My Name Is Barbra (1965) - full transcript
Barbra Streisand's first television special, featuring a medley of her hit songs, such as "People," "Happy Days Are Here Again" and "My Man."
Hi.
In 1964, I had the chance to do
my first television special.
It was in the days when practically
all shows were black and white
and there were only three networks
and a lot of local stations,
and that was it.
No cable, no pay TV, no VCRs.
How did we ever manage?
But that's not all that was different.
In those days, musical variety specials
featured several guest stars
and were always shot
in television studios.
But that didn't appeal to me.
I wanted the show to have
a different look.
So Joe Layton suggested
we go outside the studio
to shoot part of the show.
Well, you can imagine how nervous
that made the network,
especially when they learned that
there would be no major guest stars,
not even any minor ones,
just me and a bunch of great songs
and some wonderful musicians.
I wanted the show to have
three one-act segments,
and my favorite part of the first segment
was the children's section,
where I got to be a child again,
and that was easy
because I always felt a part of me
was still six years old anyway.
For the second segment,
we did a tongue-in-cheek medley
of poverty songs amidst the opulent
surroundings of our location,
Bergdorf Goodman's fur department.
And we all agreed that the third section
should be a straight concert.
No concepts, no characters,
just the exchange of energy
between performer and a live audience.
My Name Is Barbra
was shown on April 28th, 1965.
By the way, the title song was part
of a song cycle for soprano
written by Leonard Bernstein
many years before.
It wasn't a piece of special material
written for me.
Thought you might like to know that.
Surrounded by extremely talented people,
I remember the experience
of making this show
as being one of the most joyful
of my career.
That is until it came time to watch it.
I'll never forget, I was in Funny Girl
on Broadway at the time,
and the whole cast had crammed
into my dressing room
to watch the first 15 minutes
during intermission.
And finally the big moment came,
nine o'clock.
But there was no singing,
there was no picture.
I couldn't believe it.
My first television special
and the engineer
forgot to push the button
to start the show.
And when it finally did come on,
it was in the middle of a sentence.
Well, anyway, now you can push the button
and see it anytime you want,
from the beginning.
I do hope you like it.
By the way, did I ever show you
my baby picture?
[Streisand singing "My Name is Barbra"]
[applause]
[orchestra playing]
[announcer] My Name is Barbra,
starring Barbra Streisand!
[applause]
[orchestra playing "I'm Late"]
[kids] Crazy Barbra! Crazy Barbra!
Crazy Barbra!
[kids] Crazy Barbra! Crazy Barbra!
Crazy Barbra!
[percussion instruments rasping]
[applause]
[singing "People"]
[applause]
[applause]
[orchestra playing "I Got the Blues"]
I'm not kidding around.
Now I feel better.
[laughter]
No, don't laugh, don't laugh,
because if you laugh, I laugh,
and I'm not supposed to laugh.
'Cause they told me I've got
to be very dignified.
When I was back there having a haircut.
[laughter]
No, I tell you, I still can't
believe this is my own show.
It's like, I called a rehearsal
and everybody showed up.
[laughter]
It's like I walked out dressed like this
and nobody stopped me.
And I should have been stopped.
But I can't help it,
I like to wear clothes like these
because they're old
and they're broken in already,
and the knees bulge at the knees
and the wrinkles wrinkle
where I wrinkle them.
-Blblblblblbl!
-[laughter]
Which brings up
the subject of thrift shops.
I buy a lot of things in thrift shops.
And I like the secondhand stuff
because it has character.
And it's not what a thing costs,
but it's what it's been through.
[laughter]
And that's what I collect,
stuff like I got here.
My loot.
Um...
I don't know if you can see this
but here is a button.
It's a hand-painted button
and on it there's a faded portrait
of a lady.
Now, whose button was this
and how did I get it?
Or how did it get lost?
I'm gonna tell you.
There was this Istanbulian lady.
She came from Istanbul.
[laughter]
Her name was Pearl. Pearl Tefkik.
She finally saved up eluff...
Eluff lunch money to buy herself
a new coat.
So she put on a veil and went downtown.
She bought an old secondhand coat.
It was a rotten color,
but she loved the buttons.
On her way home, along came
a young man named Herbert,
a lawyer's helper, who saw her buttons
and asked her to lunch.
So they were having lunch.
Of course, naturally, she had to lift up
her veil to eat her tuna fish sandwich.
