Streisand: Her Life (89 page)

T
HE COSTUME DESIGNER
Albert Wolsky was faced with the challenge of creating Cheryl’s tacky wardrobe. “Cheryl’s a woman with strawberry blond hair that’s always too done, fingernails that are always a little too brightly polished, clothes that are always a little too tight, a little too young,” he said. “Whether draped in a lavender pantsuit, a peach-colored sweater and slacks, or an all-black funeral ensemble with peekaboo detail work, the look was tacky, tempting and titillating. It was also cheap. The clothes are not expensive, but Barbra doesn’t care about that. If she loves it, she doesn’t care if it costs two dollars or two thousand.”

Streisand’s fame got in the way of her preparation as an actress when she went to a country-western bar in the San Fernando Valley in an attempt to better understand Cheryl. “I put on a blond wig and ridiculous clothes and many jewels and all this, you know? And as soon as I walked in the door I heard someone say, ‘Oh, hi, Barbra!’ I thought, I don’t believe this! Now they think I have this lousy taste!”

A
FTER A THREE-WEEK
shutdown to prepare for Barbra’s assumption of the role,
All Night Long
resumed shooting in South Pasadena amid a barrage of press coverage. With Streisand on board, everyone concerned felt the modest picture’s streak of bad luck was finally over.
All Night Long
would certainly be a blockbuster.

“I was dreading working with her because I’d heard stories,” Dennis Quaid admitted. His fears evaporated almost immediately after Barbra’s arrival on the set. “I was really surprised, because she was helpful on the set. She has definite ideas and works very hard. If you can’t keep up with her, that’s your problem.” Years later Quaid, who became a very big star, was still enthralled with his brief acting encounter with Streisand. “She was wonderful. She’s very generous and she’s real smart. She actually does have this glow about her. A beautiful woman. She’s something else.”

Streisand came to work every morning in her studio-rented limousine until, in a clever ploy to make even more money, she decided to use her own Bentley instead. According to Robert Brown, “Her contract called for us to rent a limousine to bring her to work and to take her home. And she asked me one day if I could rent the Bentley from her instead of [using] the limousine, and I said yeah, I’d be happy to. Might as well give the money to her. We paid her the exact same thing we’d paid the limo service.” Typically, a short time later, Barbra changed her mind. “She asked us
not
to do that after she’d ridden in it a couple of times,” Brown continued, “because in the limousine she could stretch out, and she could have her secretary with her so they could conduct business. In the Bentley she really didn’t have the room.”

O
NE OF BARBRA’S
funniest scenes in
All Night Long
has Cheryl at the piano, composing a “country-Hawaiian” ditty entitled “Carelessly Tossed.” Robert Brown remembered that for the scene “her husband in the movie was supposed to get very exasperated with her and tell her to quit fooling around and get the housework done. But when we started to film that scene, she opened her mouth and this incredible voice came out. And everybody on the set just stood there with their mouths open listening to this. Then she stopped because she was supposed to be singing
badly
.
She really had to concentrate to sing badly. But it was astounding being in the room with her, and hearing her voice come out. Of course, I’d heard it on recordings many, many times, but being right there with her was a memorable experience.”

Brown observed no temperament from Streisand. “She treated Tramont with respect. I thought perhaps she might start trying to direct herself, but she didn’t. She did have some suggestions at times. Some he followed, some he didn’t.” Barbra’s only “demand” during filming had to do with her Ashram-reduced figure. “There was one shot that was particularly a request of Barbra’s,” Brown continued. “She was very proud that she’d lost all this weight. And in the story, there’s a shot of her going up the stairs from below. She definitely wanted that because she thought it really showed off all the weight she’d lost.”

On July 20, just four days before
All Night Long
was scheduled to complete production, a long-threatened actors’ strike began. “Conspicuously hard hit by the strike is Universal’s Barbra Streisand starrer,”
Daily Variety
reported. Barbra re
turned
to her work on
Yentl
and waited out a resolution of the labor dispute.
All Night Long’s
bad luck had returned.

