The Bon Soir 1960-1962

Streisand / LIVE 

The Bon Soir (1960–1962)

40 West Eighth Street, Greenwich Village
New York, New York

Barbra's Performance Dates:

• Sept. 9 — Nov. 20, 1960
• May 9 — June 6, 1961
• May 22 — June 3, 1962
• Oct. 23 — Nov. 18, 1962

The Bon Soir was owned by Ernie Sgroi Sr. (and, later, Nat Sackin). It was a small night club in New York's Greenwich Village. Comedians and singers like Phyllis Diller, Kaye Ballard, and Ethel Waters performed there. Because the Bon Soir was so small (the club accommodated about 100-150 people), singers performed with simple accompaniment or a small band.


Barbra Streisand played the Bon Soir four times in her career, and this page covers each of her appearances, beginning with her first time in 1960.


The Bon Soir closed its doors in the 1970s, but what was the nightclub like when Barbra Streisand performed there in the 1960s?

Exterior view of the Bon Soir nightclub

“The Bon Soir was very dark and very small. When you went from West Eighth Street downstairs there was quite a steep set of stairs. It was how you would imagine a speakeasy to be. When you went down, there was a gentleman at a small podium [ ...] maybe he was to greet important customers. When you walked in there was a very tiny stage in the front. It was very dark, very gently lit with candles on each table. And there was a little tiny bar in back, a very tiny bar, and that bar was completely gay … The nightclub was predominantly straight, but the bar in the back was three or four gay men deep.”  

Lauren Sackin, daughter of Nat Sackin, owner of the Bon Soir in the 1960s, as told to writer Yael Kohen.

“The club was small. Lines often backed up for those wishing to stand at the bar. Waiters scrambled to serve food to those who had reservations at one of fewer than 25 small tables.  [ ... ] A little sign atop each table told how much you would have to pay whether or not you ordered food or the several-drink minimum. 

[ ... ] After an announcement about a ‘last call’ for food service, the dimly lit room—entertaining mostly straight and extremely well-dressed couples at their tables—abruptly switched to entirely black, then onto the stage arrived M.C. Jimmie Daniels, a handsome gay black singer-actor who operated the tony club … Daniels not only performed but also kept the show moving along, usually introducing a comic, then a singer, then a group, another comic, and so forth.”

“Stateside Gossip” by Warren Allen Smith, 2004
An album cover of The Three Flames at the Bon Soir

Musical accompaniment usually was by the Three Flames, an all-black bass (Avril Pollard), piano (Roy Testamark), and guitar featuring Tiger Haynes (the Tin Man in the Broadway version of ‘The Wiz’)

Interior photograph of the Bon Soir nightclub

“The Bon Soir, incidentally, is so dark, not even the waiters can see. They all carry tiny flashlights up their sleeves so they can determine who needs a refill, creating the effect of a room a-twinkle with glow-worms.”

New York Times, November 10, 1960

“The Bon Soir was on 8th Street near 6th Avenue in Greenwich Village and was probably Mafia owned. In those days that meant its predominantly gay clientele were well behaved. And uptowners ‘went slumming’ downtown.”

Liz Smith, New York Social Diary, April 25, 2016
An album cover of The Three Flames at the Bon Soir

1960: Barbra's Audition & Creating The Act

Barbra won a talent contest at another Greenwich Village bar called The Lion. Ernie Sgroi, Jr. co-owned The Lion and recommended that Barbra audition for his father's club, The Bon Soir. Streisand auditioned for Sgroi, Sr. in July or possibly August 1960.


It was Burke McHugh who arranged the audition. He told writer Randall Reise, “One night Barbra dropped over to the Bon Soir in between shows at [The Lion]. She was quite impressed with it because they had [the combo] The Three Flames … Ernie Sgroi, Sr., was the father of my partner at The Lion. So, I took her over there myself and asked them to please give her a listen, and she did a couple of songs.”

“When I auditioned, I forgot that I had gum in my mouth, so I took it out and stuck it on the microphone and it got a big howl. Then I started to sing. They liked it, but they thought I was going to be a comedienne. When I went off the stage, Larry Storch, who was the headliner there, said to me, ‘Kid, you’re gonna be a star.’ Like in the movies! And Tiger Haynes’ girlfriend, whose name was Bea, came over to me and said, ‘Kid, you got dollar signs written all over you.’ I’ll never forget it. I was wearing my antique vest, my antique Twenties shoes with butterflies on them, and I just looked at her.” 

... Barbra Streisand, Playboy interview 1977

Photo of Barbra Streisand in 1960

With Barbra's Bon Soir opening night scheduled for September 9, 1960, she started building a nightclub act that would suit the venue. Barbra and her friend Barry Dennen began collecting songs to perform. “Singing professionally meant searching out new and unusual songs, but at the outset I couldn't afford sheet music. So I had my mother pretend she was Vaughn Monroe's secretary so we could get it for free,” Streisand wrote in 1991. [Monroe was a famous singer at the time, and Streisand's ruse was to make the music publishers think Monroe wanted to record their song!]


