Barbara Streisand is sharing her reaction to snub in the Best Director category for ‘Yentl’ and ‘The Prince of Tides’
Barbara Streisand is sharing her reaction to snub in the Best Director category for ‘Yentl’ and ‘The Prince of Tides’
This years’ Oscar nominations have created headlines for leaving out Greta Gerwig in the Best Director category, but it’s nothing that hasn’t happened to Hollywood icon Barbara Streisand.
Barbara opened up about her Oscars snubs in the Best Director category in her memoir My Name is Barbra. The singer didn’t receive a Best Director nomination for both her 1983 classic Yentl and The Prince of Tides (1992).
She recalled that she couldn’t bring herself to attend the Academy Awards that year and instead watched on her TV at home.
“I tried to put a brave face on it,” she wrote of the snub. “But the truth is, I was devastated. I came down with the flu and I rarely get sick…Did they reject me because they didn’t like the movie? or is it because they didn’t like me?”
“I proved to myself that I could direct a movie with Yentl, and after that whole experience, I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it again,” Streisand shared. “Not being nominated [for The Prince of Tides] hurt even more.”
The Oscars have only nominated eight women in the coveted Best Director category, and only three have ever won: Kathryn Bigelow in 2010 for The Hurt Locker, Chloé Zhao in 2020 for Nomadland and Jane Campion in 2021 for The Power of the Dog.
When Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman ever to win the Best Director Oscar, it was Streisand herself who handed her the award. She admitted that she did “feel a little pang,” but “happily announced [Bigelow’s] name.”