Singer-actress Barbra Streisand to receive Honorary Palme d’Or at Cannes
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Barbra Streisand, seen here at a 2007 concert, will receive the award at the festival's closing ceremony in May.
PHOTO: REUTERS
CANNES, France – Hollywood and Broadway legend Barbra Streisand will be awarded an Honorary Palme d’Or at 2026’s Cannes Film Festival, organisers announced on March 11, honouring a career that has spanned more than six decades.
“It is with pride and deep humility that I am delighted to join the circle of Honorary Palme d’Or winners, whose work has inspired me for so long,” said the Broadway icon. She will receive the award at the festival’s closing ceremony in May.
Streisand will add the prize to a legendary collection that includes four Emmys, 10 Grammys, two Oscars and a Tony.
She is one of only 22 people to have achieved the elite EGOT status, winning the top United States prizes in television, music, cinema and theatre.
After her start as a breakout star in theatre on Broadway, Streisand evolved into a global icon across both the film and music industries.
She famously won the Best Actress Oscar for her first film role in 1968’s Funny Girl at just 26 years old. She took home a second Oscar in 1977 for Evergreen, the original song from A Star Is Born (1976), in which she also played the lead role.
Streisand later stepped behind the camera to write, direct and produce the film Yentl (1983), the story of a young woman who disguises herself as a man to study the Talmud.
The project, based on a short story by Polish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer, took 14 years to bring to the screen but got seven Oscar nominations in 1984.
“It was the first time Hollywood had given such a large production budget to a female film-maker,” noted the Cannes festival.
Streisand is also the only female artiste to have had an album top the charts in each of the last six decades.
For Cannes director Thierry Fremaux, the prize recognises Streisand’s contribution as the “legendary synthesis between Broadway and Hollywood, between the music hall stage and the big screen”.
New Zealand film-maker Peter Jackson, best known for The Lord Of The Rings trilogy (2001 to 2003), will also be awarded an Honorary Palme d’Or during the festival.
Past recipients of the award include US actors Harrison Ford and Denzel Washington, as well as legendary Japanese animators Studio Ghibli. AFP
