Songbook: The Many Hats Of Barbra Streisand

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Barbra Streisand cannot be considered "mostly" one thing. She may have started her career as a singer, found fame as an actress, and pivoted into a successful directing career, all while breaking records as a recording artist. But she wears even more hats: She is a memorist, a philanthropist, and a champion of the arts.

Already an eight-time GRAMMY Award winner, Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, and GRAMMY Legend Award honoree, Streisand was also the MusiCares Person of the Year honoree in 2011.

At the 2025 GRAMMYs, her song "Love Will Survive," from "The Tattooist of Auschwitz," was nominated in the Best Song Written For Visual Media Category, which would honor composers Walter Afanasieff, Charlie Midnight, Kara Talve, and Hans Zimmer. Streisand herself was nominated in the Best Audio Book, Narration, and Storytelling Recording Category for narration of her 2023 audiobook, My Name Is Barbra — a thorough memoir accounting the diva’s long career and many loves, both professional and personal.

Streisand is no stranger to accolades. She is the first artist to achieve the coveted EGOT status, which included Oscar wins for best actress in Funny Girl and for Best Original Song for A Star Is Born — making her the first woman composer to win that award. She won a lifetime achievement Tony award and has four Emmys wins spanning between 1965 and 2001 for her music specials. Additionally, she has nine Golden Globes, four Peabody Awards, the National Medal of Arts, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Not only does Streisand set records for her own performances, but she’s a generous philanthropist who has raised money for many causes she believes in throughout the years.

Streisand began her career as a nightclub singer and stage actor. After appearing on various television programs including "The Tonight Show" and "The Ed Sullivan Show," she began her recording career with Columbia Records, which lead to an extraordinary amount of music put out into the world: 118 singles, 36 studio albums, 11 live albums, 12 compilations, and 15 soundtracks. Until Taylor Swift broke the record with her twelfth album in 2023, Streisand had the most Billboard top 200 albums of all time.

Streisand’s identity as a Jewish woman and native New Yorker was tantamount to her celebrity persona, and often an important component of her characters and charitable efforts. As the end of the millennium rolled around, Streisand could boast that she was the number one female singer in the country; each decade beginning with her first album in the 1960s, she had two or more No. 1 albums. In addition to her album productivity, "Babs" has released a memoir, went on several tours, and continued to contribute to soundtracks in the first two decades of the millennium.

The diva has an incredible legacy across stage, screen, the recording industry, and national and world politics. Her romantic, operatic vocal style as well as her theatrical persona has influenced countless recording artists and the recording industry as a whole. Let’s take a look at Streisand’s long, successful career, as she balances her careers as a recording artist, performing artist, and activist.

Recording Artist Of The Millennium And Beyond

As a recording artist, Streisand started strong and continues to this day to produce critically and commercially successful music. When she began performing in the early 1960s, it was primarily as a guest on late night and variety television shows. Streisand’s television appearances highlighted her unique, soaring voice and quick humor led to her signing with Columbia Records at the age of 21. While Columbia was her studio, she retained creative control over which projects she would work on in exchange for lower pay. While she often chose paths and projects not recommended by Columbia, Streisand's steadfastness paid off with great chart success and acclaim.

To wit, Streisand's "Happy Days Are Here Again," a standard which was written by Milton Ager and Jack Yellen for the 1930’s film Chasing Rainbows. premiered on television in 1962 and helped launch her career. The song was nominated for Record Of The Year at the 1964 GRAMMYs and the debut album it featured on, The Barbra Streisand Album, won two GRAMMY Awards — including Album Of The Year.

Early albums, including her debut, mostly feature Broadway standards and showcase her emotional, soulful voice. Throughout her career, Streisand has mixed classics with newer styles of music, and is often associated with old Hollywood and Broadway sounds.

As she progressed into the 1970s, Barbra Streisand began playing around with her style, updating her tracks from showtunes from the Golden Age of Broadway to more contemporary fare. These forays into pop paid off, leading to several Top 10 recordings ("Kiss Me In the Rain") including duets with Donna Summer ("No more Tears (Enough is Enough") and childhood classmate Neil Diamond ("You Don’t Bring me Flowers").

