from
Streisand takes a holiday
The singer-actor says she's content to be offstage and at home
with her family these days: ''It's nice to pass the
torch.''
)Associated Press
December 9, 2002
NEW YORK -- Barbra Streisand doesn't listen to most of today's pop
music, likes to spend time tending to her rose garden and isn't
rushing to return to the movie screen.
She may be the ultimate Hollywood diva, but the 60-year-old singer-actor
isn't immersed in show business much these days. And
she's loving that.
"I'm kind of content in my own life, and therefore, I don't need work,"
Streisand said in a recent phone interview. "I'm very busy
with my life and my family and stuff like that, and I try to have a good
time without having to work."
Streisand hasn't made a movie since 1996's The Mirror Has Two Faces, and
her latest album, Duets, released last month, contains
only two new songs. The rest is duets from her long career, with singers
ranging from Frank Sinatra to Donna Summer.
Although some of the material dates to the early 1960s, Streisand said
she doesn't really think about her past work much. "It's not
something that I have great nostalgia about."
She does have fond memories of her duet with Judy Garland on Get
Happy/Happy Days Are Here Again: "That was a very special
thing to meet her, and to have her support, and to have her kind of
cling on to me and feel protective of her."
Streisand plans to release new material next year, an album of movie
show tunes, from Shirley Temple songs to more recent
soundtrack hits.
Yet the eight-time Grammy winner doesn't keep up with today's pop scene.
She said: "I don't ever listen to it. I can't make it out."
She recently went to see Eminem's hit movie debut, 8 Mile, and had
trouble following what the rapper was saying. "Most of the
language I couldn't understand. It's like watching a foreign film,"
Streisand said.
However, she said, "This kid Eminem is really interesting. I can relate
to the truth, and I can relate to emotion, and I can relate to him
in some strange way. . . . I was raised in the projects. I was born in
Brooklyn. We were poor. I relate to that stuff because that's my
roots, my heritage."
As far as her movie career, the director and Academy Award-winning actor
and composer is sifting through scripts, but not much
interests her.
"I read things, but I feel very busy as a person, you know," Streisand
said. "I spend a lot of time with my garden. There's stuff that
has to do with life, real life, and not fantasy life."
Besides, she said, "It's time. It's nice to pass the torch, let the
younger generation take over and strut their stuff."
Her passion for politics hasn't waned. The Democratic booster said she
spends much of her day watching political programs and
reading articles, which she posts on her Web site.
Of the recent midterm elections, in which Republicans took control of
Congress, she said: "I think the first day or two after the
election, I was completely discouraged. You kind of say, 'I'm not going
to be involved in this anymore.' And then you say a few days
after that, 'Now is the time to fight even harder.' "
A favorite target of conservative pundits, she said: "What I resent is,
one is kept in a box, like if you're an artist, you can't have
political opinions?"
She credits her four-year marriage to actor James Brolin with helping
shift her attention to personal aspirations. They like to go out on
long drives in their truck, and she has been spending much of her time
overseeing construction on their new home and trading stocks.
"Believe me, I was very discouraged," she said of the stock market. "But
the market shows a certain kind of vitality now, so I find it
real fun."
Jerry
