A Star Is Born was sold to the public across several media platforms: the film itself (which earned millions in its first couple of months in release); the paperback novelization (selling over one million); the soundtrack album from Columbia Records (it went platinum within months); and the single “Love Theme From A Star Is Born (Evergreen)” which was playing on radio stations across the country and went to number one. On almost all of the products, the movie’s single iconic image appeared — Kristofferson and Streisand in a passionate embrace, photographed by the iconic Francesco Scavullo.
Scavullo photographed the covers of Cosmopolitan magazine for thirty years. He and Streisand worked together several years earlier (he captured the gorgeous image used on the cover of Classical Barbra).
Scavullo said, “I like to think my pictures have a personality, a contemporary look, sex appeal. My aim is to make people look very good—not by tricks, but by lighting and understanding women, knowing what makeup they should have, what hairstylist, and bringing out their best in the studio. I've always been interested in the total look of a woman. If there's something wrong I can usually tell. They usually stick with my advice and are happy for it.”
Scavullo photographed Kristofferson and Streisand in various poses, clothed and unclothed.
Warner Brothers, in fact, spent $100,000 on large billboards featuring the movie’s artwork in twenty cities across America.
Jon Peters and his associates, Scotti Bros., pushed “Evergreen” to radio stations with album and T-shirt giveaways as well as advance previews of the movie. “We dominated top 40 radio around the country,” Peters said, and that “had a lot to do with the first week’s grosses.”
Streisand also recorded “Evergreen” in French, Italian, and Spanish and released the song in those countries.
Another big push happened when Barbra Streisand and Jon Peters appeared on The Barbara Walters Special. Back in 1976, Walters’ interviews with Streisand and President Jimmy Carter were a big deal. The special aired on December 14th — days before A Star Is Born opened. The film clips and interview helped hype the movie.
Then in 1977, Jon Peters syndicated a behind-the-scenes documentary about making the film to television stations. It was titled Barbra: With One More Look At You.
... Barbra Streisand, People Magazine
On October 12, 1976, Barbra Streisand appeared at Warner Bros. Burbank Studios. The fashion show was hosted by Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, the City Council and the mayor's fashion advisory committee. Ahead of its December release, A Star Is Born was the theme of the evening, with the attending audience given preview film clips and a runway show of the movie’s fashions.
Streisand, who wore a satin and velvet patchwork coat to the event, told the audience, “It was really fun to use some of my shmattes (rags) in the film. I still love those $20 Venice flea-market numbers.”
Mayor Bradley presented Barbra Streisand with a plaque for her “great influence on fashion and her professionalism.”
BELOW: Silent movie footage (an orchestrated version of “Evergreen” has been laid on top of this by a fan) of the Spring ’77 fashion show.
In Los Angeles, A Star Is Born had its world premiere at Mann’s Village Theatre in Westwood as a benefit gala for the L.A. International Film Exposition (Filmex).
Dubbed “A Spectacular Night in White,” guests were asked to wear all-white instead of the usual formal attire. After the movie premiered at 8:30 p.m., guests walked down the grand promenade to Dillon’s — a new disco with four floors.
Streisand and Jon Peters arrived at the premiere breaking their own rules: they wore black outfits. In attendance were the Bergmans, Ryan O’Neal and Sue Mengers, George Cukor, William Wyler, agent Freddie Fields, Paul and his wife Kate Williams, Helen Reddy and her husband Jeff Wald, Tony Orlando and his wife Elaine, and David Begelman of Columbia Pictures.
BELOW: Photo slideshow of the Los Angeles premiere.
Also in December, Streisand, Kristofferson, and Jon Peters screened A Star Is Born for students at University of California Los Angeles, then took questions afterwards.
After guests watched A Star Is Born at the Ziegfeld movie theatre, they arrived at the after-party, held at Tavern On the Green in New York’s Central Park. The Association for a Better New York presented Barbra with a crystal Big Apple award for her generosity — all of the monies earned on the first day the film was exhibited at the Ziegfeld and Baronet theaters was donated to the city.
