As we did in 2021, we're attempting to again increase book coverage in the community. After a review posts, we try to do a discussion with the reviewer. This go round, we're talking to Trina about her "" -- a review of Barbra Streisand's MY NAME IS BARBRA which we wrote about in "Media: MY NAME IS BARBRA, my game is pity party." So you decided to read MY NAME IS BARBRA as well?
Trina:
I did. A friend sent it to me. She was ticked that Barbra didn't even
acknowledge her in the book. They'd worked together multiple times and
were supposedly friends.
Was it ____ ______?
Trina: It was. You know her?
C.I.: Yes, through Jane [Fonda]. I can understand her being upset, by the way. How do you know her?
Trina: My youngest brother served in the military with _____ _____'s son. They were both stationed in Japan.
So you weren't impressed with the book.
Trina:
No. I found it pathetic. She's just not happy -- boo-hoo. Whine on.
She's got all the money in the world, travels any time she wants and is
supposedly happily married. Nothing is enough for her. And don't
claim that she gave her life to her work because there's no one lazier
as she herself admits in interviews and in parts of the book. That's
just pathetic. Her 'memories' are a joke as well.
You wrote about she short changed her fans.
Trina:
She did. She wants to whine about people coming up to her at meals for
a picture or autograph. Boo-hoo. I've been out in public with C.I.
eating and people stop her all the time. She's never complained to the
people and she's never complained after they walk off. One time, a line
of people stopped her from eating for at least 20 minutes and, C.I.,
you signed every autograph and took every selfie.
C.I.:
Well different people have different attitudes. There was a period
where, for example, Jane Fonda wouldn't do autographs. She felt it was
elitist and presenting some sort of barrier between her and other
people. She relaxed that stand by the mid 70s. Then there are the
awful two actresses from THE GOOD WIFE who think they're too good to be
spoken to by 'mere' fans. I'm lucky to have the life I do and the fans
paid my bills and I know that. There are times when I'll say, "I'm
sorry, I'm dizzy. Can you come back over in ten minutes?" I really
need to get some food down in times like that or I will pass out. But
that's rare and when I do say that, I do mean come back over in ten.
I've also spent years now speaking to large groups and I know that's a
result of what the people who like my work created. So I am very
thankful to them and I've never had a problem meeting these people
who've taken the time, and spent their money, to follow and make my
career. Back to Barbra and her fans.
Trina:
I knew through ____ ____ that she didn't like her fans. But that's
obvious in the book as well as she does substandard recordings and films
and knows that they are substandard but still foists them off on her
loyal fans. The only one she hates more than her fans? Jon Peters.
That woman looks like a damn liar. If you lived in the 70s, you know
she presented him as everything and the most important and the smartest
and the this and the that. Turns out, she hated him and begrudges him
so much. Ten dollars. He needed ten for gas and he asked her for it.
Five decades later, the woman worth over $80 million is whining about 10
dollars she gave her then-boyfriend for gas. She says it was a loan
and he didn't repay her. She's such a miser. It's like she has a
financial ledger on everyone but especially on Jon Peters. She never
should have dated him, she says. But she's the one who lied and lied
repeatedly. COLUMBIA RECORDS had to bring in staff to fix BUTTERFLY
which she let him produce. In her book, she notes he did an awful job.
She claims she rescued it. But in real time, when the people COLUMBIA
hired to fix it spoke to the press, she said the album was perfect, that
Jon had done a great job and no one else had worked on it. She did
this over and over. The issue wasn't that she got with him, the issue
was that she repeatedly lied for him. That she doesn't own up to in the
book. No one forced her to sit with him for an interview with Barbara
Walters. That interview is available on YOUTUBE. She comes across
repeatedly as a liar. I was not expecting that. She also doesn't
remember anything about most of her life. But she does remember she was
a victim over and over. Sidney Chaplin, Jon Peters, oh the poor
victimized Barbra. And I don't believe that she didn't have Georgia cut
out of FUNNY GIRL. She earned her lousy image as the book makes
clear. In your review, Ava and C.I., you talked about how, as a
director, she tricked actors. I still consider that underhanded.
C.I.:
I do as well. One time to get whatever emotion he wanted out of me, a
director acted all worried, pulled me aside and, with tears falling from
his eyes, told me, "Your father just died." I looked at him for a
minute and said, "No, he didn't. Don't screw around with people like
that." A real director doesn't do that.
Trina:
My book review went up over the weekend and I got a few e-mails. One
said that Barbra burned off all good will when she refused to sing "The
Way We Were" at the Oscars. And she sort of mentions it in the book.
C.I.:
I must have skipped that part of the book. Here's what happened.
Barbra said she wouldn't perform at the Academy Awards ceremony. "The
Way We Were" was a nominated song. The Academy asked Peggy Lee to sing
it. As it got closer to the awards being handed out, Barbra decided she
would sing it and told the Academy. They explained it was too late,
they'd already asked Peggy Lee. Barbra cursed out the producer of the
broadcast. She then refused to sit in the audience because they
wouldn't let her sing the song. She hid out backstage convinced she was
going to win Best Actress. She planned to go on camera when she won.
She didn't win. And, yes, her behavior over that cost her good will.
Trina:
That's not how she tells it. She leaves out the whole 'I won't sing
the song, bump Peggy Lee because I'm singing the song.'
So recommended or not?
Trina:
Over 900 wasted pages and I include her 'detailing' her affairs while
married. I do wonder about how Elliot Gould reacted to the book. Oh,
and looking back, she should never have married him. She's lucky she
married him. Until Brolin, he was probably the only man she ever slept
with who actually did love her.
-----------------
Previous book discussions this year.
"Books (Stan, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Ty, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Rebecca, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Elaine, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Marcia, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Isaiah, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Trina, Isaiah, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Marcia, Rebecca, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Ann, Mike, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Stan, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Mike, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Ann, Elaine, Kat, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Isaiah, Stan, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Trina, Kat, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Marcia, Ann and C.I.)," "Books (Ruth, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Isaiah, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Mike, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Kat, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Marcia, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Trina, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Rebecca, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Isaiah, Kat, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Stan, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Kat, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Marcia, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Ann, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Trina, Ava and C.I.)," "Books (Marcia, Ava and C.I.)" and "Books (Ava and C.I.)."
