Streisand / LIVE 

In 1963, while Barbra Streisand was appearing on Mike Douglas' television show for a week in Cleveland, she was also booked at the Chateau, located in Lakewood, a west side suburb of Cleveland. Appearing at the Chateau was part of Barbra's promotional tour for The Barbra Streisand Album.

In Douglas' book, I'll Be Right Back , he tells the story of how he brokered a deal with the owner of the Chateau, and it's worth retelling the story here.  

After Barbra was booked for an entire week on his television show, Mike Douglas received a call from Marty Erlichman, her clever manager. Marty explained that the scale payment Barbra would receive from co-hosting Douglas' television show would not be enough for her to pay rent back in Manhattan.  Could Mike Douglas find her nightclub work while Barbra stayed in Cleveland?  Douglas said he would try, but the only place that would book the unknown singer was the Chateau – “a tiny club in Lakewood, a sleepy suburb of Cleveland,” he wrote. 

(Note:  The club was so tiny that Barbra Archives has never been able to find even an ad for the club in Cleveland's archived newspapers! )

The owner of the Chateau asked Mike Douglas to come out and see him. “It was like a movie scene,” Douglas explained. “A would-be supper club with a mini-stage and a few dozen tables.  There was a man in a checkered suit puffing a huge cigar, sitting alone at the bar.”

Mike Douglas and the owner came up with a deal for Streisand: she would be paid $2,500 for the week at the club and Douglas promised the man he would mention “The Chateau in Lakewood” on his T.V. show every day.

Douglas, pleased that he had secured Streisand a “night job” while appearing on his daytime talk show, wrote in his book: “Barbra Streisand performed every night in a storefront club that couldn't seat more than seventy people. A handful of lucky Clevelanders paid seven dollars apiece to see one of the greatest performers of this century put on an electrifying, one-woman show.  The price may seem incredible now, but remember, it included dinner and a drink.”

One last bit of trivia about the Chateau .... Karen Gray, part of the The Secrets — and all-girl rock-and-roll group — back up this story when she told writer Deanna R. Adams: “... when we played the Chateau on the west side, we were the act following Barbra Streisand!”