Barry DENNEN - American Actor & screenplayer (1938)
Barry Dennen is also the man who invented
Barbra Streisand.
He met the ambitious teenager in acting class and became the first man in her life. Along the way he discovered she could sing but she knew nothing about the great singers or American songbook. He taught her about Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Helen Morgan, Edith Piaf, Judy Garland (with whom she would later work), and comedy recordings of Beatrice Lilly.
When Streisand's acting career seemed stalled, he suggested she try cabaret. He worked with her for days on her first song, the Harold Arlen number "A Sleepin' Bee", teaching her how to phrase a lyric as naturally as if she was speaking. When she won a singing contest in a gay bar, Barry helped her put together a whole set of songs that essentially became her first act. Several of those songs ended up years later on her first album.
Their affair lasted less than a year. Barry was learning that he was more gay than bisexual, and Barbra wasn't really interested in anyone's career but her own at that point. After the split, within a few years Barbra was the biggest star in the country, and Barry was still a struggling actor - until he broke through with
Jesus Christ Superstar in the 1970s.
Barry's sons now inherit his estate, which I assume includes some much discussed reel to reel recordings he made of Streisand during those formative months. Barbra wanted to include some of that material on an album, but Dennen refused to let her have them. He himself tried to sell them at auction several years ago, but backed off after bad PR about him exploiting his Streisand connection. It will be interesting to learn if anything will become of them and if they will ever be made public.