Another artist friend—Bob Schulenberg—kept a sketchbook from this time, and in the margin he scribbled songs Barbra considered:


  • You're the Cure For What Ails Me (an Al Jolson film song)
  • I Love to Sing-a (another Jolson song, 1936)
  • Just Because We're Kids (from the movie "5000 Fingers of Dr. T" by Doctor Seuss)
  • You're a Builder Upper (Gershwin-Harburg-Arlen)
  • Can't You Do A Friend a Favor (a lovely Rodgers & Hart song)
  • I've Got To Get Hot (DeSylva, Brown & Henderson)

But Barbra was busy. She had just been cast by Curt Conway as Hortense the French maid in the musical The Boy Friend. Streisand headed upstate to Cecilwood Playhouse to play Hortense August 16—30, 1960. When she returned to Manhattan, she and Barry Dennen had only ten days to polish off the act.


For her opening night at the Bon Soir, Streisand appeared third on the bill, following a musical set by the Three Flames, and a comic act by Tony and Eddie. (Phyllis Diller closed the evening.)


Barbra's Set List: The Bon Soir 1960 


  • Keepin’ Out of Mischief Now
  • A Sleepin’ Bee
  • I Want to Be Bad *
  • When Sunny Gets Blue
  • Lover, Come Back To Me
  • Nobody’s Heart Belongs to Me
  • Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? 

* some of the lyrics: “If it's naughty to rouge your lips, Shake your shoulders and swing your hips, Let the lady confess, I want to be bad!”) [Words & Music by: B.G. DeSylva, Lew Brown and Ray Henderson]
Phyllis Diller's comedy album recorded at the Bon Soir

Putting Barbra Together

Sketches of Streisand's makeup makeover by Bob Schulenberg

When a cabaret singer appears on stage, she must have a “look.” Although Barbra was already shopping at thrift shops with an eye for antique clothes, she also had some artistic friends who helped groom her for her nightclub debut.


Bob Schulenberg remembered in New York Social Diary , “During the first Bon Soir gig, she pretty much lived at [Barry Dennen]’s. He was on West 9th, and the Bon Soir was around the corner on West 8th … It was at Barry’s apartment that I would make up half of her face and she would make up the other half to match it, copy it. Where the line of her eye was extended, I would fill in with a false eyelash so that it looked like she had enormous eyes. They did that in the movies in the 30s. That’s how her famous (at the time) Cleopatra look got started because she couldn’t glue the eyelash on properly and just extended it with eye-liner.”


Terry Leong , another artist friend, recalled that “Barbra had just started to sing. She was poor and couldn't afford much. I brought her to the thrift shops uptown, on Ninth Avenue. She had a natural eye for style. In all there were six or seven original outfits I designed. She wore them at the Bon Soir. It was great fun. We were good friends.”


Sketches: Terry Leong's outfits he designed for Streisand's early nightclub performances. He described them: (Left) 1900 bodice of jet and gunmetal sequins on black lace, black velvet skirt .... (Right) Cerise Silk Brocade—fitted bodice, full sleeves falling into a surplus back fastened by ruby and rhinestone brooch, silk ottoman skirt.

Terry Leong sketches of Streisand's nightclub outfits

Phyllis Diller on Barbra

THE COMEDIENNE TOLD US MAGAZINE ABOUT WORKING WITH BARBRA BACK IN 1960 ...


“We shared a dressing room at the Bon Soir club in Greenwich Village. It was the size of a pea pod and usually you could smell fear in there. But she wasn’t a bit nervous – at least not that I noticed. I admit, I was unimpressed when I first met her. She was so young. She said hello, and that was it. She told me her shoes were antique and they cost her 35 cents. But then she went out and did her numbers and when she hit about the third note, every hair on my body stood up. It was unbelievable. She opened with ‘Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf,’ and I thought, Oh, my God, what a fabulous choice. She also sang Harold Arlen’s ‘A Sleepin’ Bee,’ which really showed off that voice. It was scary. I knew she was going places. At the end of the week, I said to her, “I know it’s bold to say this but don’t you ever cut your nose.” I knew lousy, insensitive agents would come along and say, ‘Hey, baby, do this, do that.’ Now everyone takes credit for telling her not to get a nose job, but I had her first.”

Barbra confessed, nearly 30 years later, “I didn’t know you were supposed to wear gowns in nightclubs, and so I sang in a wool dress or in antique clothes. Then Phyllis Diller said, ‘You can’t wear that stuff’ and took me shopping for a cocktail dress, and I actually put it on. I didn’t want to make her feel bad, but I could never wear it again. It wasn’t me.”