Streisand’s ability to tap into the zeitgeist and produce authentic hits that reflect the current music trends is one of her greatest skills. It surprised some that the Broadway songstress could find success in the pop world dominated by disco, but Streisand’s musical and music industry prowess served her well. The New York Times called the pairing between Summer and Streisand "smart as a stylistic statement."

Streisand’s most successful album is 1980's Guilty, included a mix of pop songs and standards as well as charting singles "Woman in Love," "Guilty," and "What Kind of Fool Am I." Her love of Broadway never faded and she frequently returned to her beloved genre.In 1985 she returned to the White Way’s style and released The Broadway Album, which surprised Columbia execs with its commercial success — it went quadruple platinum and was number one on the Billboard charts for three weeks.

As Streisand sailed into the 90s, she began to rehash some of her own greatest hits while still producing new work. In 1991's four disc compilation Just for the Record…Streisand released early recordings, live performances, and her back catalogue. While it didn’t bring anything totally new, it did have commercial and critical success. The 1993 Back to Broadway was successful, but not as much of a sensation as her previous efforts. Leaving behind the Broadway style (for now), Streisand went back to the pop style she’d previously found success with. 1997’s Higher Ground, which included a duet with Celine Dion, debuted at No. 1 on the US Billboard chart. The following year's A Love Like Ours, Streisand went country on one track and had success with the Vince Gill duet, "Will You Ever Leave Me."

Streisand did not slow down as she sailed into the new millennium and her sixties. She released three albums in the first half of the decade, including a Christmas album and one made up of film songs. Streisand’s 29th Top 10 album came in the form of Live in Concert 2006, a recording of her hugely successful North American and European tour. In 2009, Streisand followed up with Love Is the Answer, an album chock full of jazzy standards. It debuted at No. 1 and became the multihyphenate's ninth No. 1 on the Billboard chart.

This highly productive streak continued into the 2010s, with multiple releases and tours. Her 2014 duets album, Partners, certified gold and then platinum, which made Streisand the female artist with the most gold and platinum albums in history and the only artist to have No. 1 albums in six consecutive decades. 2016’s Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway included some surprising duet partners known more for their acting and/or comedy, including Alec Baldwin, Melissa McCartney, and Seth MacFarlane. Her most recent album, 2018’s Walls, critiqued American politics, with the title track as well as "Don’t Lie to Me" referencing Streisand’s displeasure with President Trump and his policies. The album comes full circle with a new rendition of her original star-making song, "Happy Days Are Here Again."

After a short hiatus, Streisand returned to recording and released the now GRAMMY-nominated single "Love Will Survive." While her voice had deepened and become slightly huskier over the years, her velvety tone and dramatic performance style has carried Streisand through with grace. Throughout, Streisand has been a huge participant in multiple aspects of her music, including, as with this newest single, contributing to the writing of them, as well as helping guide them to the finish line in terms of albums, performances, and marketing.

Television Programing

A consummate performer, Streisand's skill stretches far beyond the recording studio. Early in her career, the small screen proved a perfect match for the artist's vocal chops and acting skills. Streisand first appeared on television in 1962 on Jack Paar’s "The Tonight Show," but most of her notable TV appearances were her concert shows and specials. She won three Emmys and had many nominations for these concerts and "Barbra: The Concert," earned her a Peabody Award for Achievement in Television.

As with her early television appearances, Streisand's specials typically feature a mix of romantic, emotional singing and humorous banter. Her mix of popular music, classics from the stage, and her film hits made these specials accessible to all her fans across these mediums.

Her first special, My Name Is Barbra, (which shares a name with her nominated memoir) won Streisand her first Emmy in 1965. Barbra Streisand: The Concert, a filmed version of her hugely successful 1995 Vegas residency and tour, won a Peabody. Streisand continued to release televised and film versions of her tours over the years: Streisand recounted her 2006 tour (a comeback after a "farewell tour" 13 years prior), while a film version of her concert, One Night Only, featured special guests in the audience including the Clintons and Nicole Kidman.

