Barbra Streisand will sign and personalize her book My Name is Barbra to the lucky winner.
In 1992, Barbra Streisand was honored with the ACLU SoCal Bill of Rights Award. She has served on our board of directors for decades and is a longtime financial supporter of our work to protect civil rights and liberties. We are so proud to include this item in our auction.
In My Name Is Barbra, she tells her own story about her life and extraordinary career, from growing up in Brooklyn to her first star-making appearances in New York nightclubs to her breakout performance in Funny Girl on stage and winning the Oscar for that performance on film. Then came a long string of successes in every medium in the years that followed. The book is, like Barbra herself, frank, funny, opinionated, and charming. She recounts her early struggles to become an actress, eventually turning to singing to earn a living; the recording of some of her acclaimed albums; the years of effort involved in making Yentl; her direction of The Prince of Tides; her friendships with figures ranging from Marlon Brando to Madeleine Albright; her political advocacy; and the fulfillment she’s found in her marriage to James Brolin.
Widely recognized as an icon in multiple entertainment fields, Barbra Streisand has attained unprecedented achievements as a recording artist, actor, director, producer, screenwriter, author, songwriter and concert performer. Streisand has been awarded two Oscars, five Emmys, ten Grammys including two special Grammys, a Tony Award, eleven Golden Globes including the Cecil B. DeMille Award, three Peabodys, and the Director’s Guild Award for her concert special -- the only artist to receive honors in all of those areas.
In addition, Streisand has also received the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the Kennedy Center Honor. She also received the National Medal of Arts from President Clinton, the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama, and France’s Légion d'Honneur.
She is the first woman to direct, produce, write, and star in a major motion picture, the first woman composer to receive an Academy Award, the only recording artist who has achieved #1 albums in six consecutive decades, and the first woman to receive a Golden Globe Award for Best Director.
Streisand is a devoted philanthropist who works tirelessly to fight for what she believes in. She has been a leading voice in the civil and women’s rights movements since the 1960s. In 1986 she established The Streisand Foundation, through which she has fought for progressive ideals. She has been a leading environmental activist funding some of the earliest climate change research. She has long been a staunch supporter of racial equality, women’s rights, civil rights, and the very urgent need to protect voters’ rights.
In 2007 Streisand became deeply involved in the gender inequality that exists in the treatment of women with heart disease. In 2012, she made a commitment of $10 million and raised an additional $12 million to create a state of the art, first in its class facility to support the groundbreaking work of Dr. Noel Bairey Merz, and founded The Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai. Furthering the efforts, she co-founded the Women’s Heart Alliance, helping to raise awareness and push for more research into women’s heart disease, the leading cause of death among women. Additionally, in an effort to expand research and access, Ms. Streisand funds The UCLA Barbra Streisand Women's Heart Health Program. The program is a comprehensive cardiovascular program committed to providing education for women with, or at risk for heart disease as well as conducting state of the art scientific research aimed at improving women's heart health.
In 2021, she founded The Barbra Streisand Center also at UCLA studying Truth in the Public Sphere. The grant will eventually establish The Barbra Streisand Institute with four centers to study: Truth in the Publish Sphere, the Impact of Climate Change, the Dynamics of Intimacy & Power Between Women & Men, and the Impact of Art on the Culture. This forward-looking institute will be a place of research and exploration into vital issues that affect us all.
Please note that the ACLU of Southern California is a 501(c)4 organization and bids are not tax deductible.