Barbra Streisand (pronEng?stra?s�nd respellSTRYEsand; born Barbara Joan Streisand, April 24, 1942) is an American singer, actress, director and songwriter. She has won two Academy Awards, nine Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, and a Peabody Award.

She is one of the most commercially and critically successful female entertainers in modern entertainment history, with more than 71.5 million albums shipped in the United States and 140 million albums sold worldwide. She is the best-selling female artist on the Recording Industry Association of Americas (RIAA) Top Selling Artists list and the only female recording artist in the top ten. Her achievement is all the more remarkable, as she is the only artist who was not a part of the rock n roll genre. Along with Frank Sinatra, Cher, Jamie Foxx and Shirley Jones, she shares the distinction of being awarded an acting Oscar and also recording a #1 pop single on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart.

According to the RIAA, Streisand holds the record for the most Top 10 albums of any female recording artist; a total of 31 to her credit since 1963. Streisand also has the widest span (46 years) between first and latest Top 10 albums of any female recording artist. With her 2009 album, Love Is the Answer (Love Is the Answer (album)), she became the only artist to achieve number 1 albums in five consecutive decades. Her RIAA tally shows she has released 51 Gold albums, 30 Platinum albums, and 13 Multi-Platinum albums in the United States.