The Belle of 14th Street 1967 TV Special

Streisand / Television

The Belle of 14th Street (1967)

  • SHOW CREDITS
    • Broadcast on CBS October 11, 1967
    • Directed by: Joe Layton & Walter C. Miller
    • Executive Producer: Martin Erlichman
    • Produced by: Joe Layton
    • Script by: Robert Emmett
    • Music Arranged & Conducted by: Mort Lindsey
    • Settings Designed by: Tom John
    • Costumes by: Fred Voelpel
    • Asst. Musical Director: David Shire
    • Hair Stylist: Fred Glaser
    • Associate Choreographer: John Smolko
    • Dance Sketches by: Ted Simons
    • Special Film Sequences Created by: Lew Schwartz/Del Sol
  • SONGS ON THE SPECIAL

    Act One


    I Don't Care (Animated Opening)

    You're the Apple of My Eye (Jason Robards & the Beef Trust Girls)

    Alice Blue Gown (Streisand)

    I'm Going South (John Bubbles)

    We're Four Americans (“The Dancing Duncans”—Barbra & Robards & Lee Allen & Susan Alpern)



    Act Two


    Liebestraum (Barbra as German Diva Madame Schmausen-Schmidt)

    Mother Machree (Barbra duets as the German Diva and a small boy)

    A Taste of THE TEMPEST


    Act Three


    My Melancholy Baby

    Everybody Loves My Baby

    I'm Always Chasing Rainbows

    My Buddy / How About Me?

    A Good Man is Hard to Find /

    Some of These Days


    Put Your Arms Around Me Honey (Animated end credits sequence)

  • CAST

    Barbra Streisand

    Jason Robards

    John Bubbles

    Lee Allen

    Susan Alpern


    Lynn Dovel (German Singer double)


    Beef Trust Girls:

    Barbara Terry

    Mary Alice Voelkle

    Patti Sauers

    Carol Swanberg

    Harriet Gibson

Belle of 14th Street Title Sequence
Beautiful Art Nouveau poster for The Belle of 14th Street.

After two successful television shows on CBS, Barbra's manager, Marty Erlichman told the press, “We don't intend to go to the well once too often. The next special will have other performers. However, Barbra will never become just another hostess for just another musical variety show. Whatever we decide to do in the future shows, she will dominate in a unique fashion.”


Barbra’s third television special for CBS and her sponsor, Monsanto, was  titled The Belle of 14th Street .


In February 1966, shortly after finishing up Color Me Barbra , Streisand and husband Elliott Gould took a second honeymoon in Paris. The trip was financed by her television corporate sponsor, Chemstrand. Barbra told the press, “I’m here to purchase the wardrobe for my next TV special. Cost is no object because my sponsor is picking up the tab.” At that point the theme of her third TV show would be fashion, and Paris offered many couture choices.


Barbra was seen at a Dior fashion show wearing not the designer’s clothes, but a jaguar suit and hat she had designed herself.


In all, it is said Barbra chose nine Dior outfits at a cost of $150,000.


However, Barbra Streisand's third television special for CBS was postponed.


In March 1966, Barbra flew to London to appear at the Prince of Wales Theatre in Funny Girl . Shortly after beginning her run in London, Barbra announced her pregnancy. Not only did that cause her concert tour to be abbreviated, but Barbra’s television special was postponed as well. Barbra told the BBC in July 1966: “I also can’t do my third television show, which I was supposed to do here [London].”


Returning to the States, Barbra performed four concert dates, and then retired to enjoy the rest of her pregnancy and give birth to her son, Jason, in December 1966.


CBS and Chemstrand wanted a new special by the end of 1967, therefore production on the show picked up momentum in March 1967. (Barbra was due in Hollywood in May to begin shooting the Funny Girl film.)


The format and theme of the television show had changed, too. Instead of centering on fashion, Barbra’s next special would be situated in a 1900’s Vaudeville theater. “We were all determined that the show not be just a variety format,” director Joe Layton said. “We wanted something different. So we hit upon the idea of restaging a vaudeville performance. All the acts, songs, skits and specialties had to be derivative of the period between 1895-1912.”


