Happy Birthday

Today is Barbra Streisand's birthday. The above picture was snapped by her brother Sheldon. I hope there's still some of that little girl inside of her today as she celebrates her 67th birthday.

Every gay man has a diva, at least one. She's someone whose work he admires and/or whose life story inspires him. I have friends who are enthralled by Judy Garland or Cher or Edith Piaf or Bette Midler or Marilyn Monroe. Even today's young gay men have divas although they're having to make do with people like Britney Spears and Taylor Swift, sadly.

My diva has been Streisand since at least 1975. That was the year my mother took me to see my first Streisand movie, Funny Lady. I enjoyed the movie, but it wasn't until the following year, with the release of the soundtrack to A Star Is Born, that I became a full-fledged fan. I bought the single and the album. Then I had to buy a second copy of the album because I wore the first one out playing it so often. To top it off, I had my grandfather drive me and a cousin to the movie theater in Corinth, almost an hour drive away, to see the movie when it opened. I was hooked, and I was only thirteen.

I own all her records. I once owned them all on vinyl, but now I have them all on CD (well, except for The Owl and the Pussycat soundtrack, which isn't available on CD). I have seen every movie she's ever made, and I own all of them on DVD now. I've seen her in concert twice, first at Arrowhead Pond when she returned to live performing and then a few years later at the Staples Center. In fact, I flew my mother out to Los Angeles so that I could take her to the Staples Center concert. It was really her love of Streisand that made me into a fan. In some small way, I hope the concert was a little bit of repayment.

I'm not an obsessive fan, just so you know. I don't have an entire wall of photographs or anything like that (the way Richard Simmons used to have). I just like her singing and her acting, and I admire the work she has done throughout her career on behalf of civil rights and the environment. She's a lifelong Democrat and so am I, so we share opinions on a lot of social issues.

What I think draws me to her is the story of how this shy, awkward girl grew up almost in poverty. Her family was lower middle class at best, and she claims they didn't even own a couch when she was growing up. She was an outsider at school, and she was frequently taunted by the other children because of her looks. She knew she wanted a career in show business, but even her mother discouraged her, telling her to learn how to type since she was going to wind up as a secretary. (That's why Streisand has always had such long nails, by the way, to spite her mother.) Despite all of the negativity that surrounded her, she made herself into a star. There's something quite remarkable about a person who decides to listen to the voice inside her head instead of all of those voices that surround her.

I don't think it's that much of a stretch to see the connection to a shy, awkward kid growing up in rural Mississippi who manages, despite his family's poverty, to get a college education, move to California, and become a relative success as a teacher despite all of the people along the way who said it would be too difficult. I was told by a lot of people along the way that I wouldn't be able to make it at the university level, that I would miss my family if I moved away to go to school, that I wouldn't like California, that I'd never get a job teaching at the college level. So you see I can somewhat empathize when I read Streisand's biography even though I'm not an entertainer.

It isn't as if you have to accept wholeheartedly every move that your diva makes, by the way. She really does have poor taste in song selection sometimes, particularly since the 1980's. She has made some very oddball choices in films too (e.g., All Night Long, Nuts). She can be infuriatingly stubborn too, supporting some politicians and/or candidates who are just not exceptional choices.

Yet I'm willing to forgive every misstep whenever I hear her sing "Evergreen." I still cry each time I watch The Way We Were. I can still vividly recall that moment when the curtain was pulled back to reveal her at the top of the staircase in The Concert. That's what it means to have a diva, that unconditional love for her talent and her drive and her accomplishments.

Happy Birthday, Barbra.