FILM · 1983 · UK
Yentl
32 archived facts 5 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (32)
- #001
Barbra Streisand personally chose Mandy Patinkin for this film, and he politely turned it down several times because he did not like the script. He was eventually invited to Streisand's home, where they could discuss the parts he wanted changed. He then agreed to take a role in the film.
- #002
Barbra Streisand stated that the right side of her face was more masculine, particularly because of the different shape of her nose on that side. For this reason, she shot most of the scenes in which she is a man on the right side of her face (to camera). When she reveals to Avigdor that she is a woman, the camera moves to the left side of her face (to camera), making her look more feminine.
- #003
Although Yentl is much younger than Avigdor, Mandy Patinkin was only 30 at the time and Barbra Streisand was 40.
- #004
Because she was used to it from her theater background, Barbra Streisand had the film shot in long, uninterrupted takes.
- #005
With this film, Barbra Streisand became the first woman to win the Golden Globe for Best Director. She was later nominated for Best Director at both the Golden Globes and the Directors Guild of America Awards for The Prince of Tides (1991). To date she has not been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director, but she presented the Oscar for Best Director when a woman (Kathryn Bigelow) won it for the first time.
- #006
Although its leads Amy Irving and especially Mandy Patinkin were known as accomplished singers (when he was cast for a role in Yentl, Patinkin had already won a Tony Award for his role in the Broadway musical Evita and would later be nominated for two more Tonys for musical performances), Barbra Streisand is the only member of the cast who sings any song in this musical film.
- #007
Barbra Streisand did not cut her hair for this film; she wore an elaborately made short wig.
- #008
Yentl means 26; Barbra Streisand was 40 when she played her. Thanks to Barbra's youthful appearance and likability, this did not matter at all.
- #009
It contains Amy Irving's only Oscar-nominated performance.
- #010
Harold Goldblatt was originally the actor who took on the role of the rabbi. Goldblatt fainted shortly after his part of the reading. Gary Brown and Kerry Shale recall that Barbra Streisand held him in her arms before the ambulance arrived. Sadly, he died on the way to the hospital. Streisand was later shocked to discover that he had understated his age by nearly twenty years in order to get the role.
- #011
It is Barbra Streisand's first feature-length directing effort.
- #012
The traditional Orthodox Jewish rituals of death and mourning seen here include the recitation of the Kaddish, the tearing of clothes and the covering of the mirrors in the house.
- #013
After Heaven's Gate (1980) lost nearly its entire $40 million budget, this film was almost cancelled. Caught between the initial budget and the story, studio executives thought it would not sell tickets.
- #014
Norma Atallah, who plays the Vishkower family's maid, was also Barbra Streisand's stand-in. Streisand had her memorize Yentl's lines and run them while the shots were being set up.
- #015
Diane Lane auditioned for the role of Hadass. When she later married Josh Brolin, she became Barbra Streisand's stepdaughter.
- #016
The final scene on the ship was shot on an old ferry on the Mersey River in Liverpool. The ferry was so old that it had no stabilization. The weather was wildly changeable on the shooting days, and most people suffered seasickness in the makeshift sick bay on board.
- #017
The poems sung by the yeshiva students in the car were cut once they were found to be full of sexual innuendo.
- #018
The stage play "Yentl" was produced for Broadway. Starring Tovah Feldshuh, it opened at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on October 23, 1975 and ran for 223 performances.
- #019
It is one of three feature film adaptations of a story or novel by Isaac Bashevis Singer made within roughly ten years. The films, in order, are The Magician of Lublin (1979), Yentl (1983) and Enemies, a Love Story (1989).
- #020
It was one of the first films to use video playback during production.
- #021
The scene in which Yentl wraps herself reverently in her father's tallit, or prayer shawl, was considered scandalous at the time. Regina Jones, the first female rabbi, would be ordained in Berlin 31 years after this film was made.
- #022
Yentl's attempt at a Shabbat meal includes traditional challah bread, carp and baked apple for dessert. The food served on this night is traditional, and these dishes are still served today.
- #023
In response to public commentary speculating about Streisand's supposedly bad temperament, nearly one hundred cast and crew members signed a letter — apparently unsolicited — confirming her pleasant manner and the absence of any temperament on set. It was sent to major newspapers in June 1982.
- #024
While developing Yentl (1983), Barbra Streisand consulted Jeremy Kagan, the director of The Chosen (1981). He wrote in The Jewish Daily Forward: "Years later, when she was planning to make 'Yentl (1983),' Barbra Streisand approached me and told me how I had made 'The Chosen (1981).' She told me she would not put her actors, who played Hasidic students and their overly Jewish families, through that. Even for a star as brilliant and widely admired as Streisand, the question of acceptability was troubling."
- #025
The final scene, in which Barbra Streisand sings on the boat, recalls a scene she did 15 years earlier in Funny Girl (1968).
- #026
In 2020, BBC 2 in the United Kingdom broadcast a restored MGM-UA version of the film presented in its original widescreen ratio. Because the original ratio does not exactly match 16:9, this restored version was presented with narrow side-bar columns to the left and right of the uncropped image.
- #027
In the final boat scene, Streisand and a large number of immigrant extras are all gathered and wearing head coverings so that the helicopter filming from the air would not blow their hair around. All of them except one: a young girl whose long, loose hair flies wildly throughout the scene.
- #028
The boat Yentl boards to go to America is named R. EA. S. C. Moskova.
- #029
The final scene, in which Yentl sings on the boat as it carries her toward a new life, may have inspired the legendary shot in the 1997 film "Titanic" in which Rose realizes that she too has dreams of living.
- #030
Isaac Bashevis Singer, the Nobel Prize-winning author of the original story on which the film is based, wrote in a 1984 article in The New York Times that he did not like the film: "I found no artistic value in either the adaptation or the direction. I did not think Miss Streisand did the best she could in the role of Yentl. I must say that Miss Tovah Feldshuh, who played Yentl on Broadway, was much better. She understood her role perfectly; she showed an instinctive knowledge of how to portray the scholarly Yentl I described in my story. She took a great deal of advice and information from various rabbis, but rabbis cannot take the place of a director. As far as I could see, the singing had no effect on revealing Yentl's personality or illuminating her behavior. The songs suppressed the action. My story 'Yentl the Yeshiva Boy' was in no way material for a musical, especially not the kind Miss Streisand presented to us. It is not possible to cover up the shortcomings in direction and acting with songs."
- #031
It was included on the American Film Institute's 2006 list of 180 films nominated in the AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals category.
- #032
At the time, confusingly, Lee International Studios had two separate production complexes. Wembley was the building previously used as a television studio for Associated-Redifusion and then London Weekend Television, later bought by Lee for its films, then sold and converted to television use by Limehouse Television and then Fountain Television. The main Lee International Studios were at Shepperton in Surrey. This is the site best known as Shepperton Studios regardless of its owner. It had a large plot of land and was eventually sold for housing. By 2021 Wembley had become a theatre space, and Shepperton Studios was now part of Pinewood-Shepperton Studios' vast sound stage and backlot offerings. Yentl was most likely located at Shepperton rather than at Lee International Studios in Wembley.
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