Streisand / LIVE 

Cafe Pompeii was another stop on Barbra Streisand's promotional tour for her first album. Barbra performed for the tanned, elderly Miami crowd.

Barbra shared the bill at the Eden Roc with Sergio Franchi. The Miami Herald review stated “Miss Streisand is the freshest, most provocative singer to walk into the show business clearing in many years, as anybody knows who has seen her appearances on Johnny Carson's NBC Tonight TV show. Franchi is a lean, strikingly handsome Italian baritone with a voice of unbelievable range and color. He, too, was flushed out of obscurity by television - on Ed Sullivan's CBS show.”

The Herald continued:

“Miss Streisand, a big girl with fey green eyes and the profile of an Egyptian princess of ancient dynasty, is an avante-garde singer. Her hands grope the air, her head rocks back and out comes singing of the most off-beat exciting kind. And songs of content and arrangement miles outside the standard pale.

The one of two standards she belts out are her own tongue-in-cheek versions -- such songs as "Lover, Come Back to Me," "Big Bad Wolf," and "Happy Days Are Here Again" - done with a sort of mad mockery. The "Happy Days" anthem of the New Deal sounds in Miss Streisand's treatment as if it had been a Republican idea.”

Bob Freund wrote in his Ft. Lauderdale News column that Eddie Fisher, Kenny Miller, Joe E. Lewis and Lisa Hall attended opening night of Franchi/Streisand.

Meanwhile, the Miami News' Herb Kelly wrote that “her opening songs were of the intimate room type but when she moved into ‘Cry Me a River,’ ‘Lover Come Back to Me’ and ‘Coloring Book’ she had it made.”

In his book, Truth Be Told: Off the Record about Favorite Guests, Memorable Moments, Funniest Jokes, and a Half Century of Asking Questions, the venerable talk show host Larry King wrote, “I'll never forget when I first met Barbra Streisand. She was relatively unknown and singing at the Eden Roc in Miami Beach. Her manager called me up and said, ‘Nobody's coming. The waiters are standing on the tables applauding, but nobody else is here. Will you put her on the radio?’”

Streisand appeared on Larry King's WPST show, “Miami Undercover,” in March 1963. King said that before her interview she told him, “I know you don't know me. But you are going to know me, Larry King, you are going to know me.”

While performing at the Eden Roc, Streisand was booked to  appear on Ed Sullivan's show.  Therefore, Cafe Pompeii announced they would close for the night she flew to New York and back, then resume her shows on Monday, March 25th.

Ft. Lauderdale News Review—March 21, 1963

Bravos Greet Rousing Singers Franchi, Streisand

By Bob Freund

When’s the last time you heard “bravos” ring out in a big plush night club? We don't mean the noise elicited by a jammed-to-the-rafters house, or an emotional outburst of screaming for a popular star with an emotional torch to burn. We mean a spontaneous appreciation of a non-capacity room bestowing praise on two fresh acts.

That is what happened Tuesday night at the Cafe Pompeii of the Eden Roc Hotel. Both Sergio Franchi and Barbra Streisand chalked up personal triumphs in their relatively short nitery careers. Miss Streisand has only recently hit the big time after scoring in “I Can Get It for You Wholesale” on Broadway, and Franchi, while a big club attraction in Europe, has just in the last few months taken this country by storm [....]

The slightly weirdo Miss Streisand achieved an equally vociferous reception. She began quietly, in her odd way, dressed in what can only be described as “empire culottes,” edged at the cuffs in feathers.

A strikingly homely face tops this strange girl, who belts with an emotion you little suspect is there at first. She opens with a fine special material number called “Much More,” turns to rhythm in “My Honey's Lovin’ Arms,” and displays a marvelous feeling for lyrics in “Right as the Rain.”

Act Builds Slowly To Solid Finish

She received a minor ovation with an emotion-charged “Cry Me a River,” and an up-tempoed “Lover Come Back to Me.” Her wild sense of humor, which took a while breaking through the less-than-intimate walls of the Roc, began to grab the audience bit by bit and she wound to a solid finish with “I’m in Love with Harold Mengert,” as bewilderingly funny a song as you're likely to hear.

But that wasn’t all. Barbra came back with her specialty, “Coloring Book,” said “People say I don’t sing enough standards, so how about this one” and it was “The Big Bad Wolf,” with some extra lines Walt Disney never dreamed of.

She really proved her unique abilities when she did “Happy Days Are Here Again” as a closer. And she did it as a heartfelt, emotional ballad, with a slow tempo mounting to a throbbing climax. Top that for inventiveness if you can, and credit Barbra Streisand for being the freshest, most unusual new femme in the nitery field.

ABOVE PHOTO:  Barbra Streisand and Elliott Gould snapped by a photographer from the Miami News at the Miami International airport. Photo courtesy of Todd Sussman.

BELOW PHOTO: Streisand and Gould at an Eden Roc table.