Frank Pierson's Bitter Creative War on the 1976 A Star Is Born Remake — 'My Battles with Barbra and Jon'

Scandals & Feuds3/5 wildness

Frank Pierson's Bitter Creative War on the 1976 A Star Is Born Remake — 'My Battles with Barbra and Jon'

A Star Is Born (1976) / Frank Pierson / 1970s

When Frank Pierson signed on to direct and help shape the screenplay for the 1976 remake of A Star Is Born, he walked into one of the most bruising creative standoffs of the decade. The film starred Barbra Streisand — at the time an imperious box-office force — and Kris Kristofferson, and was produced by Jon Peters, who was also Streisand’s boyfriend. According to Pierson’s own account, the production was dogged by constant interference: Streisand exercised heavy control over performance and material, Peters pushed his own ideas and decisions as an inexperienced but politically powerful producer, and Pierson found his authorial agency repeatedly undermined. The clash was public enough and rancorous enough that Pierson later wrote a piece titled “My Battles with Barbra and Jon” for The Village Voice, laying out the rancor between director, star, and producer and giving a rare insider’s view of how star-producer entanglements could derail a director’s work on a high-profile studio picture.