Poifect

"I've never looked forward to nothing; I always wanted to be something," mused Brooklyn's Barbra Streisand last week. "Now I want to be nothing." That is because motherhood is calling, and so Streisand is quitting the stage temporarily. The baby that she refers to as "Kid" is due in December, after which she will report to Hollywood to begin filming Funny Girl. But before taking her maternity leave, Barbra had to say goodbye to her worshipers with a concert tour of stadiums in Newport, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Chicago.

Modified Mia. The windup last week took place in Chicago's all-but-unplayable Soldier Field. The stage was plant ed on the 10-yd. line. The crowd of 14,220 people curled back and up into the end-zone stands like one big paying claque. Yet there was not a heckle of complaint about the low-fi sound, and plenty of uproarious laughter at even her simplest lines. A whistle whined from the neighboring railway yard. "My God!" she cried. "It's got poifect pitch."

Barbra couldn't sing a clinker either. Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home brought tumult. He Touched Me touched everybody. Autumn Leaves, in French yet, wowed 'em, and People knocked 'em out. For encores she wailed her tearful Happy Days Are Here Again and, patting her bulging tummy, crooned Silent Night. And that was that. With thunderous cheers chasing her, Barbra tripped backstage to her house-trailer dressing room. There, in a symbolic act, her private hairdresser sheared her customary complicated coif into a modified Mia Farrow cut that Barbra could tend herself. Then she headed home in her chartered Aero Commander jet.

Home for a while will be a handsome rented beach house at Sands Point on Long Island Sound. After she unwinds, she will have to face up to hunting for larger winter quarters. She will also be taking instruction in natural childbirth. Inescapably, she frets constantly about herself. She admits that her private world is too small. She knows from nothing about Viet Nam or black power. About all she reads regularly are her own reviews and (since she made the best-dressed list) pertinent clips culled from Women's Wear Daily.

Royal Nightmare. Not much else has changed for Streisand since she became the Funny Girl. Success hasn't spoiled her. It hasn't even convinced her. She got rave reviews and an S.R.O. Funny Girl run in London, but she was nightmarishly maladroit when she met Princess Margaret. Arriving late at the receiving line, she apologized to Her Royal Highness: "I got screwed up." She still worries that her cult of followers will desert her. "Barbra," says her producer-actor husband, Elliott Gould, "is the kind of person who is hurt if her puppy walks past her."

If her picture is a hit, Streisand may finally become assured of her talent. To the Brooklyn girl who didn't see Manhattan until she was 14, the "something" she has always wanted is not to be simply a smash on the West End or Broadway. "To me, being really famous," she says, "is being a movie star."

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