And he saw how beautiful she was
and he asked her to get married.
So they were on the subway
going to City Hall,
when the train doors closed
right in their faces.
Only Pearl's button
was caught in the door.
Now the train started
and she ran sideways, yelling,
"Stop the train,
you got me by the button!"
In Turkish, of course.
And they did, and the doors parted.
Only Pearl's button popped off
and it landed at the feet of the Sultan
who happened to happen to be riding
on that very train.
Now, he picked it up, he saw Pearl
and noticed she didn't
have all her buttons.
And he said,
"You are selected for my harem."
That night from the fifth floor
of the harem, she was looking out.
She saw Herbert across the street
having a snack in a sidewalk cafe.
She wrote a note:
"Dear Herbert, don't wait for me,
I think I'm gonna like it here."
She threw it but it missed
and it landed on a Norwegian tanker
bound for Bayonne, New Jersey.
[applause]
You see, just an old mere button
that you'd think was worthless,
but it's not whether
a thing is old or new,
it's what it means to someone!
Who cares about material things?
Luxuries, luxuries are meaningless.
It's the simple things that are basic:
food and shelter
and a few yards of cloth
to protect you from the cold.
Now, I'm like that,
essentially a plain person.
Simple, very simple.
And unadorned.
[singing "Second Hand Rose"]
[applause]
[orchestra playing]
[announcer] And now again,
Barbra Streisand!
-[applause]
-[orchestra playing]
[applause]
[whistling]
[orchestra playing
"Why Did I Choose You?"]
[applause]
[orchestra playing
"Lover, Come Back to Me"]
[applause]
Ohh!
[orchestra playing]
There's a musical on Broadway now
called Funny Girl.
[applause]
It's based on the life of Fanny Brice.
It's very good, I like it.
[laughter]
In fact I go there every night.
Jule Styne has written
a great, great score,
along with Bob Merrill,
and here are some of the songs.
[singing "I Am Woman"]
[singing "Don't Rain on My Parade"]
[singing "The Music that Makes Me Dance"]
[applause]
Fanny Brice sang a song like that in 1922.
And it made her the toast of Broadway.
[applause]
[piano playing
"Happy Days Are Here Again"]
[applause]
[applause]
[applause continues]
In 1964, I had the chance to do
my first television special.
It was in the days when practically
all shows were black and white
and there were only three networks
and a lot of local stations,
and that was it.
No cable, no pay TV, no VCRs.
How did we ever manage?
But that's not all that was different.
In those days, musical variety specials
featured several guest stars
and were always shot
in television studios.
But that didn't appeal to me.
I wanted the show to have
a different look.
So Joe Layton suggested
we go outside the studio
to shoot part of the show.
Well, you can imagine how nervous
that made the network,
especially when they learned that
there would be no major guest stars,
not even any minor ones,
just me and a bunch of great songs
and some wonderful musicians.
I wanted the show to have
three one-act segments,
and my favorite part of the first segment
was the children's section,
where I got to be a child again,
and that was easy
because I always felt a part of me
was still six years old anyway.
For the second segment,
we did a tongue-in-cheek medley
of poverty songs amidst the opulent
surroundings of our location,
Bergdorf Goodman's fur department.
And we all agreed that the third section
should be a straight concert.
No concepts, no characters,
just the exchange of energy
between performer and a live audience.
My Name Is Barbra
was shown on April 28th, 1965.
By the way, the title song was part
of a song cycle for soprano
written by Leonard Bernstein
many years before.
It wasn't a piece of special material
written for me.
Thought you might like to know that.
Surrounded by extremely talented people,
I remember the experience
of making this show
as being one of the most joyful
of my career.
That is until it came time to watch it.
I'll never forget, I was in Funny Girl
on Broadway at the time,
and the whole cast had crammed
into my dressing room
to watch the first 15 minutes
during intermission.
And finally the big moment came,
nine o'clock.
But there was no singing,
there was no picture.
I couldn't believe it.
My first television special
and the engineer
forgot to push the button
to start the show.
And when it finally did come on,
it was in the middle of a sentence.
Well, anyway, now you can push the button
and see it anytime you want,
from the beginning.
I do hope you like it.
By the way, did I ever show you
my baby picture?
[Streisand singing "My Name is Barbra"]
[applause]
[orchestra playing]
[announcer] My Name is Barbra,
starring Barbra Streisand!
