Streisand: Her Life (106 page)

I will never forgive my fellow actor Ronald Reagan for the genocidal denial of the illness’s existence; for his refusal to even utter the word “AIDS” for seven years, and for his blocking funding for research and education which could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.... When Pat Buchanan thundered [at the 1992 Republican convention], “We stand with George Bush against the amoral idea that gay and lesbian couples should have the same standing in law as married men and women,” I wondered: Who is Pat Buchanan to pronounce anybody’s love invalid? How can he deny the profound love felt by one human being for another, a love that all too often takes them to the bitter end, holding each other in hospices and hospitals all over this nation?

I feel that we are now entering a time of healing. We are grateful that our new president is committed to life.... But lest we be lulled into a false sense of security, the struggle goes on: just look at the vote for hate in Colorado where voters rescinded any protection for gays in employment or housing. There are plenty of us who love the mountains and rivers of that truly beautiful state, but we must say clearly that the moral climate there is no longer acceptable, and if we’re asked to, we must refuse to play where they discriminate.”

Barbra topped off the evening with a stirring performance of “Somewhere,” a richly appropriate song for the occasion with its subtext that seemed both to offer hope for tolerance of homosexuality in our society and, with its otherworldly arrangement, hope for a peaceful and loving eternity for those whom AIDS had claimed and would claim. Her performance drew tears and brought the house down.

B
ARBRA’S IMPLIED SUPPORT
for a proposed boycott of Colorado in her speech created a firestorm of praise and criticism. Boycott organizers exulted in the publicity Streisand’s comments received around the country. Other gay leaders felt a boycott wasn’t the way to go, especially since the city that stood to lose the most, Aspen, had voted three to one against Amendment Two, which rescinded gay rights laws that had been in effect in Colorado since 1977.

But the strongest criticism of Streisand’s stand came from Hollywood, where hundreds of stars, directors, producers, and moguls were poised to make their annual Christmas vacation migration to Aspen. On December 2
The New York Times
ran an article from Hollywood that bega
n: “
Th
is town is engulfed in a virtual civil war. The rich are in turmoil.... What’s a politically correct entertainment personage to do? Go to Aspen over Christmas or not?”

The article by Bernard Weintraub quoted “one studio executive” as saying, “This flap proves the axiom that people in Hollywood are perfectly willing to speak out on issues so long as it doesn’t affect them or inconvenience them.” Weintraub claimed that Barbra had “backed off” from her support for a boycott, and he theorized that Hollywood’s anger at her stemmed from the fact that “she broke one of the town’s cardinal rules, which is that the issues that Hollywood speaks about should remain as remote as possible, like apartheid in South Africa.... The farther away the better.”

On December 11, as she addressed a gathering of the American Civil Liberties Union, which had presented her with its Bill of Rights Award, Barbra thundered, “I did not
ever
back off, back down, or back away from my original statement, as some of the press reported. So let me clearly state my position tonight: it appears that a boycott is under way in Colorado, and I will personally honor it and find some other state to vacation in.”

The boycott lost Colorado millions of tourist dollars before the state’s supreme court struck down Amendment Two. But the specter of a renewed boycott arose on Februa
ry 21,199
5, when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to decide the following October whether the state court had acted properly in overturning the gay rights ban.

B
ARBRA USED TO
be controversial because of her emotional singing, her idiosyncratic acting, her bluntness, her perfectionism, her occasional rudeness, and her choice of lovers. Now she was controversial because of her political beliefs, and the controversies that surrounded her mushroomed now that she was an F.O.B.—a Friend of Bill, one of the new president’s extended circle of intimates and advisers.
(
People
magazine called the president “the First F.O.B.—Friend of Barbra.”)

The new controversy began with her performance at the inaugural gala at the USAir Arena in Landover, Maryland, on January 19, 1993. After a rehearsal the night before that was open to anyone who brought a ba
gful
o
f groceries for the hungry and homeless, Barbra strode out confidently as the evening’s final act (Michael Jackson had relinquished the star spot in deference to her), dressed in a sleek dark gray pin-striped Donna Karan suit with a daring slit up the side of its floor-length skirt. Despite a sore throat that had almost forced her to cancel, she sang a lovely “Evergreen,” the president-elect’s favorite Streisand song; “Children Will Listen”; and “God Bless America.” After “Children Will Listen” she told the crowd and the new president, “We cannot abuse children, either by word or deed. What is done to them, they will do to society.”