Streisand, wearing a black tuxedo (echoing her fashions in the film), hobnobbed with Jon Peters, Kris Kristofferson, actress Hermione Gingold, politician Bella Abzug, Funny Girl composer Jule Styne, agent Sue Mengers, and the family she worked for as a young adult at the Chinese restaurant, Muriel and Jin Choy and their children.
PHOTO: Streisand at the New York premiere with Abzug (top), Styne (middle), the Big Apple award, and the Choys (bottom). Source: David Salyer collection.
Australians were excited when it was announced Streisand would attend the March 17th premiere of A Star Is Born in Sydney. Unfortunately, Barbra Streisand became ill with an ear infection while she was promoting the movie in Tokyo.
In February 1977, Streisand and Jon Peters gave a press conference in Tokyo, Japan, then attended the movie’s premiere.
“In Japan,” Streisand reminisced, “I looked out at the press conference—two hundred forty-seven men and three women. I spoke about role reversals, about women standing up for themselves, having their own identities, not just becoming somebody's wife, as Esther is not just Mrs. John Norman Howard at the end. Everyone in that room looked at me with blank faces. That was culture shock. But in a way, isn't that what movies are all about? Maybe people don't like changes. They get used to artists appearing in the same kind of roles or doing what they're known for, just as people were used to me then being only a singer and performer. That also says a lot about how women are viewed in our culture, especially actresses who want to direct films are viewed as frivolous, not financially responsible. So in different ways, we're knocking against a lot of glass walls, not just glass ceilings.”
PHOTOS BELOW: Streisand photographed during an interview for the Asahi Shimbun newspaper; Streisand and Peters attend the Japan premiere.
A Star Is Born was Streisand's most successful film at the box office — budgeted at around $6 million and grossing an estimated $80 million dollars (in 2020 dollars that would be a $26.5 million budget and $353.2 million earnings).
ACADEMY AWARDS (1977)
GOLDEN GLOBES (HOLLYWOOD FOREIGN PRESS ASSOC.) 1977
GRAMMY AWARDS 1977
There were only a handful of scenes that didn't make it into the final cut of Barbra Streisand’s A Star Is Born. All of them (with the exception of one) were included on the DVD and Blu-ray of the movie.
A Star Is Born first aired on network television November 1980 on the ABC Sunday Night Movie. It was usual back then for network television to edit out and overdub any expletives or sexual language, which ABC did for A Star Is Born.
Another common practice was for networks to add deleted scenes into their airings of popular films. This mostly enabled the networks to stretch the airing into a longer timeframe so they could include more commercials and earn more money. Streisand fans were suprised that ABC had inserted the recording studio “chow mein” scene (see below), which was not in the theatrical release of the film.
Barbra Streisand prepared a special cut of A Star Is Born that streamed on Netflix from June to October 2018. The special version included a restored scene in which Streisand’s character Esther plays a guitar version of “Evergreen” for Kris Kristofferson’s rock star character. Streisand also added back the “rock and roll” cut of her last song.
“I learned how to play the guitar and wrote the melody to ‘Evergreen’ for this film — and ended up cutting this scene out,” Barbra said. She did it to quicken the pace of the film. The original scene was altered to accommodate the guitar playing; some of the dialogue was lost in order to cover the characters moving to the sofa where Esther plays the song for John Norman.
The last song of the movie, “With One More Look/Watch Closely Now,” was filmed with Streisand singing live — “We filmed a lot of rock ’n’ roll kind of footage,” Streisand explained to Jamie Foxx at a Netflix FYSee event. She didn’t have time to edit the number before the preview, however. Instead, they ran the one camera, 7-plus-minute take. “The audience happened to love it,” she exclaimed. The preview audience survey cards trended toward “excellent.” “I thought ‘Uh oh,’ you know, ‘If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it,’” she said.
