Barbra Streisand



Harper's Bazaar October 2015

I guess that every little girl wanted to be Barbra Streisand back in the day. Donna Karan did. It says so in this article that she idolized her and tried to copy her look when she was a teenager. Look where she is now ... at the hand of the great.

Growing up, I didn't want to look like Barbra. I was too young when I was introduced to her to want to look like a grown woman. But oh how I wanted to be able to sing like her. My father was a great one to play records of great women singers. His taste usually leaned toward the jazz singers like Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Diana Shuur, but he had a Streisand record in his collection. And it soon became my favorite.

"Funny Girl" was released in 1968, which made me 6 years old when my grandmother took me and my siblings to see it in the movie theatre. We never went to the movie theatre, so it was quite a treat; even though, it was not a movie that you would think to take four children under the age 9 to go see. But on that Saturday afternoon in Evergreen Park, I was given one of the best musical gifts of my life: Barbra. That movie blew my socks off. I may not have understood everything that was going on in the movie or with a grandmother who didn't have anyone but the four of us to see it with, but it melted in to me. I clearly remember going home and putting the Barbra record on the player to sing with her. I swore that I sounded just like her. I didn't, of course. But I felt it. And I've loved her ever since.

Maybe I should give Donna a call and invite her and her friend over. I have the record player! Wouldn't that be something.