Sunday, October 21, 2012

Sunday Salute XXX!

There is something very special about the woman I am honoring today.  I fell in love with her voice first, then her ability and finally everything about her. I am just a tad bit older than she (from November to April) so that really makes her one of my contemporaries.  I was fortunate to be able to see her live and in person at the Hollywood Bowl (Scroll down to the July 9 Concert) thanks to my Aunt Ellen who arranged it.  Her neighbor and I went to the concert and I got to drive Carolyn's big black Cadillac.  It was a wonderful evening.  

The bowl was full and the temperature was perfect.  Of course, we were high up in the cheap seats (grin) but that did not matter.  I could see her just fine (even if she was only an inch tall).  Since that time I have seen her in numerous movies, on television and I still love her.  

Barbra Joan Streisand (born Barbara Joan Streisand /ˈstrsænd/; April 24, 1942) is an American singer, actress, writer, film producer, and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, five Emmy Awards including one Daytime Emmy,  a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Kennedy Center Honors award, a Peabody Award,  and is one of the few entertainers who has won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award.
...

Streisand has personally raised $25 million  for organizations through her live performances. The Streisand Foundation, established in 1986, has contributed over $16 million through nearly 1,000 grants to "national organizations working on preservation of the environment, voter education, the protection of civil liberties and civil rightswomen’s issues  and nuclear disarmament
In 2006, Streisand donated $1 million to the William J. Clinton Foundation in support of former President Bill Clinton’s climate change initiative. 
In 2008, Streisand gifted $5 million to endow the Barbra Streisand Women's Cardiovascular Research and Education Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's Women's Heart Center.  In September that year, Parade magazine included Streisand on their Giving Back Fund's second annual Giving Back 30 survey, "a ranking of the celebrities who have made the largest donations to charity in 2007 according to public records",[  as the third most generous celebrity. The Giving Back Fund claimed Streisand donated $11 million, which The Streisand Foundation distributed.
At Julien’s Auctions in October 2009, Streisand, a long-time collector of art and furniture, sold 526 items with all the proceeds going to her foundation. Items included a costume from Funny Lady and a vintage dental cabinet purchased by the performer at 18 years old. The sale’s most valuable lot was a painting by Kees van Dongen.  In December 2011 she agreed to sing at a fundraising gala for Israel Defence Forces charities.





I was a personality before I became a person - I am simple, complex, generous, selfish, unattractive, beautiful, lazy and driven.

Why does a woman work ten years to change a man's habits and then complain that he's not the man she married?

I wish I could be like Shaw who once read a bad review of one of his plays, called the critic and said: 'I have your review in front of me and soon it will be behind me.

We have a president who stole the presidency through family ties, arrogance and intimidation, employing Republican operatives to exercise the tactics of voter fraud by disenfranchising thousands of blacks, elderly Jews and other minorities.

Men are allowed to have passion and commitment for their work... a woman is allowed that feeling for a man, but not her work.

How I wish we lived in a time when laws were not necessary to safeguard us from discrimination.

I hated singing. I wanted to be an actress. But I don't think I'd have made it any other way.

I just don't want to be hampered by my own limitations.


I knew that with a mouth like mine, I just hadda be a star or something.

To have ego means to believe in your own strength. And to also be open to other people's views. It is to be open, not closed. So, yes, my ego is big, but it's also very small in some areas. My ego is responsible for my doing what I do - bad or good. 


"I hate tooting my own horn, but after Steven Spielberg saw Yentl, he said, 'I wish I could tell you how to fix your picture, but I can't. It's the best film I've seen since Citizen Kane.'"

There is nothing more important in life than love.






This is from the 1967 Concert
 

And this from the Concert she performed this month.  Still looking great, Mrs. Brolin.

Previous Salutes
Ellen DeGeneres  Edward "Ted" Kennedy  Paul Newman
Michelle Obama  Audrey Hepburn     Princess Diana    Harry S Truman   
John Shelby Spong  Nelson Mandella     Rachael Maddow   Matt Damon  
Jehan Sadat   Jane Goodall    Mohandas Gandhi  
 Eleanor Roosevelt    Lyndon B. Johnson      Michelle Obama
Helen Hayes   Marion Wright Edelman     Bishop Gene Robinson
Bishop Desmond Tutu       Rachel Carson          Helen Keller
Martin Luther King, Jr          Dalai Lama         Dag Hammarskjold

1 comment:

Harpers Keeper said...

Wonderful post. I am a total fan; call me queer!