Photo: Streisand and Diller in the Bon Soir dressing room. The photo was taken by Bob Schulenberg. It is sometimes credited to Craig Simpson—but he lived in San Francisco at the time.

Barbra’s Initial Bon Soir Reviews 1960 ....

Photo by Craig Simpson

Barbra became a big hit at The Bon Soir – originally hired for two weeks, she was extended for a total of eleven weeks, through November 20, 1960. “But where I used to earn $55 a week as a clerk ($45 after taxes) I was now going to earn big bucks! $125 a week ($108 after taxes!),” she explained in 1991.

“A startlingly young, stylish and vibrant-voice gamin named Barbra Streisand is one of the pleasures of a club called the Bon Soir ... where the evening's festivities get off to a calculatedly late start. The place doesn't begin to fill up until 11:30 ...”

New York Times (11/10/1960)

“The Bon Soir has swung into the new nightclub season with the find of the year. She is Barbra Streisand, a Brooklynite whose voice and poise belie her scant eighteen years. Vocally, there's range and power; stylewise, there appears to be a natural gift for musical comedy, but she handles with aplomb the most meaningful ballads.”

New York World-Telegram

“The pros are talking about a rising new star on the local scene—eighteen year old Barbra Streisand, currently at the Bon Soir. She's never had a singing lesson in her life, doesn't know how to walk, dress, or take a bow, but she projects well enough to close her act with a straight rendition of “Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” and bring down the house ....”


Dorothy Kilgallen's ‘Voice of Broadway’ Column

Barbra’s 1961 Bon Soir Gigs

May 9 — June 6, 1961
1961 AGVA contract for Streisand to perform at the Bon Soir

In 1961, Streisand’s new manager, Ted Rozar, booked her on The Jack Paar Showand lined up singing gigs for her in Detroit, Canada, and St. Louis. Her career was gaining momentum. 


Streisand returned to the Bon Soir for four weeks in May and June 1961.


Barbra’s pay was raised to $175 a week (minus 10% to be sent to Associated Booking Corp.) for the month-long gig. It was comedian Phil Leeds on the bill, along with comedy team Renée Taylor and Frank Baxter … and Barbra Streisand.


The most important event that happened during this engagement at the Bon Soir was that Barbra met talent manager Marty Erlichman.


He told Vanity Fair magazine, “I had gone down to the Bon Soir to check out an old friend of mine, the comedian Phil Leeds ... Phil had been blacklisted by all that McCarthy stuff in the fifties and had just been reissued his cabaret card. I went to check out his material, but out walked this eighteen-year-old singer as his opening act. She sang five songs and I had chills through all of them.” 

“... I was playing this place in the Village called the Bon Soir. I was singing for a gag. I couldn't get a job as an actress. So I figured I'd sing till I could get a part on Broadway. I was hired for two weeks, but I had no contract so they could fire me any time they wanted. I lasted eleven weeks ... So anyway, this guy came into the club one night and introduced himself as the only gentile manager in show business [note: Rozar]. Who knew from managers? I signed with him. The creep. I had to pay him off to get him out of my hair ... Anyway, when I played the place for a second time, Marty came to see me. He looked like the manager type. He was like the same kind of person I was. So I signed with him.” 

... "A Near Legend at Twenty-One" interview with Streisand by Rona Barrett, 1963

1962 — Barbra Back at the Bon Soir

May 22 — June 3, 1962
Oct. 23 — Nov. 18, 1962
Ad for Streisand at the Bon Soir alongside a Live Photo of her singing
Bon Soir Review. Scan courtesy of Michael Kessler

Marty Erlichman booked Barbra back at The Bon Soir in 1962 during the run of her first Broadway show. She was the headliner now and was billed as “Barbra (I Can Get it For You Wholesale) Streisand”. Barbra, a big hit in Wholesale, would taxi from the Shubert Theater on West 44th Street to The Bon Soir on West 8th Street.


Comedian Dick Gautier was on the same bill as Streisand at the club and told writer Kliph Nesteroff: “It was a very hip room. It was wonderful. They treated you well. I worked it with Barbra Streisand. We doubled. As soon as our other curtain came down we both rushed to the Bon Soir, whether it was subway or cab or whatever. That was great. She was terrific and it was very exciting because she was the new, hot thing. Everyone came to see her. All the people from all the Broadway shows. They didn't come to see me, they came to see her and I had the benefit of being able to perform for them.


