Streisand / LIVE 

The hungry i was a night club in San Francisco located in the basement of the International Hotel at Kearny and Jackson streets in the North Beach district. It was nicknamed the “eye” and was described as a “cavernous entertainment room” that sat approximately 300 people around a three-sided stage. The comedians and singers who played there—Lenny Bruce, Bill Cosby, Woody Allen —performed in front of a red brick wall, now reproduced in many comedy clubs around America.

The owner of the hungry i was the beret-wearing impresario Enrico Banducci.  Depending on his mood, he told interviewers that the “i” was “Freudian and stood for ‘the hungry id’ or it was beatnik-trendy and stood for ‘the hungry intellectual,’” wrote Derrick Bang.  The club welcomed musicians, comedians, writers, and painters.  1960s comedians like Woody Allen, Richard Pryor, and Dick Gregory played there.  The Keenes (see the movie Big Eyes) displayed their art there. Singing groups like Glen Yarbrough and The Kingston Trio also played at the hungry i.

Banducci kept it all running by maintaining a “quietude in the audience. I managed it really strict for the artist,” he said. Banducci wanted a safe environment for the acts he booked. “We didn't serve drinks while the acts were on,” he elaborated. Banducci believed it disturbed the show.

Barbra Streisand first met Enrico Banducci in 1961 at her agent’s office, who was Joe Glaser with Associated Booking Corporation. “I wanted to get a job there,” Barbra explained, “and I just walked in and I said, ‘Look, why don’t you give me a job. I hear that you’re supposed to give people—unknowns— jobs, and stuff, and I don’t really wanna work for you in your dirty old nightclub, anyway. But actually, I’m gonna be a big star, so you might as well grab me now, and get me cheaper, and stuff—ya know?’ I was serious. And it worked. Twenty minutes later we signed a contract.”

Banducci told his own version of the story: “Barbra Streisand I met through Irwin Arthur in New York—he’s an agent. She wanted to sing for me, so she kept singing. She'd be singing for me while I was interviewing other talent.”

However, due to her commitment to I Can Get It for You Wholesale, Barbra was unable to perform at the hungry i until 1963 when her first album with Columbia Records was released. Columbia sent some promoters to San Francisco before Barbra arrived to publicize the album and create a “buzz.”

Barbra stayed at the Mark Hopkins Hotel, at California and Mason Street on Nob Hill. Randy Wallace recalled that “when she sent a dress out to be cleaned, they charged her sixteen dollars, so she checked right out of the Mark and went to the Hyde Park Suite.”