Barbra's "cameo" in Shaft

Barbra makes a "cameo" appearance in the 1971 movie Shaft. I use the word cameo loosely here.

If you look closely at the movie marquee for Loew's State you can see they are showing The Owl and The Pussycat (along with Love Story on the other screen). This was also the theater that played On A Clear Day. Further in the background you can see the Criterion theater showing Tora, Tora, Tora. A few years before they had an extended run of Funny Girl there.

In the screen capture above, Richard Roundtree had tried to hail a taxi (that's his back to us). The cab slows down then speeds up and picks up another fare a few feet away, similiar to what happens to Rose Morgan in Mirror has Two Faces. Of course, Shaft's reaction to this rejection is a little more verbal than Roses.

There's also some scenes along 42nd street and all the grind house movie theaters that lined the street back then. I checked the marquee's for Cycle Sluts but by this time that movie had run it's course in the theaters too!

This is one of my favorite articles of Barbra.

Maxine Mesinger was a well-known social columnist for the Houston Chronicle from 1965 to 2000. This article appear on July 29, 1981.

So brush up on your backgammon game, you'll never know when it's your turn!

Funny Girl legs

Great trade publication advertisement.

Don't believe what you read! Part 2

Well, at least they spelled her name correctly. That's the only thing accurate in this article. Nice picture though. From a short-lived magazine ironically called In the Know.

Photoplay 1969

I don't remember seeing this magazine cover published anywhere else before. It may have been, but there have been so many covers documented elsewhere that I really don't remember. I'm more inclined not to repeat the images here. If it gets to the point that I'm publishing old People magazine covers on this blog, then you know I've run out of things to show you.

In case you're wondering, the woman who's got Barbra on the run is her mother. It's a very short article with a picture of Barbra from the Funny Girl movie premiere.

A Star is Born filming locations Part 3

On location street scene from A Star is Born (on Sunset a few blocks East of Vine).

The Chevron gas station is now a parking lot. The palm trees in the background have grown a lot in the past thirtysome-odd years. The Gordon street sign looks like it might be the original from back then.

BTW, the KLAX interior shots preceding this scene were filmed on a set at the studio.

Filming the Tour 2006

A few sheets of the production schedule for filming of the Streisand Tour 2006.

Interesting details for those that want to know everything about the production. And let's face it, we all want to know more otherwise we wouldn't be here.

A subtitle to this post should be Barbra Encounters of the Third Kind No. __ & No. __ because I attended both concerts. (I can't find my master sheet of the exact numbers right now- I'll fill them in later). And better yet, I was paid to attend these two concerts! How, you may ask? Simple, I signed up to usher them.

I wrote an extensive article about my "inside" experience and Matt posted it on his website www.Barbra-archives.com back then. (BTW, he's got the best Barbra website out there-but you probably already know that). I may write a more detailed article about it later here. I had a close-up view of some of the hecklers. Oy!

Don't believe what you read! Part 1

The tabloid article that spawned a song. Don't believe it- No, No, No.

Sensational Contest!

Sensational indeed. Of course by the time this contest was held I had already bought the soundtrack, as any self-respecting Barbra fan would have.

While we're on the subject, I could never understand while they didn't release a second single after Evergreen ran it's course on the charts. Jack Jones got in on the act and recorded With One More Look at You. I could hear it played in the malls by March 1977. That would have been my choice of a follow-up release. Even I Believe in Love would have made a good single for the top 40 radio format.

KTFM was San Antonio's dominant Album Rock radio station back in the '70 and they even played With One More Look at You/Watch Closely Now/Evergreen directly off the soundtrack album a couple of times. I literally remember hearing it only twice on that station- and this wasn't the type of station to play Barbra's music to begin with. But the rock listeners were shocked when in February 1979 they switched overnight to an all-disco format! By June they were playing The Main Event/Fight.

But back to the contest. I want to win the album because. . . .I'm the biggest Barbra fan in the world!!! I'm sure everybody said that.

