How Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford’s ‘The Way We Were’ Was Inspired by a Real-Life Gay Romance (Book Excerpt)
thewrap.comwas historic, a Jewish actress playing a proudly Jewish character. “The Way We Were”would build on that breakthrough, providing Streisand with her first dramatic role in which being Jewish was again central to the story.
With “The Way We Were,” she was going back to the well of “Funny Girl,” only she was delving deeper. Much deeper.Again, it was the fairy tale of Cinderella, who, falling in love with the handsome Prince Charming, sheds her drab persona and is made to feel beautiful.
The fact that Omar Sharif in the movie version of “Funny Girl” wasn’t Jewish, despite playing a character named Nicky Arnstein, diluted the romance’s Semitism to make it more palatable to general audiences.
What Laurents delivered with “The Way We Were” would be radically different due to the male lead character. What he wrote put on display the various tropes of what it meant to be Jewish in America and how different it was to be Gentile in America.
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