When Barbra concluded her smooth-as-silk fifteen-minute performance, Clinton bounded onstage and embraced her. It had been a glamorous, star-studded, nationally televised evening, and Barbra Streisand had been its centerpiece. The next day Bill Clinton and Al Gore were sworn in amid the highest hopes of millions of Americans.

A week later the
New York Post
ran a blazing headline: “Senator Yentl.” The story claimed that Barbra was mulling over a bid to gain a seat in Congress, possibly running in a primary against New York’s Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. The report, of course, was absurd. Those who know her were highly amused by the idea of Barbra, who could be reduced to terror when approached by a lone autograph seeker, wading into crowds and glad-handing voters. Barbra put the kibosh on the story quickly. “Running for the Senate is out of the question,” she said. “There should be no confusion between someone with political passion and someone with political ambition.”

Two days later
The New York Times
ran an op-ed column by Anne Taylor Fleming, blasting Barbra for the sexy outfit she wore to the inaugural. Barbra’s “getup,” Fleming wrote, “sent the wrong message” that strong independent women also have to be “femmes fatales.”

The in-your-face feminist commentator Camille Paglia, however, saw things differently. In a lengthy essay-profile of Barbra entitled “America’s Second Lady,” published in the London
Sunday Times
,
Paglia wrote that “one of the supreme moments in recent popular entertainment was when Barbra Streisand sang ‘Evergreen’ for Bill Clinton at his inaugural.... She looked spectacular, wearing a business suit with big padded shoulders and
a long skirt
slit up the thigh. I was delirious. She was all man and all woman.”

Barbra enjoyed a lull in the controversies surrounding her until May, when they exploded once again after she made a whirlwind trip to Washington at the invitation of the president. On her first night in town, Saturday, May 1, she attended the White House Press Correspondents Dinner, where she had sung for JFK in 1963, and hobnobbed with General Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

People
magazine, in a cover story, described the excitement generated by Streisand’s arrival at the dinner: “And then
she
entered. Wearing an off-the-shoulder white satin gown and exuding that slightly cross-eyed charisma, she calmly navigated a moving sea of videocam lights and popping flashbulbs. Bringing conversations to a halt. Making forks drop and heads turn.... it seemed that everyone—politicians, magazine editors and New York City celebs alike—wanted desperately to get a glimpse, a touch, even (oh, God!) a few words with the fifty-one-year-old woman from Brooklyn with the
looong
fingernails and no college degree. Ladies and Gentlemen and Leaders of the Free World... Barbra Streisand!”

The next day, Sunday, Barbra dined with Attorney General Janet Reno. On Monday she met with a group of congresswomen, attended Senate hearings on gays in the military, and took a personal tour of the C-SPAN television studios. On Tuesday she went to dinner with Labor Secretary Robert Reich and Democratic senators Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, and William S. Cohen of Maine. On Wednesday she visited Thomas Jefferson’s home at Monticello, which inspired her to redecorate her Central Park West apartment in the Early American style, and on Thursday she wound up her Washington week at a party in honor of the new ambassador to France, Pamela Harriman, at the home of the
Washington Post
publisher Katharine Graham.

It didn’t take long for conservative knees to jerk in response to Streisand’s apparent influence with the Washington power brokers, especially when it came to light that she had quietly spent several nights in the White House in March. Rush Limbaugh ridiculed her on his radio program. Nasty members of the opposition hinted that she and the president were having an affair; nastier members of the opposition suggested that she and the first lady were having an affair.

Serious criticism followed, and it cut at Barbra badly.
The Wall Street Journal
ran a front-page article in which Timothy Smith said that Streisand “finds herself cast as the presumptive leader of a sort of flying wedge of glamorous nitwits, jetting in from the Coast to have their political credentials validated.... She never did have time to go to college, and she takes her education about public affairs where she finds it.”

The
New Republic
said of Barbra and other Hollywood celebrities, “The idea that these insulated and bubbleheaded people should help make policy is ridiculous. Hollywood actors are even more out of touch than elected politicians.”

The lowest blow came from Jonathan Yardley of the
Washington Post
,
who wrote a column entitled “Miss Marmelstein Goes to Washington.” After describing Barbra’s first Broadway triumph, Yardley wrote, “The mousy Miss Marmelstein has metamorphosed into a conglomerate capable of terrorizing any persons unfortunate enough to find themselves in her path. At the moment, those in this vulnerable position range from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the president of the United States; the possibility that any or all of them will be blown away by Hurricane Barbra must be taken very seriously.... It is all well and good to wring one’s hands over nuclear annihilation and AIDS research and other matters with which La Barbra has chosen to become involved, but it is another thing to think them through clinically and objectively....