Cannes to Award an Honorary Palme d'Or to Barbra Streisand

Barbra Streisand will receive an honorary Palme d'Or at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival, organizers announced Thursday.

"With pride and deep humility, I join the circle of Palme d'Or honorees whose work has long inspired me," the 83-year-old singer, actress, and director said in a statement.

The honorary award will be added to an already remarkable collection of distinctions. Streisand is one of the few artists in the world to have been recognized with Academy Awards in film (two statuettes), Grammy Awards in music (10), a Tony Award in theater (one), and Emmy Awards in television (four).

"She is the legendary synthesis of Broadway and Hollywood, of the music hall stage and the silver screen," said Thierry Frémaux, the festival's general delegate. This year's edition is scheduled to run from May 12 through May 23.

The festival also announced recently that New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson will receive an honorary Palme d'Or at the same ceremony.

Streisand, who was initially drawn to acting, quickly attracted attention for her exceptional voice in cabarets before breaking through on Broadway. In her film debut in Funny Girl (1968), she won the Academy Award for Best Actress at just 26 years old.

She went on to work alongside Gene Kelly in Hello, Dolly! (1969) and Vincente Minnelli in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970). With Robert Redford, she starred in Sydney Pollack's The Way We Were (1973), whose title song became one of cinema's most enduring melodies.

In 1977, she earned her second Oscar for Evergreen, the original song from A Star Is Born, in which she also played the lead role.
With Yentl (1983) — her debut as director, as well as producer and co-writer — she became, according to the festival, the first woman filmmaker to whom Hollywood had granted such a significant production budget. Adapted from a short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer, the film follows a woman who disguises herself as a man in order to study the Talmud. Though it took 14 years to reach the screen, it was a major success with both audiences and critics, earning seven Academy Award nominations.

Streisand later directed The Prince of Tides (1991) and The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996).