Barbra Streisand called me on a Tuesday afternoon. Well, to be more accurate, one of her many publicists did, and then patched me into Streisand’s home in Malibu (well, really, a compound of three houses), where she was sitting in a room with her assistant. To speak to Streisand, who is now seventy-six and just released her thirty-sixth studio album, “Walls,” one must first accept the fame apparatus built up around her, the protective drawbridge that she has erected over almost six decades in show business and on the course to becoming the most successful female recording artist of all time. But once I got her on the line, the conversation flowed like melted butter. Over the course of a long and winding hour, we covered her disdain for Donald Trump, which was the impetus for “Walls,” the closest thing to a political protest record that Streisand has ever made. We also dipped back in time, discussing her experience directing movies at a time when few women were helming film sets, her first apartments in New York, and why it has taken her four years to finish her memoirs. Also: lost “Yentl” rehearsal videos, “A Star Is Born” costumes, and her infamous cloned pooches. Her tone was breezy, wise, and warm, that of a whimsical grande dame reflecting on her many adventures while still very much engaged in the present. She is about to welcome her first grandchild. “A lot of people don’t want to be known as grandma,” Streisand kvelled. “I think it’s a privilege.”
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Sourse: newyorker.com
