Barbra Streisand’s career accomplishments are the stuff of legend: After leading the original Broadway production of Funny Girl in her early 20s (and an Oscar-winning film adaptation a few years later, in 1968), she was off to the races, forging a body of work that touched everything from zippy screwball comedies to swooning romantic dramas; three impressively varied directorial efforts; a zillion chart-topping, Grammy-winning studio albums; and a 970-page memoir.
To celebrate her 83rd birthday today, we’ve gathered some of the most glamorous old pictures of the greatest star that we could find. Hello, gorgeous!
Photo: Getty Images1/351963
Born in Brooklyn on April 24, 1942, Barbra Streisand began her music career in the early 1960s, stringing together gigs at New York nightclubs while she auditioned for acting jobs. (She has, over the years, referred to herself as “an actor who sings.”) She’s pictured here at 21, just a few months after The Barbra Streisand Album—her first—was released.
Photo: Getty Images2/35Early 1960s
Putting on a show in her 20s.
Photo: Getty Images3/351963
With Judy Garland on The Judy Garland Show, where the two performed a stirring rendition of the 1929 standard “Happy Days Are Here Again” crossed with Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler’s “Get Happy.”
Photo: Getty Images4/35Early 1960s
Modeling a vintage coat from her wardrobe. “I haunt local thrift shops and offbeat stores. You can find more interesting clothes there,” she told Cue magazine in 1963. “I particularly like clothes of the late twenties and early thirties.”
Photo: Getty Images5/351965
From 1963 to 1971, Streisand was married to the actor Elliott Gould, whom she met while working on the Broadway musical I Can Get It for You Wholesale. “I found her absolutely exquisite,” Gould told Time magazine in 1964.
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1965
Recieving a special guest—designer Yves Saint Laurent—backstage at Funny Girl with her dog Sadie.
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1965
On the set of her first Emmy-winning CBS television special, My Name Is Barbra.
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c. 1967
As Fanny Brice in William Wyler’s Funny Girl. After playing the part both on Broadway and on London’s West End, Streisand won an Oscar for it in her feature-film debut.
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1967
On stage during A Happening in Central Park, Streisand’s concert in Sheep Meadow on June 17, 1967. Free and open to the public, the performance attracted some 135,000 people.
Photo: Getty Images10/351968
Garrison, New York, stood in for turn-of-the-century Yonkers when Streisand (at bottom right) starred opposite Walter Matthau in Hello Dolly, directed for the screen by Gene Kelly.
Photo: Getty Images11/351969
Embracing her younger half-sister, singer Roslyn Kind.
Photo: Getty Images12/351969
Clad in a graphic ensemble by Scaasi for Vincente Minnelli’s On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.
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1970
Attending the Cue Magazine Awards at the Pierre Hotel.
Photo: Getty Images14/35c. 1970
In 1970, Streisand starred in the romantic comedy The Owl and the Pussycat opposite George Segal. Directed by Herbert Ross (The Goodbye Girl, Footloose, Steel Magnolias) from an adapted screenplay by Buck Henry (The Graduate), it follows a sex worker named Doris who is forced to move in with her stuffed-shirt neighbor.
Earlier that year, Streisand’s mother, Diana Kind, had told the Times about her visit to the film’s set. “She had on a skimpy costume and was very embarrassed when she saw me,” Kind recalled. “I’m really shocked at all these things an actress has to do today. But I guess it’s part of the job.”
Photo: Getty Images15/351970
At a benefit for Bella Abzug’s congressional campaign, Streisand opted for coordinating polka dots.
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c. 1971
Wearing a jaunty checked coat and tidy topknot as she chats with Peter Bogdanovich.
Photo: Getty Images17/35c. 1971
With Ryan O’Neal and director Peter Bogdanovich on the set of What’s Up Doc. Streisand would re-team with O’Neal—her boyfriend for a time—in the 1979 boxing rom-com The Main Event.
Photo: Getty Images18/351971
Streisand and Gould share one son, the actor and singer Jason Gould, born in 1966. In 1991, he would appear with his mother in The Prince of Tides, her adaptation of the 1986 novel by Pat Conroy.
Photo: Getty Images19/351972
In 1972, Streisand participated in a fundraising concert for George McGovern’s presidential campaign at the Forum in Los Angeles. Also on hand were the likes of Carole King, James Taylor, and Quincy Jones.
Photo: Getty Images20/35c. 1972
Shooting the iconic final scene of Sydney Pollack’s The Way We Were with Robert Redford. For her performance as Katie Morosky, Streisand earned her second Oscar nomination for best actress.
Photo: Getty Images21/351973
Sharing the stage with Ray Charles for another TV special, Barbra Streisand…and Other Musical Instruments.
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c. 1974
Sporting a pixie cut (and an impish grin) in a promotional image for Peter Yates’s screwball comedy For Pete’s Sake, co-starring Michael Sarrazin.
Photo: Getty Images23/351975
With then-beau Jon Peters (and a leonine fur) at JFK airport.
Photo: Getty Images24/351975
Greeting Queen Elizabeth at the London premiere of Funny Lady—the sequel to Funny Girl—as co-star James Caan looks on.
Photo: Getty Images25/35c. 1976
After versions led by Janet Gaynor and Fredric March (in 1937) and Judy Garland and James Mason (in 1954), Streisand starred in a third A Star Is Born with Kris Kristofferson in 1976. This iteration, directed by Frank Pierson from a screenplay co-written by John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion, moved the story’s action from Hollywood to the music industry. It won Streisand her second Oscar, this time for best song (“Evergreen”).
Photo: Getty Images26/351976
Among A Star Is Born’s most impressive set pieces was a very large, very real concert at the Sun Devil Stadium in Arizona.
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1976
In patterned bohemian separates while filming A Star Is Born. All of the clothing in the film came from Streisand’s own wardrobe.
Photo: Getty Images28/35c. 1977
With Neil Diamond—her erstwhile classmate at Erasmus Hall High School in Flatbush, Brooklyn—promoting their hit duet, “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers.”
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1982
Posing with Geraldo Rivera, who interviewed Streisand about the making of Yentl, her 1983 directorial debut, for 20/20.
Photo: Getty Images30/351983
Out to dinner with Steven Spielberg in London. After seeing a cut of Yentl, Spielberg allegedly called it “the best first film since Citizen Kane.”
Photo: Getty Images31/351984
Starring Streisand, Mandy Patinkin, and Amy Irving, Yentl did well at the 1984 Golden Globes, making Streisand the first woman to win best director. (It also scooped up the prize for best musical or comedy.)
Photo: Getty Images32/351988
Streisand with Don Johnson, another paramour. The two duetted on the song “Till I Loved You” from her 1988 album of the same name, and Streisand made a (very brief) cameo in his hit series Miami Vice during Season 4.
Photo: Getty Images33/351989
With Michael Douglas, Don Gummer, Mick Jagger, Meryl Streep, and Jerry Hall during the Rolling Stones’ Steel Wheels Tour.
Photo: Getty Images34/351992
At the 34th Grammys, Stephen Sondheim presented Streisand with the Grammy Living Legend award. “She’s as good as they come,” he said warmlys in his opening speech.
Photo: Getty Images35/351997
With James Brolin—whom she would marry in 1998—at the Academy Awards. That year, her film The Mirror Has Two Faces was up for best song (“I Finally Found Someone”) and best supporting actress (for Lauren Bacall).