[applause]
[orchestra playing "I'm Late"]
[kids] Crazy Barbra! Crazy Barbra!
Crazy Barbra!
[kids] Crazy Barbra! Crazy Barbra!
Crazy Barbra!
[percussion instruments rasping]
[applause]
[singing "People"]
[applause]
[applause]
[orchestra playing "I Got the Blues"]
I'm not kidding around.
Now I feel better.
[laughter]
No, don't laugh, don't laugh,
because if you laugh, I laugh,
and I'm not supposed to laugh.
'Cause they told me I've got
to be very dignified.
When I was back there having a haircut.
[laughter]
No, I tell you, I still can't
believe this is my own show.
It's like, I called a rehearsal
and everybody showed up.
[laughter]
It's like I walked out dressed like this
and nobody stopped me.
And I should have been stopped.
But I can't help it,
I like to wear clothes like these
because they're old
and they're broken in already,
and the knees bulge at the knees
and the wrinkles wrinkle
where I wrinkle them.
-Blblblblblbl!
-[laughter]
Which brings up
the subject of thrift shops.
I buy a lot of things in thrift shops.
And I like the secondhand stuff
because it has character.
And it's not what a thing costs,
but it's what it's been through.
[laughter]
And that's what I collect,
stuff like I got here.
My loot.
Um...
I don't know if you can see this
but here is a button.
It's a hand-painted button
and on it there's a faded portrait
of a lady.
Now, whose button was this
and how did I get it?
Or how did it get lost?
I'm gonna tell you.
There was this Istanbulian lady.
She came from Istanbul.
[laughter]
Her name was Pearl. Pearl Tefkik.
She finally saved up eluff...
Eluff lunch money to buy herself
a new coat.
So she put on a veil and went downtown.
She bought an old secondhand coat.
It was a rotten color,
but she loved the buttons.
On her way home, along came
a young man named Herbert,
a lawyer's helper, who saw her buttons
and asked her to lunch.
So they were having lunch.
Of course, naturally, she had to lift up
her veil to eat her tuna fish sandwich.
And he saw how beautiful she was
and he asked her to get married.
So they were on the subway
going to City Hall,
when the train doors closed
right in their faces.
Only Pearl's button
was caught in the door.
Now the train started
and she ran sideways, yelling,
"Stop the train,
you got me by the button!"
In Turkish, of course.
And they did, and the doors parted.
Only Pearl's button popped off
and it landed at the feet of the Sultan
who happened to happen to be riding
on that very train.
Now, he picked it up, he saw Pearl
and noticed she didn't
have all her buttons.
And he said,
"You are selected for my harem."
That night from the fifth floor
of the harem, she was looking out.
She saw Herbert across the street
having a snack in a sidewalk cafe.
She wrote a note:
"Dear Herbert, don't wait for me,
I think I'm gonna like it here."
She threw it but it missed
and it landed on a Norwegian tanker
bound for Bayonne, New Jersey.
[applause]
You see, just an old mere button
that you'd think was worthless,
but it's not whether
a thing is old or new,
it's what it means to someone!
Who cares about material things?
Luxuries, luxuries are meaningless.
It's the simple things that are basic:
food and shelter
and a few yards of cloth
to protect you from the cold.
Now, I'm like that,
essentially a plain person.
Simple, very simple.
And unadorned.
[singing "Second Hand Rose"]
[applause]
[orchestra playing]
[announcer] And now again,
Barbra Streisand!
-[applause]
-[orchestra playing]
[applause]
[whistling]
[orchestra playing
"Why Did I Choose You?"]
[applause]
[orchestra playing
"Lover, Come Back to Me"]
[applause]
Ohh!
[orchestra playing]
There's a musical on Broadway now
called Funny Girl.
[applause]
It's based on the life of Fanny Brice.
It's very good, I like it.
[laughter]
In fact I go there every night.
Jule Styne has written
a great, great score,
along with Bob Merrill,
and here are some of the songs.
[singing "I Am Woman"]
[singing "Don't Rain on My Parade"]
[singing "The Music that Makes Me Dance"]
[applause]
Fanny Brice sang a song like that in 1922.
And it made her the toast of Broadway.
[applause]
[piano playing
"Happy Days Are Here Again"]
[applause]
[applause]
[applause continues]