Barbra’s creative collaborators did meticulous research on Vaudeville — “We even called George Burns in Hollywood and Jack Pearl,” said Barbra’s manager, Marty Erlichman.


Entitled The Belle of 14th Street , the new special would allow Barbra to play several different characters but not have to shoulder the burden of carrying another one-woman show—this time Streisand would be accompanied by guest stars: Broadway actor Jason Robards; Vaudeville veteran John Bubbles; and Lee Allen, who played Eddie in Funny Girl on the stage (and would reprise the role in the film) joined the 14th Street cast.

Streisand on stage in front of invited audience for 1967 TV special, Belle of 14th Street.

Rehearsals for “Belle”

Barbra and cast were photographed during rehearsals at the Ellbar Rehearsal Hall on 6th Avenue, New York, to publicize the show.

Taping “Belle”

Publicity photo of John Bubbles, 1967.

The Belle of 14th Street was taped April 26—29, 1967 at CBS Studio 41 in New York. Cast and crew worked fast and hard to get the special “in the can” in one week.


The cast received three days of rehearsals before VTR (video tape recording) began.


Sunday, April 23rd: The Beef Trust girls worked with choreographer Ted Simons on The Tempest until 2:00 p.m. (their roles in the Shakespeare segment were ultimately cut from the show). Streisand, Jason Robards, Lee Allen, and Susan Alpern then assembled to work on “We're Four Americans” from 3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. The rest of Sunday was spent rehearsing and blocking various components of The Tempest scene.


On Monday, April 24th (Barbra's birthday!) John Bubbles rehearsed with choreographer Ted Simons first; from noon to 1:00 p.m., the Beef Trust girls, Jason Robards, and Simons rehearsed “Apple of My Eye.” Streisand arrived at 1:00 p.m. to practice “We're Four Americans”—lyricist Lan O'Kun was in the hall observing. The majority of the afternoon (till 6:00 p.m.) was spent choreographing the Beef Trust girls. Meanwhile at Columbia Records studios, Bubbles pre-recorded his song from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Streisand and Robards recorded music for The Tempest at another Columbia Records studio until 6:00 p.m. Streisand returned to the rehearsal studio from 9:00 p.m. to midnight to do more rehearsing for The Tempest with Jason Robards.


The morning of Tuesday, April 25th was reserved for a technical meeting till 11:00 am. John Bubbles rehearsed/blocked his number at 11:00 am, followed by Jason Robards and the Beef Trust Girls. More pre-recording was done back at Columbia Records in the afternoon: “Apple of My Eye” at 2:30 p.m. and “Four Americans” at 3:30 p.m. The entire cast was “on call” at noon—with a special note on the call sheet: “EVERYONE ON CALL UNTIL MIDNIGHT.”


Barbra Streisand worked with vocal coach Maurice Jampol during The Belle of 14th Street. Almost ten years later he told The Pittsburgh Press, “Streisand lost her voice when she had her baby. So her manager dug me up to help get her voice back into shape quickly. She had lost the top and bottom parts of her voice. I don't know exactly how it happened. But I figured she might have lost some of the tension in her belly. We had to rebuild that part of her voice that she lost, and I thought she did the job for CBS beautifully.”
Tom John designed an art nouveau theater which was built at CBS’s Studio #41 at 57th Street in New York, and it was on this set that the entirety of The Belle of 14th Street was videotaped.

Getting the “Alice Blue Gown” sequence “in the can” was difficult—Barbra wore a breakaway costume in which pieces of it were pulled off by nylon wires. She had to keep her energy up as they tried to get a usable take by pulling off the costume pieces.

