Hello, Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisa Part 42

With such an oversized star, it was vitally important that Barbra's leading man have enough charisma and stage presence to hold his own. That month, a decision was finally made. After some prolonged consideration of Tommy Leonetti, the American pop singer who'd made it big in Australia, Stark and Merrick had settled on Sydney Chaplin, the flamboyantly handsome actor who'd won a Tony for Bells Are Ringing and starred in Merrick's Subways Are for Sleeping.

Clearly the producers had gone with charisma-so important to staying visible beside a performer like Barbra-over acting ability. "Sydney was a man of inordinate charm," said his best friend, Orson Bean, "and very limited abilities as an actor. He was so funny at parties that directors would always say that if they could only bring out those qualities on stage, he could be a great star." But they never seemed to make that happen. Bean believed that Sydney's Tony had come because his leading lady, Judy Holliday, had been such a fine actress that, by looking at Sydney "with such great love in her eyes," she had convinced everybody he was brilliant. All of Sydney's leading ladies, Bean said, fell head over heels in love with him.

In some ways, he was perfect casting for the charming, lady-killing con man Nick Arnstein. Right from the start, Barbra adored him. Any man who could make her laugh won points right away. And she sensed some vulnerability in Sydney as well, which was just as important. She knew that, despite his Broadway success, Sydney still lived in the shadow of his father, Charlie Chaplin. Rare was the interview that the younger Chaplin wasn't asked about the elder. The pressure to prove himself sometimes made Sydney anxious: At his audition for Bells Are Ringing, he liked to joke that he had "sounded like Minnie Mouse" when he attempted to sing "On the Street Where You Live." Such stories had a way of connecting with Barbra, who, though she adored "maleness," also preferred a little vulnerability in men, a more "sensitive, feminine side." Sydney Chaplin seemed to fit the bill on all counts.

And he seemed as drawn to Barbra as she was to him. Chaplin's first meetings with his leading lady had left him convinced that she "didn't find herself attractive and was compensating with this enormous drive to succeed." Sitting beside her as they read through the script, listening to her impa.s.sioned ideas, Chaplin found "those qualities ... rather attractive." One friend saw the way Sydney looked at Barbra, as if she were this "rare exotic flower"-and Sydney, his friend knew, "loved collecting exotic things."

Sydney was married to the ballerina Noelle Adam, and they had a three-year-old son, Stephan. But marriage hadn't necessarily tamed his roving eye in the past. Dorothy Kilgallen had reported that during Subways, David Merrick had been forced to write a letter to Actors' Equity protesting his star's "misbehaving," although Equity claimed no knowledge of it. Sydney's friend suspected the misbehavior may have had something to do with "chasing women and not concentrating on his role." Yet whatever the issue may have been, Merrick hadn't been opposed to hiring Sydney again.

At the moment, Sydney's wife and child were in New York. But soon they'd be returning to Paris, which they called home and where Sydney owned a restaurant, Chez Moustache, the fashionable place to be seen when in the French capital. Now that he was cast in Funny Girl, however, Sydney expected to be away from his business for long stretches of time-and away from his wife, too. Once Noelle and his little boy headed back across the pond, Sydney realized that both he and Barbra would find themselves spouseless just as rehearsals got underway.

5.

Under blue skies and palm trees, Elliott drove his rental car along Sunset Boulevard, hurrying to yet another meeting with some Hollywood honcho. By now, he knew how it would go. There would be backslapping and bear hugs, and lots of promises would be made. But so far, nothing had come from any of his meetings. Four months after the closing of On the Town, Elliott still had no job offers.

Except one, if Walter Winch.e.l.l was to be believed.

Elliott was considering taking a "bit role" in Funny Girl.

Whether Winch.e.l.l's legmen were wrong on that one or whether Barbra had prevailed upon Ray Stark to offer her husband a role in the show no one was quite sure. Whether the role was offered and Elliott refused, or whether he offered and they refused-no one was sure about that either. And if it was just a rumor, no one knew how hearing it must have made Elliott feel, as he drove along those wide boulevards of the movie capital, looking up at billboards for the latest films about to be released and wondering if his name would ever be up there.

In fact, no one knew much about what was going on that fall for Elliott Gould. "Everybody knows Barbra Streisand, star of stage, nightclubs and concerts," wrote columnist Barney Glazer, "but few have heard about her husband, Elliott Gould. At one time, the reverse was true. Gould was the singing-dancing-acting star of the Broadway musical I Can Get It for You Wholesale. Barbra was his supporting comedienne." Not a few gossips began comparing Elliott's story to that of Norman Maine in A Star Is Born, the actor who is eclipsed in fame by his wife.

