The importance of being Barbra [antikvár]

April 14, 1969: Twenty-six-year-old Barbra Streisand nervously sits in her aisle seatwith recently separated husband Elliott Gould by her side for moral supportas Ingrid Bergman reads the names of the five nominees for Best Actress in a Motion Picture at the 41st Annual Academy Awards ceremony: Katharine Hepburn The Lion in Winter, Patricia NealThe Subject Was Roses, Vanessa RedgraveIsadora, Barbra StreisandFunny Girl, and Joanne WoodwardRachel, Rachel. Bergman unseals the envelope, intoning "The winner . . . ," then gasps. "It's a tie! The winners areKatharine Hepburn in The Lion in Winter-and Barbra Streisand!" Hepburn, the Hollywood legend, absent as always from awards shows, is nowhere to be seen. Hollywood newcomer Streisand, already an entertainment legend, albeit of a very different stripe, and now an Oscar winner for her very first film, rises from her seat, and after the surprise of the tie, a second shock ensues for the audience: Barbra's Scaasi-designed pantsuit ensemble is nothing less than see-through. In her excitement and haste, Barbra stumbles up the stairs to the strains of "People" as she approaches the stage to receive her award, thereby exposing even more of the Streisand physiognomy to the tens of millions watching worldwide. It's as if everyone has the exact same thought at the exact same time: "Does she have anything on underneath?"Upon receiving the actual statue, Streisand gazes at her Oscar and in a witty echo of her character-defining first line in Funny Girl,