There was no live orchestra; Barbra sang live to pre-recorded music tracks, with musicians sometimes in the pit to provide realism. David Shire (he wrote “Starting Here, Starting Now”) played piano for Barbra during the concert segment. Shire recalled, “I had Afro-Jewish hair, naturally curly. I knew I would be on national television with Barbra Streisand, and I wanted to look period. So the morning of the final camera rehearsal, I went to the barer and had my hair straightened. Then, as I walked into the studio, from the other side of this enormous hall filled with people, she screams, ‘What the fuck did you do to your hair!’”
The TV crew gathered around Barbra Streisand, rigging her gown to rip away for the cameras.
Streisand in
Green colored programme which was given to the audience members during the taping of the show.
It was on Saturday, April 29, 1967 that an audience was assembled, dressed in period clothes. The extras for the audience reaction shots were comprised of Monsanto employees and customers. They each were given a special program that day, which included the lyrics to “Four Americans” so they could be taped singing along:

A newspaper article of the time described the taping of the audience reactions that day:

.... The men were standing, whistling, cheering and waving their arms. Their eyes were forming a leer jet stream to the stage. The ladies in the audience, in a manner suitable to the circa 1900 attire they were wearing, were frowning, looking embarrassed or hiding behind a fan.

The cause celebre was Barbra Streisand’s strip to the tune of "Alice Blue Gown.”

What really made the audience’s performance superb was the fact that none of them had seen Barbra’s strip. It was done earlier, just before the camera.

... Meanwhile, Barbra taped portions of the show (prior to going to Hollywood for her first movie, “Funny Girl”) before an invited audience of 200 people, customers of Monsanto, the sponsor.

Each and every one of them, plus a stray newspaper woman, was costumed in frills, feathers, dog collars, trains, vests, frock coats and top hats.

The audience will be a vital part of Barbra's show—at least that's what director Joe Layton kept telling us. The show is a vaudeville review of the turn of the century. Besides Barbra’s strip, she and Jason Robards Jr., Lee Allen and little Susan Alpern do a flag-waving George M. Cohan-type number with the audience singing along.

“Don’t worry, we won’t single any of you out,” Layton said, adding that a chorus singing had already been recorded. In other words, we were lip syncing. But in order that we wouldn't feel slighted by this, Streisand herself did a lip sync. "I'm not very good at it,” she said.

In order to get the audience reaction, Barbra sang a couple of songs, in a magnificent black velvet costume with a white ostrich boa and huge hat of black velvet trimmed in ostrich, while the camera filmed over her shoulder, and picked up audience reactions.

After Barbra finished a series of songs on the elegantly decorated stage, an usher in uniform comes out and hands her an armful of roses.

Barbra took a deep bow to the audience’s applause. The usher made his entrance, handing the coral roses to Barbra. She took one look at them and shrieked. “Plastic!”
The opening and closing credits of The Belle of 14th Street featured an animated Streisand in different costumes standing in front of the 14th Street Theatre. These animated graphics were produced in New York by Lew Schwartz and del Sol Productions. Schwartz, a onetime cartoonist (Batman) partnered with del Sol in 1966, translating graphic-design ideas into film.

Joe Layton—Belle's director—had used Schwartz and del Sol for an ill-fated Broadway musical he directed (Clive Rivell in Sherry!) They had produced a short film that was shown during that show. Layton, needing an animated film for the Streisand special, retained the creative film team for Belle.
Tom John's set design for The Tempest segment of the T.V. special.
Barbra and crew taping The Tempest scene for Belle of 14th Street.

Cut From “Belle”

Director Joe Layton sits down for a moment on set.

Although many hours of footage were captured by The Belle of 14th Street crew, a few scenes were edited from the 1967 Streisand television special...


JOHN BUBBLES


In putting the final show together, veteran performer John Bubbles worked on several songs.


In the original script, Bubbles sang two songs: “Make My Cot Where The Cot Cot Cotton Grows” (Jack LeSoir, Ray Doll, Robert Klein), and then a short “Nobody” (Bert Williams and Alex Rogers).


During pre-recording sessions, he also worked on “Mammy O' Mine” (Pinkard and Tracey).


In the final show, Bubbles—billed as Mr. Chanticleer—sings “I'm Going South,” a song made famous by entertainer Al Jolson. For those wondering why Bubbles was costumed as a rooster — the costume was an homage to black Vaudeville performer Bert Williams, who appeared in the 1910 Ziegfeld Follies wearing such an outfit.


FOUR AMERICANS


The jokes that Streisand and Robards traded between song stanzas were rewritten for the final show.


Original Script:


Barbra: Did you hear about the squirrel who grew a sixteen foot tail?


