Happy Birthday, Barbra Streisand! 29 Vintage Pictures of the Original Funny Girl
Barbra Streisand’s career accomplishments are the stuff of legend: After leading the original Broadway production of Funny Girl from 1964 to 1965 (and an Oscar-winning film adaptation in 1968), she was off to the races, forging a body of work that touched everything from zippy screwball comedies to swooning romantic dramas, three impressively varied directorial efforts, and a zillion chart-topping, Grammy-winning studio albums. (In 2014, she broke a Billboard record.)
To celebrate her birthday today, we’ve gathered some of the most glamorous old pictures of the greatest star that we could find. Hello, gorgeous!
Photo: Getty Images1/291963
Born in Brooklyn on April 24, 1942, Barbra Streisand began her music career in the early 1960s, stringing together gigs at New York nightclubs while she auditioned for acting jobs. (She has, over the years, referred to herself as “an actor who sings.”) She’s pictured here at 21, just a few months after The Barbra Streisand Album—her first—was released.
Photo: Getty Images2/29Early 1960s
Putting on a show in her 20s.
Photo: Getty Images3/291963
With Judy Garland on The Judy Garland Show, where the two performed a stirring rendition of the 1929 standard “Happy Days Are Here Again” crossed with Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler’s “Get Happy.”
Photo: Getty Images4/29Early 1960s
Modeling a vintage coat from her wardrobe. “I haunt local thrift shops and offbeat stores. You can find more interesting clothes there,” she told Cue magazine in 1963. “I particularly like clothes of the late twenties and early thirties.”
Photo: Getty Images5/291965
From 1963 to 1971, Streisand was married to the actor Elliott Gould, whom she met while working on the Broadway musical I Can Get It for You Wholesale. “I found her absolutely exquisite,” Gould told Time magazine in 1964.
Photo: Getty Images6/291965
On the set of her first Emmy-winning CBS television special, My Name Is Barbra.
Photo: Getty Images7/291967
Dolled up as “Baby Snooks,” a favorite character of Fanny Brice’s, while shooting Funny Girl with William Wyler. After playing the part both on Broadway and on London’s West End, Streisand won an Oscar for it in her feature-film debut.
Photo: Getty Images8/291967
On stage for A Happening in Central Park, Streisand’s concert in Sheep Meadow on June 17, 1967. Free and open to the public, the performance attracted some 135,000 people.
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