Barbra

Barbara Joan (Barbra) Streisand was born April 24, 1942 in Brooklyn, New York City, to Diana Ida (née Rosaen; 1908–2002) and Emanuel Streisand (1908–1943). Her mother had been a soprano in her youth and considered a career in music, but later became a school secretary.  Her father was a high school teacher at the same school, where they first met.  Streisand's family is Jewish.

In August 1943, a few months after Streisand's first birthday, her father died at age 34 from complications from an epileptic seizure, possibly the result of a head injury years earlier.  The family fell into near poverty, with her mother working as a low-paid bookkeeper. 

As an adult, Streisand remembered those early years as always feeling like an "outcast", explaining, "Everybody else's father came home from work at the end of the day. Mine didn't."  

Her mother tried to pay their bills but could not give her daughter the attention she craved: "When I wanted love from my mother, she gave me food," Streisand says.

In September 1960 Streisand auditioned as a singer at the Bon Soir nightclub in Manhattan, after which she was signed up at $125 ($1,368 today) a week. It became her first professional engagement, where she was the opening act for comedian Phyllis Diller. 

She recalls it was the first time she had been in that kind of upscale environment: "I'd never been in a nightclub until I sang in one."

Streisand opened on Broadway on March 26, 1964 with an acclaimed performance as entertainer Fanny Brice in Funny Girl at the Winter Garden Theatre. The show introduced two of her signature songs, "People" and "Don't Rain on My Parade".

Eight months later I almost had a chance to see Barbra at the Winter Garden, but didn't.  If I had played my cards right, I think I would have.

I was dating, off and on, another Jewish girl from Brooklyn.  I called for a date, but she couldn't because she was going home that weekend (from Penn).  

I hatched a plan.  I would go to New York as well, but to see the Penn-Columbia football game.  I would call her after the game to say hello.  I did and she invited me to have dinner with her and her parents at Barbetta's.  She said if she knew I would be in New York I could have joined them at the Winter Garden to see Barbra.  

When I called for the date, I should have invited her to the football game.  Even if she couldn't go, she would have known I would be in New York and I would have had my evening with Barbra.  I'm smarter today than I was in 1964 at age 19.