Jason: Sounds like a conundrum.


Barbra: No it's a tall tail.


Final TV Version:


Barbra: What do you call a fella who picks a four leaf clover and expires the very next minute?


Jason: I don't know, what do you call him?


Barbra: A lucky stiff.


SCENE 5A


Cut from the show, meant to come right after “Four Americans,” was “The Greatest Battle Song Of All,” a 1916 World War I song with music and lyrics by Harry Ruby, Al Friend, and Sam Downing. It is unclear who was to perform it.

THE TEMPEST

The Temptest scene did not end after Miranda and Prospero decided to wed. There was a whole section that followed with Streisand playing Juno, with the Beef Trust Girls as Nyphs.


a page of the Belle of 14th Street script with the cut scene from The Tempest.
SMITH & DALE

This interesting item ran in the columns of the day, although Smith & Dale did not appear in the shooting script. Ben Wolf, a camera operator and cinematographer, sheds some light on this.  He said:

“Barbra had two old-time comedians, and these people are stage people that did the same routine for years and years. They did a routine where one's a doctor and one's a patient.  Barbra was the nurse. They got these guys out of a retirement home or someplace! They were good and they did the routine very good. And then Barbra said, ‘I want to change something.’ So she and the director talked about it, and then they went to the two old-timers. So Barbra says, ‘Here's what I want you to do,’ and she's changing dialogue. And these guys said, ‘We've done this for forty-five years, what do ya mean ... we can't do it!’”
Picture of Vaudeville comedy team Smith & Dale.

Wrap Party

Menu for wrap party

When taping for The Belle of 14th Street wrapped on Saturday, April 29, 1967, a lavish party was thrown for cast and crew by Monsanto downtown at Luchow’s ... on 14th Street! Luchow’s was a favorite eating place of the old-time Vaudeville stars.


Immediately following the session, Barbra, her guest stars Jason Robards and John Bubbles, and the audience were transported, in costume, from the CBS-TV studio to Luchow's for the after-theater buffet.


On May 1, Barbra Streisand left for California to begin work on the Funny Girl movie.

“Belle of 14th Street” on Home Video

Streisand in Belle of 14th Street, singing on stage.

For years, The Belle of 14th Street was the Holy Grail for Barbra Streisand fans.  It was never released on home video — even in the old days of VHS tapes!


Even Columbia Records decided not to release a soundtrack album of the show.


During that time, the only way to see Belle was to travel to New York City and visit the Museum of Television & Radio (now The Paley Center for Media).  At the museum, visitors could sit at a private television booth and the staff would run the videotape of Belle for them.


Some enterprising fans made copies of an overly-duped videotape of Belle and circulated it among themselves, too.  The video quality was horrible, but it's all we had!


Then, in 1986, fans were tantalized by a few quick, high-quality glimpses of The Belle of 14th Street in the opening montage of the HBO show, “Putting It Together”: The Making Of The Broadway Album.


It wasn't until Barbra released the DVD box set called The Television Specials in 2005 that The Belle of 14th Street was finally available — and in high quality!

“The Belle of 14th Street” Photo Gallery

Sources Used On This Page:

  • “Barbra Strips, Unseeing Audience Flips” by Joan Crosby, NEA. May 23, 1967.
  • “Behind the Scenes: 'Belle of 14th Street'” by Allen Rich. The Daily Review, TV Week, October 8, 1967.
  • Belle of 14th Street, The.  Original script and call sheets.  Barbra Archives’ collection.
  • Ben Wolf on shooting My Name is Barbra  [Smith & Dale story]. Television Academy website. Retrieved March 30, 2020. https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/people/barbra-streisand?clip=37322
  • David Shire's The Conversation: A film Score Guide by Juan Chattah. Rowman & Littlefied.
  • “Expectant Streisand Cancels That CBSpec.” Variety, May 13, 1966.
  • “Next Barbra Special Not All-Streisand.” UPI, April 7, 1966.
  • “Notes On Notable Singers” by Christopher Sharp. The Pittsburgh Press Roto, October 31, 1976.
End / The Belle of 14th Street 1967 TV Special
Share by: