Oscar Week: Barbra Streisand

                               

Oh come on. Did you really think I'd spend a whole week of writing about Oscar winners and creating portraits and not include Barbra Streisand? Shame on you!

Barbra won her Best Actress Oscar for her film debut in the 1968 film adaptation of her Broadway triumph Funny Girl. But it wasn't solely Barbra's Oscar; in a rare tie, Barbra shared the title of Best Actress with Katherine Hepburn. 

The footage of Ingrid Bergman making the announcement is priceless. She's clearly taken aback as she starts to read aloud, "the winner," pause, pause..."it's a tie!"

 A nervous smile dances across her face as she clasps her chin then clutches her chest. "The winners are Katherine Hepburn in  Lion in the Winter." Bergman places the "the" in the middle of the title instead of the beginning, but with her beautiful accent it doesn't much matter.

After polite applause she continues, "and Barbra Streisand!" The place pretty much goes ape shit. Streisand has the original Jennifer Lawrence moment catching her enormous bell bottom pant on the stairs as she heads to the podium, nearly going ass over tit (to borrow a phrase from Helen Mirren.) Luckily for Barbra, director Anthony Harvey, who was also on his way to the podium to collect Hepburn's Oscar, was holding her hand at the time and was able to keep her upright. 

Harvey speaks first. After he finishes Barbra steps to the microphone and takes a good long look at Oscar. The unmistakable sound of her jewelry clinking against Oscar can be heard just before she address the naked golden man with her opening line from Funny Girl, "Hello, gorgeous!"

Much has been written about the sheer and sparkly pant suit Streisand wore on Oscar night. Designed by Scaasi, who was also doing her modern costumes for On A Clear Day You Can See Forever around the same time, the outfit featured a large white collar, a satin bow tie, and over-sized cuffs and on the sleeves, as well as a thin black net lining to preserve Barbra's modestly. Unfortunately the lining was no match for the television lights and photographer's flash bulbs. Barbra appeared to be going commando, especially from her backside.

Though I don't agree, many fashion wags dubbed the outfit a disaster.  At least Barbra retained a sense of humor about the situation. As Scaasi would later write, "next morning Barbra was on the phone to me, laughing about the whole episode." 

A note about the illustration: it's from a color sketch I made, then altered using photo software, and finally   hand painted the edited image using a combination of watercolor, acrylic, and marker.