Funny Girl (1968) on Netflix
G19682h 31mBiographyComedyDrama
Fanny Brice, a stage-struck teenager in New York, gets work in vaudeville even though her dancing and looks are held against her. Backstage, the gambler Nicky Arnstein comes to meet her.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.4/1027,719 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes94%
Trailer
Plot summary
Fanny Brice is a young Jewish woman in New York who wants a career on the stage. Her mother supports her, while her mother's card-playing friends, Mrs. Strakosh among them, insist that Fanny lacks the looks of a stage beauty and should give up the idea. Her boss at rehearsal criticizes her dancing and her appearance and wants to dismiss her. Fanny keeps at it, and with a hand from Eddie she joins a roller-skating act after claiming she can skate. The number misfires, but the crowd laughs and applauds her singing. After the show, Nicky Arnstein, a suave gambler, comes backstage to introduce himself. Fanny likes him, but she declines his invitation to dinner.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Funny Girl (1968)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Barbra Streisand won the Best Actress Oscar for her film debut in Funny Girl, tying with Katharine Hepburn for The Lion in Winter, the first and, as of 2025, only tie in the category's history.
- Producer Ray Stark's first and only choice for Fanny Brice was Barbra Streisand, who had never made a film; Columbia executives wanted Shirley MacLaine, but Stark refused to make the film without Streisand and the studio gave in.
- William Wyler took Funny Girl despite significant hearing loss, telling Stark: "If Beethoven could write his Eroica Symphony, then William Wyler can do a musical."
- When the Six-Day War broke out, Columbia executives considered replacing Egyptian star Omar Sharif, but both Wyler and Streisand threatened to quit, and a still of a love scene between Sharif and Streisand in the Egyptian press prompted a movement to revoke his citizenship.
- Wyler deliberately cast two stars known for romantic propensities to create on-screen lust, even placing Streisand's trailer window in hidden view of Sharif's; an affair between Sharif and Streisand lasted the whole shoot, drawing disapproval from her family because of the Egyptian-Israeli War.
- Aerial photographer Nelson Tyler had to build a special camera rig for a helicopter to film the "Don't Rain on My Parade" sequence in Funny Girl.
- Anne Francis, cast as the lead chorus line dancer, allegedly sued to have her name removed from the credits after so many of her scenes with Streisand were cut, but she lost.
- In Funny Girl, "Hello, gorgeous" are the first words Streisand utters. When she won the Academy Award for Best Actress at the 41st Academy Awards, her first comment on being handed the Oscar statuette was to look at it and say "Hello, gorgeous."