Stage Performer Extraordinaire

As a young person, Streisand was inspired to become an actress from a production of "The Diary of Anne Frank" and the Method acting pioneer Stanislavski. While Streisand originally endeavored to become an actress, she soon found that her skill as a singer would get her in the showbiz door.

Her first professional gig was as a nightclub singer, opening for comedian Phyllis Diller, which led to her eventual Broadway debut in 1962 in "I Can Get It for You Wholesale." The show was reviewed well, earned her a Tony nomination, and she appears on the cast album.

However, her most iconic stage performance was when she played Fanny Brice in "Funny Girl" both on Broadway and in the West End before reprising the role on film. In the show, Streisand plays the real-life Fanny Brice (1891-1951), a comedian, singer, and Broadway star. No revival has been able to successfully capture the magic of this Fanny Brice portrayal.

Streisand helped the world ring in Y2K with a sold out concert in Vegas and followed up with Timeless: the Album. After a few additional live events, Streisand announced that she would retire from live performance. However, following a stint dueting with Tony Bennett in 2006, Streisand announced that she would be touring again. The subsequent tour in 2007 became her most lucrative tour to date, bringing in $119.5 million, and also marked Streisand’s first time touring Europe. Interestingly, she didn’t perform live in her home-borough of Brooklyn until 2012. She also performed in Tel Aviv in 2013, marking her full journey around the world.

A Star Is Born On Screen

The film version of Funny Girl made Barbra Streisand known as a screen actress. Decades into her career, Streisand's versatility on screen and behind the scenes cemented her as one of the great film figures of the 20th century.

Fittingly, most of her films involve her singing or music in some capacity, which put her name on fifteen soundtracks to date. After winning an Academy Award for her role in Funny Girl, Streisand played the titular role in the 1969 film Hello Dolly! (Ironically, the stage play of "Funny Girl" lost a Tony to that of "Hello Dolly!)

She followed up with On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, which was also based on a Broadway musical, and screen adaptation The Owl and the Pussycat. She also appeared as Fanny Brice again in the 1975 sequel to Funny Girl, Funny Lady, which received Golden Globe nominations, including for Streisand as Best Actress. It was considered a box office success, but was not well reviewed.

Streisand received praise for her comedy chops in her films of the 1970s, but is perhaps best known for her dramatic turn in The Way We Were with Robert Redford. She went on to star in A Star Is Born, and won her second Oscar for Best Original Song, "Love Theme From A Star Is Born (Evergreen)" from the 1976 film as well as two GRAMMYs for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Song Of The Year. These were the star’s fifth and sixth GRAMMY Awards.

As her career progressed, Streisand also made a name as a director — often directing herself. In her first outing as director, Yentl, Streisand also starred in, co-wrote, and produced the movie. She also starred in, directed, and produced The Prince of Tides (1991) and The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996).

Streisand contributed to the soundtracks of her projects as well, with original compositions that she often produced. Besides her own multi-hat projects, Streisand has appeared in, directed, or produced several other films throughout the years, including The Guilt Trip with Seth Rogen, via her production companies First Artists and Barwood Films.

A Political Powerhouse

Throughout her career, Streisand has used her skills and influence as a recording artist to help political candidates and to raise money for causes she believes in, most of which align with the Democratic Party. Her concerts and appearances have helped promote the presidential campaigns of George McGovern, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. She performed at Clinton’s inauguration, and her performance is often lauded as one of the best inauguration performances.

Outside of politics, Streisand has used her star power to raise money for human and civil rights causes; her live performances have raised over $25 million for charitable causes under the umbrella of the Streisand Foundation. Among her charity work is a 2010 "We Are the World" 25th anniversary performance, which raised money for Haiti after they suffered an earthquake. She has helped promote women’s rights, spoke out and donated following the death of George Floyd, and helped raise Medical Aid for Ukraine. She has performed in Israel and has fundraised for the Israel Defence Funds. Streisand is widely considered a gay icon and a champion for gay rights.

Throughout the six decades of her career, Streisand has used her "diva" status not to demand what she wants, but to help shape a compassionate, healthy world. At age 83, she shows no signs of stopping, and, as this year’s nominated projects demonstrate, the legend still has more to say.