I've lost count on how many "don't believe what you read" posts I've published so I'm gonna continue from Part 20.
I don't remember if she actually promoted A Star is Born in Europe, Australia, and Japan but I certainly know there was no concert tour during this period.
What's interesting is the movies she apparently was considering. Barbra as a clown in a circus? I don't think so. Barbra as a murderer going to the electric chair? Interesting, but unlikely. Barbra is no Susan Hayward. Can't see her remaking I Want to Live.
I'm happy with the choice Jon and Barbra eventually made- The Main Event!
Hi!
ReplyDeleteHope you can help me with a Barbra-related issue I've been puzzling over since hearing/seeing it on YOUTUBE recently.
I was watching Barb's ONE NIGHT ONLY vids and came across her intro to the song Evergreen, at which time Barb said something that utterly confused me: she said she wrote the MUSIC to the song Evergreen. And yet, if you go back, even to her Timeless concert (Dec 31, 1999) she said, and I quote: "Songwriting not being my day job, you can imagine what a thrill it was for me to have the opportunity to write (not Co-write but WRITE~brackets, mine) a song, that you might have heard."
Then, going back to the Sun Devil Stadium in Phoenix, Arizona, 1976, Barbra said, "I'd like to sing you a song I wrote myself...."
This claim has been made often, enough, since then, to catch on with others. If you go to youtube and key in DONNA there is a clip with Andrea Martin and Catherine O'Hara, from SCTV, where Andrea parodies Barbra from an interview about the movie 'A Star is Born'. Then, another Barbra fan (wish I had the link!) wrote or quoted,
"She is the first female composer to win an Oscar for her song, Evergreen, (Love Theme from 'A Star is Born' ). In 1997, she was nominated again. This time, as CO-composer of the song 'I finally found someone, from the film, "The Mirror has Two Faces".
There is another YOUTUBE post about the MAKING of a Star is born, where Barbra contends that she wrote the song (Evergreen) out of impatience.
My point, and I do have one, is: WHY did Barbra go from making the claim of SOLE authorship of the song, to saying she only wrote the music? I know what the OFFICIAL credit says, but whoever the supposed collaborator was didn't have the hutzpah to stand his/her ground and Barbra wanted the whole song so...she took it. For Barb, it wasn't about money.
IF ANYONE has any BACKGROUND on what I call the "EVERGREEN DILEMMA", I would be so grateful. Oh, and if you need proof links for those pages I mentioned, I can provide them.
THANKS!
I remember one of the Streisand bios from the early '80s made that claim. I think they even said Rupert Holmes "co-wrote" it. I remember Holmes denying the claims made in the book publicly after it's release.
ReplyDeleteHi Hart!
ReplyDeleteI read that, too. I believe the Bio was called, "Streisand; the woman, the myth and the Music" by Shaun Considine.
Thing is, though, if you take ALL her albums, to the present, add up all the songs that she wrote or co-wrote, in that total span, Barb's sum songwriting efforts would constitute MAYBE ten per cent of the total. She has yet to write an ALBUM and yet she calls herself a songwriter.
What BUGS me, though, and has bugged me for thirty years, is that the SUPPOSED lyricist of the song (and I mean SUPPOSED), did not put up any kind of 'fight' when Barb declared the song as hers, period, wherever she went. If I were this guy, or had his rep, resources and proof, I would go on EVERY talk show I could think of and SHAME her until she stopped.
Irony number two is that this SUPPOSED lyricist played a villainous music producer, who swindles a songwriter, who DOES fight back. I'm thinking, If an ACTOR, playing a songwriter has the chutzpa to stand up for music that isn't his, how come someone, who CLAIMS to be a songwriter in real life, DOESN'T stand up for what's his?!
What I wouldn't give to set one of those two down and set the record straight on this issue, once and for all! Or both .....nah, he'd spend most of his time hiding under a desk!