Hello, Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisand (19 page)

Diana had to admit that Barbra looked good. A little classier and more stylish than in the past. Somebody must be helping her pick out nicer clothes, Diana thought. She was pleased about that, though, of course, she wouldn’t tell Barbra she was pleased; if she did, that stubborn kid would probably decide she was doing something wrong if her mother liked what she was wearing and go back to her old ways.

Diana thought Barbra had sounded good, too, when she’d sung a couple of songs on the show. Of course, Diana wouldn’t tell her that either, because to do so would just encourage her in this crazy show-business dream she had, and Diana would never, ever do that. But she’d told her friends that Barbra “sang very well on the Paar show.” And she’d enjoyed watching her kid make conversation with Orson Bean and the other guests, Henny Youngman and that funny “Professor,” Irwin Corey.

But tonight the Paar show hadn’t been nearly as enjoyable. There, on the same set where Barbra had sat not so long ago, Barbra was derided, not applauded, and Diana was furious.

Jack Paar was back in the host’s chair, and he must have seen the show while he was on vacation, because he mentioned “that Barbra Streisand” who’d been a guest and made a joke at her expense. A joke that implied Barbra was ugly. That was how Diana described it to friends, and she was “so angry she could have spit.”

It was true that Diana rarely complimented her daughter. But, as one friend understood it, “she thought Barbra had her own beauty, her own style, and that she was certainly not ugly.” And here Barbra was, looking better than ever, Diana thought, and that boor, Jack Paar, was making a joke at her expense. And on national television where all Diana’s friends could hear it!

Diana snapped off the set. Taking a piece of paper from her desk, she began to write. “Dear Mr. Paar, I am Barbra Streisand’s mother,” she scrawled—or words to that effect. “How would you feel if I said something unkind about
your
daughter on national television?” She called him “incredibly rude.” Then she put the letter in an envelope and mailed it off to NBC.

Typically, she had couched her letter from her own perspective: She hadn’t asked how Paar’s
daughter
would have felt, after all. But that didn’t mean her own embarrassment had obliterated any concern for Barbra’s feelings. She told her friends that she wouldn’t tell her daughter about any of this. If Barbra hadn’t heard what Paar had said about her, then it was best to keep it that way, Diana believed.

As far as her friends knew, Diana never got a response from Paar. Nor, they thought, did Barbra ever know
how her mother had tried, in her own small, imperfect way, to do right by her.