Since she first got her break on the Broadway stage in 1962, Barbra Streisand has elicited extreme reactions from her public and from critics. Either adored or detested, the Streisand persona has, almost from the beginning, been larger than life. Indeed, it has almost overshadowed her considerable talents as singer, actress, director, producer, and writer. Though she has often been confused, frightened, and angered by both the homage and the vitriol heaped upon her, she has remained a strong personality, a productive artist, and a phenomenon in the entertainment field.

Born Barbara Joan Streisand in 1942, in Brooklyn, New York, to Jewish working-class parents, Streisand's father died when she was 15 months old. Within a few years her mother had remarried. Streisand's stepfather was an emotionally abusive man, who her mother described as "allergic to children." Her mother was undemonstrative, calling her daughter "ugly" and ridiculing the...