On November 7, one of the most highly-anticipated celebrity memoirs in recent memory finally arrived — years after it was first teased — and it’s chock full of tales the LGBTQ community will surely salivate over.
Barbra Streisand’s book My Name Is Barbra arrived in stores on Tuesday, and it took up a lot of space. The memoir comes in at just under 1,000 pages, which makes it an intimidating read for anyone who doesn’t identify as a super fan of the EGOT winner.
The book covers her decades in the spotlight, and she touches on many of the songs, shows, and movies that people still remember and love to this day.
Ahead of the release of My Name Is Barbra, People shared several excerpts that should get any Streisand lover — and even those who don’t already identify as such — interested in the book.
One short snippet published by the magazine shows the superstar speaking of her relationship with another gay icon — Judy Garland.
The two singers and actors spent some time together during their time as stars, but they are perhaps best remembered for their performance of a medley of “Happy Days Are Here Again / Get Happy” on Garland’s TV variety show.
If you haven’t that duet, check it out below, as it’s required viewing for all gay men.
Here is the excerpt in full:
“People were looking for some sort of rivalry between us. And when they couldn’t find anything, they made it up. I found Judy to be completely generous. We sang a medley of songs, taking turns, and she wasn’t just focused on herself. She watched me and responded to me. She would reach out and brush back a strand of my hair, like a mother. And Judy’s own daughter, Liza Minnelli, says that her mother’s first reaction on hearing me sing was to say, ‘I’m never going to open my mouth again.’ She was like that, very self‑deprecating. And deeply vulnerable.
“Judy and I became friends. We spoke on the phone, and she came to one of the rare parties I gave at my New York apartment (four in thirty‑five years). I think she arrived late. And I remember her saying something I never quite understood: ‘Don’t let them do to you what they did to me.’ I should have asked her what she meant, but I didn’t want to appear too nosy.
Six years after we did [The Judy Garland Show], she was dead at the age of forty‑seven. What a tragedy . . . and such a loss. She was an extraordinary talent.”
The Grammy-nominated musician’s latest might not have the makings of a chart-topper, but it deserves to be heard all summer in gay clubs.
July 15, 2024
Kesha is back.
Sorry, let me be more clear: Ke$ha is back.
The dance-pop singer has returned with her new single “Joyride,” officially kicking off a new chapter of her career. The tune is her first since being released from her contract with Dr. Luke, the man who helped propel her to super-stardom, but who Kesha also accused of sexual assault.
“Joyride” is an anthemic EDM track that can only be described as a banger. It begins with an odd accordion loop, which almost makes it seem like Kesha is leaning into polka. Don’t worry, that’s not the case, and her use of the instrument on the poppy cut somehow works brilliantly.
Fanny Brice really was the greatest star, at least at the Ziegfeld Follies. The famously expressive singer-comedian headlined the premier Broadway theatrical revue for years in the 1910s, ’20s, and ’30s, then segued to radio stardom, motion pictures, and a hit-making recording career highlighted by signature songs “Second-Hand Rose” and “My Man.”
But Fanny appeared in only a few films of note, and folks don’t much listen to her music anymore. Her legacy as a performer has largely been supplanted by the popularity of Funny Girl, the musical that’s loosely based on her life and that the whole world associates with a different funny girl from New York City.
For more than a decade, Annie Baker has been known in the theater world as a prolific author of plays that center the quotidian rhythms of daily life, often in New England. Baker's 2013 play The Flick, about the employees of a decrepit old movie palace, won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, though its length and stylistic quirks proved polarizing. In the New Yorker, Nathan Heller wrote that Baker "has pioneered a style of theatre made to seem as untheatrical as possible."
That quality of ordinary life defines Janet Planet, Baker's quietly remarkable debut as a filmmaker. It's a drama of the everyday, wryly funny and defiantly small -- the sort of movie where not much happens in terms of plot, but a whole lot happens in the inner world of the protagonist, a young girl named Lacy.
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