Barbra’s second most successful film after
A Star Is Born
.
Since Hollywood loves nothing so much as a winner, it appeared that Streisand finally was on her way to a Best Director Oscar nomination. Many fearless Hollywood insiders went further than that. Ray Stark, for one, felt Barbra would probably win the award.
Things started out well. In January Barbra became only the third woman nominated as Best Director by the prestigious Directors Guild of America when she was cited along with Jonathan Demme for
The Silence of the Lambs
,
Barry Levinson for
Bugsy
,
Ridley Scott for
Thelma and Louise
,
and Oliver Stone for
JFK. Daily Variety
felt that Barbra’s DGA nomination “now gives her a strong likelihood of becoming the first American woman ever nominated for a directing Oscar.”
Liz Smith, who felt Barbra deserved to win the Academy Award, wondered: “Will [Barbra Streisand] win the Oscar for directing
The Prince of Tides
, which most people seem to feel is an amazing and wonderful movie of great quality, brilliantly directed?... The answer seems to come back: ‘No, no, a thousands times no!’ Comment: ‘Hollywood won’t give Barbra another Oscar. They hate her. The movie community thinks she is selfish and impossible.
’”
On February 19 the Motion Picture Academy honored
The Prince of Tides
with seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actress (Kate Nelligan). Barbra’s name was not among the directing nominees; in addition to the men cited by the DGA, the Academy instead nominated John Singleton for
Boyz in the Hood
,
not a Best Picture nominee.
The National Organization for Women protested Barbra’s snub, calling it “an obvious exhibition of sexism.” From London, where she had attended the royal premiere of the film and met Princess Diana, Barbra told the press that she was “thrilled” by the seven nominations but
“dis
appointed” to be overlooked among the Best Director nominees. “I can’t blame anybody,” she added. “Blame keeps you a victim and I’m not a victim.”
O
N FEBRUARY 22
Saturday Night Live
featured a hilarious “Coffee Talk” segment starring Mike Myers in drag as the obsessed Streisand fan and cable talk-show hostess Linda Richman, guest star Roseanne, and an uncredited Madonna. As usual on the skit, Barbra was deified in delightful fashion: her legs were “like buttah,” Linda Richman proclaimed.
The Prince of Tides
was “like buttah,” too. Everything about Streisand was “like buttah.”
“Wait,” Myers-as-Linda said, choking with emotion about how “like buttah” Barbra was, “I’m getting a little
farklempt
.
I need a moment. Talk amongst yourselves.... I’ve got
shpilkes
in my
gmecktegezoink
.” Then, to the genuine astonishment of everyone, including Myers, Roseanne, and Madonna, Barbra strode out in a black outfit and an oversized black hat and proclaimed, “All this talk about food is making me hungry, girls.” Roseanne fell out of her chair and the audience cheered and stomped as Barbra swept off stage left. Even Streisand’s sharpest critics thought it was the hippest thing she had done in years.
I
N MARCH BARBRA
appeared at a Directors Guild symposium, “Meet the Nominees: A Forum on the Art of Filmmaking,” along with Oliver Stone and Barry Levinson. She arrived at the event escorted by Stone, but onstage he and Levinson subjected Streisand to a rude example of old-boyism at its worst.
Throughout the evening the two men looked to each other for help in explaining a concept or giving an example, but they never looked to Streisand. Several times Stone leaned in front of Barbra to ask Levinson a question, as though she weren’t even there.
When an audience member asked Barbra to talk about the writing of her film’s script, she said that getting it right was so difficult she had moved the scenarist Becky Johnston into her house for months. Then another question came Streisand’s way: “What about the score,” Barbra started to reply that it had been written by James Newton Howard, but she was interrupted by Stone.
“And what about him,” Stone sniggered. “Did you move
him
into your house too?”
“Shut up, you son of a bitch,” Barbra shot back as the audience tittered nervously.
N
ICK NOLTE WON
the Golden Globe award as Best Actor in a Drama, and he was considered a near shoo-in for the Oscar. All five
Los Angeles Times
film critics polled for the newspaper’s Oscar predictions issue chose Nolte to win the award. But in a sweep of all five top awards by
The Silence of the Lambs
, Anthony Hopkins was chosen as Best Actor for his powerful performance as the cannibalistic killer Hannibal Lecter.
The Prince of Tides
won no Oscars.
P
ERHAPS THE MOST
gratifying legacy of
The Prince of Tides
for Barbra was her newfound closeness with her son, who had given a natural, believable performance as Bernard Woodruff. By the end of the filming, Jason would look at his mother in an entirely new light. “The nice thing about the experience is not only did I gain confidence and grow as an actor,” he said, “but my relationship with my mother grew too—it wen
t beyond the
trust we have as a mother and son to that of actor and director.”