I have to admit, I’m a real sucker for an underdog. I find it very intriguing anytime someone overcomes adversity. But when I think of famous celebrities that have had it rough, I never think of Barbara Streisand. It turns out Babs had a really hard luck childhood. Not just because her family was incredibly poor – she grew up in a Brooklyn housing project in an apartment that didn’t even have a living room – but because she was actively discouraged from pursuing show business.

“We never had a couch. We never had a living room,” the singer/actress, who grew up living in a Brooklyn housing project, says in an interview set to air on CBS’s Early Show Tuesday. “We only had a dining room and then my grandmother and grandfather lived in one bedroom. My mother, my brother and I slept in another bedroom … Now, I love couches,” says the star.

Another thing she lived without: “You know, I never had a doll – I had a hot water bottle,” says Streisand.

As for how she made it from Brooklyn to Hollywood success, she says it was a hard road where she didn’t have much encouragement from her family. When she told her mother she wanted to be an actress, Streisand, 66, says her mother told her, “‘You’ll never make it. You’re not pretty enough. You’re not this enough.”

Still, the singer says, “I owe her a lot because, in a sense, I was proving to my mother that this skinny, little girl, you know, unconventional looking, I suppose, could be a movie star.”

[From People]

Talk about coming a long way. According to Forbes, Streisand earned about $60 million between June 2006 and June 2007 alone. That’s a lot of dolls and couches. Though nothing is better from a parent than encouragement, her story shows that even if you don’t get that, you can still achieve amazing things by working hard and knowing you’ve got the skills to make it. It’s a little cheesy but Barbara’s story shows it’s true. She made a lot out of her talent and worked with her “unconventional” looks, and has had an amazing career to show for it – and it’s lasted much longer that most.

Header of Barbra Streisand and husband James Brolin at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC for the honourees’ traditional pre-honours dinner at the State Department on December 6th. Images thanks to WENN.