Arthur Laurents Cancels The Film Of ‘Gypsy’ With Babs Streisand Because…………..

Hate Laurents, he thinks he is the ‘God’ of gay theater.
From Behind the Curtain…………………
The much-talked about “Gypsy” musical film project that envisions Barbra Streisand as Mama Rose is not going to happen, according to playwright-director Arthur Laurents, one of the rights holders to the work.

Laurents, the original book writer for the 1959 Broadway musical, directed three acclaimed Broadway revivals of “Gypsy” starring Angela Lansbury in 1974, Tyne Daly in 1989 and Patti Lupone in 2008. Sam Mendes directed a Broadway revival in 2003 starring Bernadette Peters.

In January Laurents told the New York Post: “Barbra and I have been getting along very well now for some time. We’ve talked about it a lot, and she knows what she’s doing. She has my approval.”

In an interview I had with the vigorous 93-year-old Laurents last week in his New York home for an upcoming feature story about the touring production 0f “West Side Story,” he said things have change.

First the back story.

“A few years ago, she called me. It was a Sunday and I have an enormous breakfast on Sunday. I wait the whole week for that breakfast. She would call from time to time when she wanted advice. So she called to ask me if she should do the movie of ‘Sunset Boulevard.’ I said, ‘Listen, Barbra, I’m having breakfast. Can I call you back?’ She said, ‘Do you have my number?’ I said, ‘I’ve always had your number.’

“So I called her back and said, ‘Barbra, I’ve change.’ And she said, ‘Since Tom died?’ I said, ‘Yes. I don’t have patience with people who don’t say what they mean. You didn’t call about ‘Sunset Boulevard.’ She said, ‘No, I didn’t. I called about Gypsy. Do you think I can do it?’ I said, ‘No.’ She said, ‘Too old?’ I said, ‘It has nothing to do with age. You play for sympathy.

“So we started a conversation and she started to talk about her mother. The conversation went on for three hours. At one point she said, ‘I have to pee. I’ll call you back.’ And she called me back and told me more about her mother — who was worse than Rose. I said, ‘If you can do that…’ That’s when I believed she could do it.”

But now Laurents says the film version is not going to happen “for a really fascinating reason, much bigger than ‘Gypsy.’ “

He recently spoke with the musical’s lyricist, Stephen Sondheim, who asked Laurents why he wanted to allow the film project to happen. “He said, ‘What is the point of it?’ And I said, ‘They have this terrible version with Rosalind Russell wearing those black and white shoes.’ And then Sondheim told me something that he got from the British — and it’s wonderful. He said, ‘You want a record because the theater is ephemeral. But that’s wrong. The theater’s greatest essence is that it is ephemeral. You don’t need a record. The fact that it’s ephemeral means you can have different productions, different Roses on into infinity.’

“So I don’t want it now. I don’t want a definitive record. I want it to stay alive.

“I think [Streisand] is disappointed. She wanted very much to do it. That would have been a good exit for her career. Tom Hopper ["The King's Speech"] wanted to direct it. I think he’s wonderful.”

How would she have been in the film?

“She could have done it,” he says