Biopics have been all the rage in recent years with performers like Elton John, Joey Ramone, Elvis Presley and Freddie Mercury all becoming the subjects of films about their lives (just to name a few).
However, Babara Streisand is not keen to have a film made about her life anytime soon, telling Marc Malkin from The Variety podcast recently that she’d have to be “gone” for it to come out.
“After I’m gone,” she said. “Not while I’m alive. No, no, no, no, no, no. I’d just say, listen to the truth in my book and portray me truthfully, but not while I’m here. I get upset when something’s false or something’s a lie.
“That’s why I wrote the song, ‘Don’t Lie to Me.’ I couldn’t help making a video. I probably really lost a lot of people, a lot of fans doing that. But you have to face the truth. I have to face my own truth. I have to face what I think is going on in the world. That’s who I am. I just believe in the power of the truth.”
The book the iconic singer was referring to is her long-awaited memoir, which Streisand says she has almost finished.
“I have one more long chapter called ‘The Epilogue'”, she said. “My book ends with my marriage to Jim (Brolin, in 1998), but then the epilogue has to take me further on.”
Revealing that there were certainly moments while penning the memoir that were difficult in recalling times from her past, Streisand said that sometimes she was not able to push past and write it all down.
“You know how many pages the book is so far? 824 pages,” she said. “But how about this? My lucky number is 24. My last Grammy was on February 24th. I didn’t think I was going to win against Madonna and Tina Turner and a couple of other girls that were wonderful and contemporary.”
Over the course of her career, Streisand has won eight Grammy Awards out of 43 nominations and is also one of a very select group to boast the title of EGOT (someone who has won an Emmy, Tony, Grammy and Oscar).
Her most recent album is called Release Me 2 and is a collection of 10 recordings from her vault that have never been released.
While we will hopefully be waiting a very long time for that biopic on the legendary singer, director, actor and activist, we might be lucky enough to have a documentary about Streisand a little sooner.
“We’ve been putting together a documentary for the last, I think, 20 years,” she told Malkin. “I just haven’t [had time]. I’ve been busy. After I finish my book, I will think about the documentary.”
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