Elliott insisted it was "no big thing" for him that "reporters were constantly around, asking [Barbra] questions." What were they going to ask him-how he did in his "three-man basketball games"? He didn't want to be asked anything about himself, he said. The problem arose when he and Barbra were out in public together, which, thankfully, was "seldom." But when Elliott did accompany Barbra to shows or restaurants, it was "devastating" for him. Reporters, cameramen, and fans paid no attention to him. And yet Elliott felt an obligation to attend with his wife-"no matter who the f.u.c.k people thought I was, Prince Philip or Mr. Streisand or whatever." It was the "consistent discouragement" that put him in the doldrums, he said, and consequently, there was more pot and more gambling. He was trying his "d.a.m.nedest not to take seriously" the fact that Barbra had become "an enormous celebrity" and he had not. But the depression only got worse, increasing his dependence on a.n.a.lysis-and marijuana.

That fall, a rumor had sprung up that Barbra was pregnant, or "babying," as Walter Winch.e.l.l put it. Few knew how unlikely that was given how little time she and Elliott had spent together. It was theoretically possible-there'd been the interval at the Beverly Hills Hotel, after all-so Barbra had called Winch.e.l.l to put a stop to the story. "I get worried about such false reports," she said, in typical Streisand fashion. "Maybe they know something I don't."

Barney Glazer tried to put a positive spin on the Goulds' marital situation. "The public throws brickbats at celebrities when they change mates frequently on their mad merry-go-round," he wrote in his column. "Barbra and Elliott present another side of the picture and deserve praise for staying together while apart. Two traveling careers in one family never was the proper mixture to cement a marital foundation."

That was true. No surprise, then, that after his latest Hollywood meeting went nowhere, Elliott decided to throw in the towel and return to New York. Maybe there was still time to take that Italian honeymoon before Barbra got too wrapped up in rehearsals and started spending all her time with the Funny Girl company-a company that now included, as Elliott was surely aware, the very handsome, very debonair Sydney Chaplin.

6.

Barbra was taking advantage of the sunny, unseasonably warm November afternoon, with temperatures in the mid-sixties, to indulge herself a bit, wandering among the city's antique shops. She still had an apartment to furnish, and in just a matter of days she'd be off on the road again. It was her final tour before settling into Funny Girl. And, as she'd admit to friends, it was a tour that she felt vaguely anxious about. These were all big-venue gigs, she explained, designed to establish her as a concert artist in league with Sinatra. Yet the sheer size of the audiences she was to face left Barbra nervous as she remembered her unexpected stage fright at the Hollywood Bowl.

That evening, she was planning to meet Peter Daniels at the St. Regis Hotel on Fifty-fifth Street to rehea.r.s.e some of the material they'd be performing at the Arie Crown Theater in Chicago, the first stop on the tour. But for now, Barbra had a little time, and she spent it doing what she loved to do, inspecting vintage scarves and boots and knickknacks, even if these days she had to wear oversized sungla.s.ses to keep from being recognized when she did so.

She was getting used to this part of fame, but that didn't mean she liked it. When people came up to her and asked her for an autograph, she felt frightened. Who could feel easy about a stranger coming up and demanding something from you, even if the stranger was telling you he loved you? That in itself could be a little unnerving.

The increased notoriety was a byproduct of the publicity machine, which continued to grind on Barbra's behalf that fall. Her wardrobe, once dismissed as kooky, was now being sold as "fashion," and given the number of fans who showed up at concerts dressed in their own thrift-shop wear or in self-designed, iconoclastic outfits, Barbra's style was indeed having an impact. Gay Pauley, women's editor for United Press International, met Barbra at a benefit showing of fashions by Pauline Trigere and Maurice Rentner at the Hilton Hotel, and commented that her style was the same as "the younger-looking buyers." Pauley particularly homed in on Barbra's brown crocodile boots that reached to just below the knee, as well as her fur coat and hat. When Pauley asked what kind of fur it was, Barbra replied, "Why should I tell you when everyone thinks it's sable?" Whatever it was, Pauley liked it, and she ended up p.r.o.nouncing, "Boots are in. Curly hair is out. The fur hat is in"-which described Barbra's look that day to a T. Pauley's widely syndicated piece was a far cry from previous coverage that had used Barbra's fashion choices as punch lines.

That came as a great relief to Barbra, who was growing seriously weary of the kook narrative. "A kook is a person who puts on things that aren't real," she insisted to an a.s.sociated Press reporter, who went on to headline his piece YOUNG SINGER CONFIDENT OF ABILITIES BUT MAINTAINS SHE IS NOT A KOOK. Whenever a factual inaccuracy popped up in her press, making her appear "too out there" in her words, Barbra took great umbrage-no matter all those stories about Madagascar in her program bios. But what she mostly objected to were stories that claimed she was an "overnight success." How could anyone consider "overnight" three years of traipsing around the continent singing in nightclubs and resorts, often to obnoxious drunks? Those who'd been traipsing for considerably longer than three years, that was who.

Still it had taken a lot of time and effort to get where she was, and Barbra insisted on telling her origin story the way she wanted it told. For all her annoyance at reporters who got facts wrong, she herself was invariably free and loose with details. "Anyway, here I was in an old long black dress," she said in one interview, describing her Bon Soir debut. "I decided the first song I'd do was one I'd never done before. It was 'Keepin' Out of Mischief Now,' by Fats Waller, and the club pianist had never even played it before. When we were getting ready to begin, I'd keep saying, 'What's the first note? Where do I come in?' Things like that. They loved me, I don't know why."