The “rock and roll cut” illustrates that “she actually inhabits him, and he actually inhabits her,” Streisand explained. “She becomes him. She takes on his persona as well.”
Streisand’s cut was delayed a bit because Warner Brothers couldn’t locate the excised footage, which they stored at Strataca, an underground salt mine museum in Kansas City, Missouri. Film studios pay for film storage there because the mines are a constant temperature of 68 degrees Fahrenheit, with 40-45% relative humidity year-round. These are the best conditions to keep celluloid film from deteriorating.
Here are four scenes cut from the movie which appear on the Star Is Born DVD and Blu-ray Discs.
Scene A — Baking Bread
Following a montage in which John Norman and Esther build their Arizona dream house, there was a humorous scene in which Esther, alone in the kitchen, baked bread. She was covered with dough and flour and talking to herself in a funny Julia Child voice as she read the recipe. The bread caught on fire in the oven, and she and John Norman douse the fire in the desert. At the end of the scene, back inside, John Norman tells Esther he is not going to tour with her.
Director Frank Pierson (in his duplicitous article) wrote that he shot this scene “under protest” and that he told Streisand “it's out of an old I Love Lucy show.”
Scene B — “Tell me about the road ...”
This scene, set in John Norman and Esther's desert home, had the married couple talking about going out on the road together to do concert tours.
Scene C — “Eat the chow mien”
This scene began with Esther in the studio rehearsing “Evergreen” with John Norman's band. At a dinner break, Esther complained that her Chinese food noodles were hard, not soft as she liked them. What's really bothering her was that the song didn't sound like how she imagined it — “I don't like the song in F sharp. I could sing it better in E flat.”
John Norman then asked Esther to marry him and Esther replied, “I wouldn't marry no man with a ring in his ear.”
The scene would have been followed by the recording studio scene in which Streisand sang “Evergreen” to Kristofferson.
Scene D — “I'm going out...”
Esther emerged from her house after John Norman died and told her agents that she'll perform again.
This scene, featuring Esther and John Norman at the ranch house, with Esther gazing into a hand mirror, was also cut from the film. The scene does not appear in the Final Draft of the screenplay, so its content is unknown.
In 2004, Warner Brothers Home Video released a deluxe-packaged Blu-ray Disc that included a 40-page booklet with color and black-and-white photographs.
As for bonuses, the Blu-ray included feature-length commentary by Barbra Streisand on a separate audio track; wardrobe tests with commentary by Barbra; a gallery of trailers for all three versions of A Star Is Born; and deleted scenes.
Warner then re-released the same disc content in 2019 through its Warner Archives program as a MOD (Manufactured-On-Demand) Blu-ray. This disc did not include the booklet.
VIDEO: Very funny parody of the Star Is Born poster that was done on The Carol Burnett Show. The skit featured Glen Campbell and Burnett and aired on Season 10, Episode 15 in 1977.
Title or short description
End / A STAR IS BORN
Barbra Archives is a fan-created website and is not official. It is not officiated by Barbra Streisand, her management, Columbia Records, or other official parties. Barbra Archives cannot contact Miss Streisand or her management on your behalf.
Barbra-Archives.com launched on May 28, 2003. This website is written, designed, created, and maintained by Matt Howe, Asheville, NC. Matt’s original text and articles on this website are Copyright © 2022.
The information contained in these pages represents historical documentation and is intended for personal, noncommercial and educational use only. You may not under any circumstance publish, use, make a profit from, or reproduce this material without the express consent from the webmaster. Please do not post photos and audio files from this site on YouTube and similar websites.
Image, video, and audio files on this site may be protected by copyright and are used within the guidelines of the Fair Use Law. All photos and/or image captures remain the property of the film's and/or photo's various copyright owners.
Note: As an Amazon affiliate partner, Barbra Archives may earn commissions from purchases of vinyl records, CDs, movies and digital music featured on this site.