American Film Institute

A page from the 2004 annual report for the American Film Institute with coverage from the Meet the Fockers premiere.

Frank & Ernest

Comic strip circa 1984.

David Foster on Barbra

David Foster was interviewed on CBS Sunday Morning on November 8, 2009.

And of course no profile of his career is complete without some reference to Barbra.

While the audio and video of Somewhere was playing in the background, the host said: "The fighting can sometimes cause fireworks as when he produced The Broadway and Back to Broadway albums with Barbra Streisand."

Foster: "She is a control freak like I am. Yes we've had situations in the studio that were flared. But this is two perfectionists trying to achieve greatness."

Host: "The results- one of Foster's favorite songs."

Cher vs. Barbra

Another tabloid article.

I remember that night on TV. And I have a confession. . . . .I watched Cher! This was before I became a Barbra fan mind you. I remember Cher was generating a lot of publicity at that time- she was returning to television without Sonny.

I eventually got to see the special around 1980. I was visiting a friend in Dallas and we visited a mom and pop videotape rental store. I came across a bootleg video of the special and freaked out! Back then, if you missed a TV special the first time around- too bad. Some specials may have been repeated during the summer months then, but this one was clearly dated with the movie premiere.

It's a shame there has not been an official release on tape or DVD. Probably the business model doesn't support a release. They could at least release it on HULU or another website- that would keep costs down. There could also be a problem with clearances of the music rights. That seems to be the problem with a lot of old TV specials.

Not the best photo of Barbra- she looks like Cloris Leachman.

Canyon Ranch Spa

An interesting article about Barbra's stay at a spa. Haven't seen it reported anywhere else. Wonder if that lady still owns the leotards. Notice the caption under the photo- are they implying the photo was taken at the spa? Didn't they know Barbra fans would recognize it immediately from The Main Event?

By the way, the Canyon Ranch Spa in Tuscson still exists today: http://www.canyonranchtucson.com/

Way We Were filming locations - Part 3

Another shot from The Way Were Were.

I had trouble getting the exact angle. I'm not a photography expert, but I don't think I had the same camera lense either.

It's hard to tell, but the retaining wall with the brick detail on the left is still there. The building in the skyline is still there too (with less smog). It's called the Fontenoy building. The palm trees have grown some since the '70s. It doesn't appear this way in the new photo, but that road is VERY steep going downhill- I know, I walked up it. Again, I think it's a camera lense issue (one of those depth-of-field issues).

This photo was taken last Fall 2009.

Hello, Dolly! tours

The image above is from the 20th Century Fox studio lot sometime in 1970 I presume.

During my early years of collecting any and everything Barbra, I had a habit of cutting out any article or photo I found without necessarily documenting where I got it from. Now thirty years later I sometime only have a vague idea how I aquired an item.

I can tell you that this photo is from either Life or Look around 1970. Barbra was not on the cover. The cover story was about the movie industry. They had articles about the new Hollywood, the new ratings, etc. The caption for this photo probably had something to do with how big budget musicals were now losing money for the studios.

Apparently at one time, you could take a tour of 20th Century Fox- or at least what was left of it after they sold off most of it during the Cleopatra era. But imagine being able to tour the New York Street scene during it's prime! Not much of it is left. A few years ago, Robin and I drove up to the studio and got a quick glimpse of the street. You end up at a gate house located on the actual street. We just played dumb and asked if they have studio tours. The guard says they don't he- he let's you go past and make a u-turn to exit. For those brief seconds you've got a clear view of the parade street- again, what's left of it.

I thought I read somewhere that they were going to remove any remnants of the set and reveal the original studio buildings again. Anybody out in California know?

But the way, you may be wondering why the left hand side of the page is all ripped up. Well, the magazine was from my high school library and bound with some other issues in a book! And you see, well, um. . . .I just couldn't help myself! I mean, um, who's gonna miss it? Nobody will notice. What's the big deal, right?

