Who was the first person to win an Oscar and have a number one in the same year?
There’s something in the calibre of a true classic star that when they won an Oscar, it really meant something that glinted with diamonds for the rest of their career.
Nowadays, while an element of that illustrious shine still exists, there are so many awards and movies and moments for one to get caught up in that one mere Oscar is unfortunately much smaller fry than it used to be. What we really need is the big leagues – the EGOTs – to truly show the world how things should be done. When you’re delving into that decadent world, there’s only one woman for the job.
Barbra Streisand is undoubtedly a powerhouse of entertainment like no other, treading boards from screen to stage to sound booth so deftly that many would never even realise the differences and challenges between the mediums. It’s only right, in this sense, that she would be recognised with some of the industry’s highest honours for her years of dominating the scene, but the velocity at which she did it would often turn heads.
This was particularly the case in one seismic year, in which she became the only person in history to win an Oscar and have a number one song within the same 12 months, a record which still remains unbeaten to this day.
Yet what made this feat all the more remarkable was that both of the two accolades were attributed to the very same song, representing a pinnacle moment in Streisand’s career, that no one, not even herself, could ever match up to again.
Barbra Streisand, a number one song and an Oscar…
The project in question was A Star is Born, and more specifically, within that, the song ‘Evergreen’, which acted as the film’s love theme.
Gaining Streisand an Oscar for ‘Best Original Song’ in 1977, as well as a three-week stint at the top of the charts in the United States when it was released in March of the same year, it was a track which continually occupies one of the most seismic spaces in the performer’s back catalogue, simply for the sheer amount of acclaim it managed to sweep up.
After all, it wasn’t just the Oscar and the number one accolade which ‘Evergreen’ ultimately took home. Although, as a composer on the song, Streisand became the first ever woman to be honoured as a composer at the Academy Awards, she wasn’t content with simply stopping there – it also garnered her the Grammy Award for ‘Song of the Year’, and another ‘Best Original Song’, this time at the Golden Globes.
It really wasn’t a bad day’s work for one song from one movie, but it just goes to show the massive domino effect that A Star is Born had on not only Streisand’s career but the whole of cinema and music as a combined force. You can guarantee any other composers in the year 1977 might have been cursing her name, but there’s nothing that can beat the ultimate wrath of a woman dominating the show business leagues.