W
HILE STREISAND THE
actress sat at home on strike, Streisand the singer had a new album in release that would become the biggest seller of her career. She had been looking for a new producer, someone who could bring a distinct style and cohesion to a collection of songs. She thought of the Bee Gees—Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb—whose bouncy pop sound had produced six number one singles in a row and propelled the 1977 sound track of
Saturday Night Fever
to sales of eleven million copies. “I really think their music is wonderful,” Barbra said.

In July of 1979 Barbra and Jon had attended a Bee Gees concert at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Sixty thousand people filled the seats, and Barbra said to Jon as they came in, “Can you imagine filling up this many seats? Sixty thousand people would never come to see me.” As she sat down, Barbra recalled, “the audience spotted me and started to applaud. And it was like I was in shock. I couldn’t believe they would respond to me in that way. It was really thrilling.”

The thought of working with Barbra made Barry Gibb wary. “I was very nervous at first,” he admitted. “We all had heard the stories about how tough she is, and she is this
enormous
star. That’s got to intimidate anyone. I didn’t want to do it at first, but my wife told me to do it or she’d divorce me.” Still unsure, Gibb called Neil Diamond to find out what it was like to work with Streisand. “He had nothing but glowing reports, so I felt a little less scared.”

Charles Koppelman, working on his fourth straight project for Barbra, sent Barry, the handsome, wavy-haired main composer and lead singer of the group, five songs Barbra wanted to do as one side of the new record. “My brother Robin and I didn’t think any of them had the little extra bit that it takes to make a hit,” Barry said. “We told her [associates] that, and they asked
us
to write five songs.” Two weeks later Barry played the new tunes for Barbra at the Malibu ranch. “She loved them,” he recalled. “It was as easy as that. We hit it off straight away and Barbra asked us to write the other side of the record, too.”

Then matters became a little touchy. In addition to Barry’s producing fee, the group’s manager, the high-powered Robert Stigwood, demanded three-quarters of the performance royalties for the brothers, on the theory that they were three voices and Barbra was only one. “But they all sound alike!” Barbra reportedly retorted. “How much for just one.” A compromise brought the Bee Gees a 50 percent cut of the royalties.

With finances out of the way, “creative differences” arose and almost killed the collaboration. “This project could have been a disaster,” Koppelman said. “You’re dealing with a lot of egos here.... I’m sure Barry was apprehensive at some point that Barbra wouldn’t like the music or that she’d want her vocals too far out and the tracks too far back. I’m sure Barbra at certain times was concerned that she didn’t want a Bee Gee-esque album.”

“She knew what she wanted,” Barry recalled, “and I knew what I wanted. We treaded on eggs until we actually got to know one another.” Gibb said he came “this far away” from quitting, but all went smoothly after he called a summit conference with Barbra “to work out any differences and come to a mutually acceptable working arrangement. There was never any animosity.” Once Barry had earned Barbra’s complete trust, she said to him, “Just call me when you’re ready for me to sing.”

Guilty
—named after a song written at the last minute to replace one Barbra didn’t think worked—was released in September
1980
. By then the first single, “Woman in Love,” had hit number one, and
Guilty
reached that pinnacle on the album charts as well. With two more singles climbing into the Top 10, the album sold over 10 million copies worldwide and reached number one in twelve countries. It has remained Barbra’s most successful album and a state-of-the-art example of 1980s pop.

Clearly Barbra Streisand and the Bee Gees were a match made in heaven. Writing for Streisand had pushed the Gibbs beyond their lightweight pop sensibilities; for this album they produced complex melodies and even more complex—some would say obscure—lyrics. More importantly, the singular Bee Gees sound had brought to the tracks just the cohesion that Barbra had hoped for.

The critics were largely ecstatic. Stephen Holden wrote in
The New York Times
that
Guilty
“proves to be a sensational blending of talents, since the pair fill in each other’s weaknesses while reinforcing their strengths.... With less importance placed on rhythm, Mr. Gibb concentrates even more on melody, his strongest forte, and serves up an ice cream sundae of pretty tunes.... Even the angrier love songs have a celestial sweep. For in Miss Streisand’s voice the concepts of love, glamour, and stardom are virtually inseparable.... As a pop confection celebrating the giddiest extremes of the star ethos,
Guilty
is just about perfect.”