Barbra Streisand to star in Universal’s "Gypsy" musical

PanARMENIAN.Net - Barbra Streisand's movie remake of "Gypsy" is back on, with Julian Fellowes, the Academy Award-winning writer of "Gosford Park" and Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning writer of "Downton Abbey" doing the adaptation for Universal, the studio said, according to The Wrap.

Streisand is producing with Joel Silver.

In 2011, The New York Times reported that Silver would be producing the movie for Warner Bros.

Steisand will play the overbrearing stage mother Mama Rose. No director has been announced.

It will be her first musical since "Yentl" in 1983 and her first starring role since "The Mirror Has Two Faces" in 1996. Streisand, who won the best actress Oscar for the 1968 "Funny Girl," most recently played Roz Fokker in 2010's "Little Fokkers."

She has been trying to get "Gypsy" back onto the big screen for more than a decade, and met with Stephen Sondheim and the late Arthur Laurents, who wrote the Broadway version, to discuss the project.

In 1962, Warner Bros. released a version starring Rosalind Russell, Natalie Wood and Karl Malden.