Streisand / LIVE 

Barbra Streisand arrived in London in 1966 to perform Funny Girl in the West End. “I'm more nervous than if I were doing a new play,” she told writer Sheilah Graham. “It's serious here.”

Reportedly, Streisand agreed to perform in Funny Girl in London as a favor for producer Ray Stark, who wanted to boost the potential box office in Europe for his upcoming movie of the show.  In return, Streisand would be allowed to make her film debut in the movie version.

Residing in a townhouse flat at 48 Ennismore Gardens during her stay in London, Streisand elaborated: “I had a marvelous 3 ½ weeks touring Europe with Elliott [Gould, her husband] before we started rehearsals—Paris, Rome, Marseille, Nice, Florence. I attended some of the fashion shows in Paris. Never again. They rush you too much. The only clothes I liked were from Dior. All that cut-out stuff is not for me.

“I love London,” she continued. “I've always wanted to have tea and cakes. I've had jellied eels, and last Sunday I went to the East End for fish and chips. Wild. I've been here once before, to see my husband when he was starring in On the Town. I like English food. I don't like French food, too rich. I love the English, they're so amused at money. Because someone said I was the highest-paid performer in the world, every time they write about me they call me that.”

On March 20, 1966 Streisand gave a press conference at the Savoy Hotel in London and also posed for photographers outside in the Embankment Gardens.

The next week, the company of Funny Girl, led by director Lawrence Kasha, began putting the London show on its feet at a rehearsal room adjoining a West End Synagogue on Dean Street.  Kasha was an associate director on the Broadway Funny Girl. He also helmed the National Tour (with Marilyn Michaels) as well as staging the London show.  Kay Medford and Lee Allen repeated their roles from Broadway, too (Mrs. Brice and Eddie).

Barbra's favorite conductor from Broadway, Milton Rosenstock, flew to London in April '66  to act as musical advisor for the remounting of the show. Marcus Dods performed conducting duties for the London run.

Streisand, according to costar Michael Craig, “was always in complete magisterial control” as a singer.  But, “Marcus [Dods] had a little problem with her during the run because, when she sang the big hit of the show, People, she tended to elaborate on what was in the written score. This made things very hard for him as he was under strict instructions to stick utterly and faithfully to the dots.”

Funny Girl was tweaked a bit for London audiences.  Streisand sang a new version of "The Music That Makes Me Dance" which now included a verse mid-song (“To me love is no go / Till fiddle and oboe start weeping, wailing / That's my failing ....”), as well as a new, dramatic ending.

County Times and Gazette also pointed out that “'Cornet Man' has unwisely been altered from a jazzy, bavura solo on disc to a chorus-number in the West End (with the star only appearing halfway through, and then performing for twitteringly gauche comic purposes .... )”

Richard Mills, who was part of the management team that presented Barbra in Funny Girl in the West End wrote:

“[Streisand] guarded her musical like a lioness guarding her cubs. Each night after the curtain came down, she would have a meeting onstage which would be attended by the musical director, ballet mistress, stage management, sound operator, the heads of all technical departments and on many occasions, me. I can’t recall any lack of validity in any of the notes she gave.”

More from Richard Mills:

“While she was appearing at the Prince of Wales, stories abounded about how difficult she was — all untrue. The press would constantly ring me and everyone connected with the show, to try and get an adverse quote. I’ll give you a sample of a call to me.

‘Is it true Miss Streisand will not let anyone have a dressing room on the same floor as her?’

Answer: ‘there are no other dressing rooms on her floor’.

Question: ‘is it true she won’t let the rest of the cast use the same staircase as her?’

Answer: ‘her dressing room is next to an indoor fire escape staircase, which leads down to the side of the stage, and as she has a lot of quick changes, this is her fastest route’.

Question: ‘is it true that she insists on carpet being laid from her dressing room to the side of the stage, for her to walk on?’

Answer: ‘yes. Most of her dresses are long and flowing, and she wants to keep them clean by not trailing them along stone floors’.

Question: ‘does she call everyone on stage every night in order to tell them what to do?’

Answer: ‘no. She has been given artistic control of the show, like a director, and in order to maintain the integrity of the production, she has a meeting on stage each night, with all the heads of the various departments, in order to run over any problems which may have arisen during that evening’s performance’.

And so it went on. To the best of my knowledge, the press never got an authentic bad story.”

Michael Craig portrayed Nick Arnstein in the London version of Funny Girl. He confessed to The Sydney Morning Herald in 1989 that "I'm not a singer so I was very nervous. I'd really only sung in the bath before."

The producer Arthur Lewis arranged for Craig and his wife to join Streisand and Elliott Gould for dinner at The Caprice after she arrived in town for rehearsals.

In his autobiography (The Smallest Giant) he wrote, “Barbra was phenomenal and could recognise a misplaced ‘ting’ on the triangle from the other side of Leicester Square. She was a wonderful performer and, even when she did her own little improvisational riffs, she was always in complete magisterial control.”

Craig also noted, “Barbra had a great success although some of the critics commented on how small her voice seemed in the theatre, compared with what they had heard on her recordings. She was the only one on stage who was mic'd—the rest of us had to make do with lung power and shotgun mikes directed at the stage from the spot rail ... I did have to be a bit careful in my more intimate moments with Barbra and make sure I didn't speak into her personal mike, which was hidden in her cleavage, but apart from that I started to really get the hang of it.”

Of his experience playing opposite Streisand in Funny Girl in 1966, Michael Craig summed it up by saying: “A funny peculiar time with a funny peculiar lady. I admired her talent enormously—still do—but back then her professionalism left a lot to be desired.”

PHOTO:  Streisand, Kay Medford, and Michael Craig as Nick.

On April 18, 1966, shortly after Funny Girl opened at the Prince of Wales Theatre, Barbra Streisand announced she was pregnant.

“I found out I was pregnant opening night,” she explained to Rosie O'Donnell. “No one wanted to tell me. I had taken a Rabbit Test a few days before but no one told me the results and I was busy rehearsing. After the show, my friend Cis [Corman] came in and said she's going to be a grandmother. She had an older son, so I said, 'You knocked a girl up?' And she said, 'No, you.  You're pregnant.'”

Streisand continued to perform in the show after announcing her pregnancy, although some of the choreography and excessive physicality (i.e. Barbra jumping onto the chaise lounge during “You Are Woman”) was altered to take Barbra’s “condition” into consideration. Understudy Lisa Shane covered several shows for Streisand during the London run, especially Saturday evening shows starting in mid-May 1966 after Streisand found a two-show day too physically draining while pregnant.

“I had to let the promoters know,” Barbra told the press, “but why is everybody else so hipped on money? They call it 'the million dollar baby.' Is that important? What's a baby got to do with it. I'll tell you what's important. Having a healthy baby, that's important. For that matter, what's success? A million dollars doesn't automatically give you happiness. I used to live well on $20 a week.”

The interviewer found Barbra knitting for her baby. “In Funny Girl I'm onstage nearly all the time except for a couple of minutes in each act. As soon as I go off in the first act I grab the knitting and do a line. Then in the second act I knit another line. Knitting makes me relaxed, so keep asking.”

29-year-old actress Lisa Shane understudied Barbra Streisand in London. It was even announced that Shane would take over the role when Streisand left the show.

However, by June 9th, it was announced Funny Girl would permanently close on July 16th. Michael Craig, Kay Medford and Lee Allen all exercised a clause in their contracts that allowed them to leave the show at the same time as Streisand. Therefore, when Streisand left, Funny Girl ended.