Of course, that wasn't the way it happened at all. She and Barry had worked the song out in painstaking detail weeks ahead of time, and then she'd rehea.r.s.ed it with Peter Daniels-the very club pianist she claimed had never played it before. A similar misremembering of facts occurred when she related the origins of "Happy Days Are Here Again." Barbra had come to feel that she'd been the one to slow it down. She said she could hear "the changes of the chords" and thought "maybe it would sound nice slow." Of course, the idea had been Ken Welch's, and Peter Daniels had been the one to suggest it as a regular number in her act.

At least for "Big Bad Wolf," Barbra did give credit where it was due. That song was "Barry's suggestion," she told Rogue, describing "Barry" as one of her "arrangers." To Pageant, she provided a little more background: "I knew a guy who had a big collection of old 78 rpm records." Of course, there was so much more behind the words "I knew a guy," but Barbra, understandably, wasn't about to get into all of that.

If Barbra was casually rewriting her origins, Marty, always there behind the scenes, was much more conscious of carving her stone tablets. To Pageant, Barbra's indefatigable manager articulated the position he had been advancing since day one. "Barbra's stardom was not artificially created," he told the magazine, "but had to happen." He spoke of "well-meaning advisers" who were constantly advising her to change her nose or her act. "But Barbra and I merely stood our ground and waited for her talent to speak for itself."

Her talent had, of course, spoken for itself loudly and successfully-but Marty's statement left out the considerable backstory that had been orchestrated so brilliantly by himself and others: the first annual "f.a.n.n.y Brice Award," the marketing of the kook, the birthday party at the Lichee Tree, the well-placed items in Earl Wilson's columns, the well-timed letters about Barbra in TV Mailbags. His goal was to render invisible all the backstage deals, all the negotiations with club managers, all the schmoozing of Columbia execs at the Ho-Ho lounge, all the hundreds of press releases that flew out of mimeograph machines every time Barbra appeared on television. But that, of course, was what a good manager should do.

And now Barbra was so famous she had to wear sungla.s.ses as she browsed through antique shops and so rich she could afford anything she liked.

It was a brooch that caught her eye this day. She carried it to the front desk. As she finished paying for it, the radio behind the counter crackled with a breaking news story. Barbra wasn't sure she heard it correctly.

She listened again.

President Kennedy had been a.s.sa.s.sinated in Dallas.

"A hoax," Barbra thought, remembering Orson Welles's 1938 radio broadcast of a Martian invasion. She staggered outside and told her driver to take her home. Heading back uptown, Barbra spotted Elliott inside a taxi on his way to a singing lesson. They both jumped out into the street and embraced each other in the middle of traffic. How could the president be dead? She was supposed to sing for him again in just a couple of weeks!

That night, rehearsing with Peter Daniels, Barbra broke down when she tried to sing "Happy Days Are Here Again," the song Kennedy had loved so much.

Living in the public eye just got more precarious, more dangerous, and more untenable.

7.

"Controlled hysteria." That was how Ralph Gleason, the columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, described backstage at the San Jose Civic Auditorium on the night of December 4, as Barbra and her musicians and engineers prepared for her concert that night. Wisecracking stage manager Jerry Frank was rehearsing the lighting crew, who stood in a semicircle around him. "At the end of 'Quiet Time,'" Frank said, "she holds the note longer than the Bank of America." He told the guys to hold the spot on Barbra until she was finished. Then it was "Cue orchestra, then out!" Looking down the list of songs, the stage manager added, "At 'Down with Love,' you go up, hold it a minute, then out!" Their instructions in place, the crew scurried off to their places.

Outside, the fans were lining up, waiting for the three-thousand-seat arena to open its doors. Gleason stood in the shadows watching it all, taking notes as he spoke with Marty Erlichman. "It takes her a year to work into a song," Marty told the reporter. "That song, 'Quiet Time,' is the first time she's done it in public. She's had it for a year and taped it and listened to it and changed it around. That's why there's no arrangement. She has to work it out like that until she's satisfied. Then there'll be an arrangement."

"Spotlight out, out!" Frank yelled into his phone.

"She got 'Happy Days' from The Garry Moore Show," Marty continued, as Gleason scribbled copious notes. "She was supposed to go on and do a quick bit ... and when the piano player started it, ta ta ta, da da do do, she said, 'I don't sing songs like that, can we try it as a ballad?' Everybody thought it wouldn't work, but she sang it as a ballad and Joe Hamilton, the director, ran up and said, 'Keep it in, keep it in!'"

Gleason took down the legend just as Erlichman described it, even if it wasn't the way it had happened at all.

Conductor Jerry Gray pa.s.sed them, heading out into the audience to check on how the music sounded from far away. Peter Daniels was up on the stage, warming up the orchestra for him.

Suddenly Gleason realized that Barbra had inched up behind Marty in her white midshipman's outfit. "How many people outside?" she whispered.