Cis Corman has died at age 93 in New York. She was Barbra Streisand’s closest advisor, her BFF, a Hollywood powerhouse, and a famed casting director. I used to call Cis in the 80s and 90s about politics and Hollywood, she was a great sounding board and knew everything.
Apart from executive producing three Streisand films (Mirror Has Two Faces, Nuts, Prince of Tides) Corman was a major casting director. Her credits included Raging Bull, The Deer Hunter, Yentl, The Last Temptation of Christ, The King of Comedy, and one of my favorites, Author! Author!”
Corman told Vanity Fair about Barbra’s early days in a 1991 interview: “I didn’t know she could sing for two years. I met her when she was fifteen or sixteen at our acting class at the Curt Conway Studio. She was my maid-in-waiting in a play we did at the studio, Christopher Fry’s The Lady’s Not for Burning. We became her surrogate family. I had four kids. I had roots. I had a refrigerator full of food. Barbra’s appetite for work is only matched by her appetite for food. . . . She had come to the house and my husband and I were sitting around eating in the kitchen. She said, ‘Ya know, I’m going to enter a contest for singing.’ I said, ‘Why would you do that? You don’t know how to sing.’ She said, ‘Yeah, I do.’ ‘Well, sing for us,’ I said. It was rather a silly thing to say. She said, ‘I’m too embarrassed. Well, all right, I’ll sit on the table and look towards the wall.’ So she sat down and faced the wall and sang Harold Arlen’s ‘A Sleepin’ Bee.’ She turned around when she got through and we were drenched in tears. It was something I’ll never forget.”
This is a big loss. Condolences to her family and friends, and to Barbra.
Streisand wrote on Instagram tonight:
“I first met Cis Corman in acting class when I was 16! She was 32 and had four children. She remained my best friend and surrogate mother since then. I treasured our lifelong friendship, her intelligence, her taste, and her integrity. I loved Cis dearly and will miss her forever. She was also Auntie Cis to my son Jason.
Cis cast our first film for Barwood Films, Up the Sandbox. Cis went on to become a pre-eminent casting director for Marty Scorsese, Sergio Leone, and Michael Cimino. She was the president of my Barwood Films and Barwood Television which received several Peabody awards for our television projects, several of which were Emmy winners, including three Emmys for Serving in Silence about gender discrimination in the military. We shared the conviction that a film has to serve some key social purpose, and the issues addressed in our television projects included the significant and disregarded history of women in film, the importance of gun control legislation (our film about the Long Island train massacre), gay adoption and one about non-Jewish rescuers who saved Jews during the Holocaust.
I love you, Cis.”