“I remember Helen Hayes came in and all these big shot actors from Broadway. Word had gotten around. There was an actor named Phil Leeds, a very funny guy. Phil said, ‘What are you doing tonight?’ I said, ‘Nothing.’ He said, ‘Come on down to the Bon Soir. You have got to see this girl, the greatest singer in the world, but she's going nowhere because she is as ugly as your foot.’ So I went to see her, and who knew I would be working with her. I loved working with her. She was just sensational.”
Barbra poses at Bon Soir with Arthur Laurents and Harold Arlen

Lyricists Marilyn and Alan Bergman came to see Barbra at the Bon Soir during her 1962 appearance, too. “She walked out and sang one note and I remember starting to cry and I never stopped crying the whole show,” Marilyn Bergman recalled. The Bergmans went backstage to pay their respects after the show. “I remember saying to her, ‘Do you know how wonderful you are?’” 


The Bergmans, of course, have been close friends and creative partners with Barbra Streisand all these years.


Streisand's 1962 Bon Soir contract paid her $1,250 per week. A typed remark on the contract stipulated: “Artist to receive 100% sole star billing. The Bon Soir is to pay for Miss Streisand's accompanist, Peter Daniels. It is understood that Miss Streisand will not appear at the Bon Soir prior to 11:45 PM nightly.”


Streisand added “Happy Days Are Here Again” to her nightclub repertoire during these shows. “The first time I sang it to a live audience was at the Bon Soir,” she told Sir Magazine. “It was the day President Kennedy ordered the Russian ships headed for Cuba to turn back, and nobody knew what would happen and everybody was on edge. I was standing there singing that song and I knew the headlines were on everybody’s mind and I felt like I was in a bomb shelter singing to frightened civilians during an air raid. I’ll never forget that night for the rest of my life.”


Columbia Records felt that a live recording would be an outstanding debut album for Barbra Streisand, and way to capture the energy and talent of their new recording star. Columbia recorded Barbra at the Bon Soir on November 5, 6, and 7th, 1962.


THOSE LIVE TRACKS WERE RELEASED AS “STREISAND LIVE AT THE BON SOIR” IN 2022.


Pictured:  On the night she recorded, Barbra posed with Arthur Laurents (top) and Mr. & Mrs. Harold Arlen (bottom).

“Having won smash personal reviews in the Broadway tuner ‘I Can Get It For You Wholesale’, 20-year-old Barbra Streisand returns to Gotham's intime nitery circuit with the assurance of a performer who knows that the road ahead is strictly upward. There's nothing arrogant or smart-alecky in her demeanor because of this assurance, it's just that she knows what she's about and makes the tablers aware that there's something special happening on stage. It's all done in a winning way, with an infectious jive giggle, a grimace, a wispy mood or a straightforward belt. At 20 she may be considered a show biz natural, but even if it's calculated for maximum impact, it works and that's what counts. Doubling from legit into a midtown stint isn't easy, but Miss Streisand doesn't skimp on her efforts. She does a well-planned 30-minute turn with repertoire range from winsome to wild. Her pace changes are neatly executed which gives her tuneturn a flow that keeps it interesting and enjoyable all the way. Especially good are an excerpt from Leonard Bernstein's “Songs for Children’, Harold Arlen's “I Had Myself a True Love’, a big belter like “Lover Where Can You Be’, and a humorous item salvaged from the past season's off Broadway musical entry “Another Evening With Harry Stoones’ called “I'm in Love with Harold Menkert’ *.”  [* note: “Value’]
 

... VARIETY Review, May 30, 1962

Related ....

SOURCES USED ON THIS PAGE

  • AGVA Artists Engagement Contract, April 17, 1961
  • AGVA Artists Engagement Contract, April 17, 1962
  • Billboard, “An All-Round Miss Marmelstein” by Jack Maher, July 24, 1962.
  • City Room by Arthur Gelb. Penguin, 2003.
  • Kilgallen, Dorothy. September 19, 1960 column, Oneonta Star.
  • Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse, by Phyllis Diller. Tarcher, 2005.
  • My Life With Barbra: A Love Story, by Barry Dennen. Prometheus Books, 1997.
  • New York Times, “Supper Clubs Are a Proving Ground for Much Talent,” by Arthur Gelb, November 10, 1960.
  • New York Times, “Cabaret Tonight.” May 22, 1962.
  • New York World Telegram & Sun. “Barbra Streisand Sings at Bon Soir” by Leonard Harris. June 1, 1962.
  • PinkTriangle.org.uk. “Stateside Gossip” by Warren Allen Smith, Autumn 2004. Link: [Web Archived] https://web.archive.org/web/20161219211929/http://www.pinktriangle.org.uk/glh/241/gossip.html
  • Playboy, October 1977. Interview by Lawrence Grobel.
  • Sir! Magazine, January 1962. “Barbra Makes it Big” by Charlie McHarry
  • Streisand: Her Life, by James Spada. Crown, 1995.
  • Variety. Night Club Reviews. November 14, 1962.
  • We Killed: The Rise of Women in American Comedy, by Yael Kohen. Sarah Crichton Books, 1994.
End / The Bon Soir
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