Variety '77

Cover of the local newspaper TV magazine. It looks like it's promoting an entertainment special, but I simply don't remember. I'm sure that I would have watched it. And I don't remember any documentation in any magazine or book about it either. Anyone out there remember?

Star is Born soundtrack

Newspaper clipping from The New York Times (I think).

Looking back it seems unusual to me that they would still be advertising the soundtrack into the spring of '77. I remember buying the soundtrack before Thanksgiving '76- the Wednesday before. It was probably released that week Tuesday (my memory is fuzzy on the exact dates).

$5.59 seems like a good price, no? You can currently buy the soundtrack directly from Amazon for $6.99. If you bought the Evergreen 45 single it would have cost around .80 cents. Today the MP3 download is .99 cents. Adjusting for inflation, it sounds like a bargain now.

Johnny Bunns

The adventures of Johnny Bunns private eye.

Don't remember much about this strip. It had a running storyline apparently. I've got only two panels from the series. It's from '88 during her Don Johnson phase from a South Florida weekly.

On a Clear Day filming locations Part 2

Another shot from the title song.

Barbra's star

Another "gossipy" article during the A Star is Born era. This time dealing with her star on the Hollywood Boulevard.

I've been to Barbra's star of course. The next time I will have to look around and find Marion Martin's.

Barbra Encounters of the Third Kind No. 15

Philadelphia in 2006.

One confession, however. I did a little photoshopping with these photos. I was in the second row and all the photos had the back on somebody's head in them-with a flash. I couldn't very well tap on someone's shoulder in the first row and ask them if they would please move their head over.

But rest assured, no retouching was done to Barbra.

Free tickets!

Free tickets to The Main Event!

Frost Brothers was a department store in San Antonio. I had forgotten all about this newspaper ad and photo clipping until I pulled it out again. The first thing I thought to myself was why didn't I attend the premiere showing. I had been anticipating this movie every since the fall of '78 when I first heard about it. Granted I already had plans to attend a screening on the 22nd when it opened everywhere nationwide, so it wouldn't kill me to wait one more day.

Then I realized that in 1979 $15 was a lot of money for a teenager! Minimum wage was about $2.50 an hour and to net $15 would have taken probably 8 hours of labor. Plus never mind that you would have to make a special trip into San Antonio to buy some items at an overpriced department store then make another trip for the movie.

Now of course, if I had read the fine print under the photo I would have noticed I could receive complimentary Main Event stick-on patches. I've never seen Main Event stick-on patches, but if I had them I could now sell them on EBAY and probably make my $15 dollars back!

Don't bother going to Frost Brothers and asking if they have any left-over stickers. They've been out of business for about 20 years now.

Merry Christmas from Columbia records

13 tapes or records for $1.00- such a deal.

Of course by the time Christmas rolled around a true Streisand fan would have already purchased Songbird. But since I had just become a fan a couple of years before, I had a backlog of albums to collect. And every Christmas I would have a list from her catalogue for my parents. It would be obvious under the tree if a package contained albums, they would typically just be wrapped in paper- no box or anything. But you never knew which albums they were until you unwrapped them, so it was always a surprise.

Say what you want to about downloads and CD's, but there is nothing like unwrapping a BIG album and studying the artwork and liner notes. Another memory from a by-gone era.

Star is Born publicity

Digging through some of my collection over the holidays, I found a lot of "gossipy" articles surrounding A Star is Born. Most of them were short on details and long on insinuation. The above article is a typical example. I don't remember which magazine it come from (probably one of Rona Barrett's- it seemed every issue had some mention of Barbra in it). I didn't keep the whole magazine, Barbra wasn't on the cover so I didn't see any reason to keep the whole thing.

From personal observation, it seems that A Star is Born got the most "bad" publicity of any of her movies. Just goes to show you that "scandal" articles like the silly one above sells magazines. It got me to buy the magazine!