Streisand’s autobiography, My Name is Barbra, finally hits the streets on Tuesday.  And it promises to have…almost no revelations.  Don’t believe me?  Let’s compare it to Britney.  Did Barbra have an abortion?  Or dance with a python?  Did Diana try to have her declared incompetent?  Who wouldn’t wanna hear Barbra scream, “I won’t be nuts for you!”  Oh, wait…she did that already.  But unlike Britney, we’ll be hearing a lot from Barbra.  She does her own audio book.  Didya know it clocks in at 48 hours and 15 minutes?  You could walk from New York City to Los Angeles listening to it and only be up to her divorce from Elliott Gould!  She’ll also do a few interviews, but most of them are tightly scripted and pre-taped.  Gayle King?  In the can.  Stephen Colbert (who never does pre-taped interviews)?  Done.  The wild card is a live sit-down with Howard Stern.  If he’s anything like he was in 1994 when he interviewed Roslyn Kind (who he insists on calling by her legal name, “Barbra Streisand’s Sister”), we might get something juicy.  You can see his chat with Roslyn on BillyMasters.com.

People have asked me what I would ask Babs if I had her on Billy Masters LIVE (it’s only a matter of time).  I do have one question nobody else would ask – is there any truth to the rumor that her understudy when she did Funny Girl on Broadway was Liza Minnelli?  Yes, it sounds preposterous – and, it would have happened over Lainie Kazan’s cold, dead body!  But the story comes from Judy Garland herself.  In May of 1964, Judy was touring Australia and an interviewer asked her about Liza.  “She’s now understudying Barbra Streisand in a Broadway show.”  Funny Girl opened on Broadway on March 26, 1964.  It bears noting that in 1964, I’m not sure Judy Garland knew where SHE was, let alone where Liza was!  You can also see this interview on our website.

Lest anyone think this is Streisand’s swan song, think again.  While she recently released two collections of old music, she hasn’t recorded any new material since Walls in 2018.  As we went to press, a little birdie told us that the 81-year-old is headed back in the studio in January – and could even perform again.  Stay tuned…