Barbra Streisand claims Yentl costar Mandy Patinkin wanted to have an affair

The way they weren't: Barbra Streisand says she threatened to replace Yentl costar Mandy Patinkin after he proposed an affair.

In her long-awaited memoir My Name is Barbra (out now), Streisand writes that Patinkin "disturbed" her "equilibrium" on set of the 1983 drama musical, which she not only starred in but co-wrote, directed, and co-produced. The star recounts Patinkin, who portrayed her love interest Avigdor, telling her that he was under the impression that they "were going to have a more personal relationship."

"There was a moment, a week or so into the shoot, when Mandy and I were doing a scene in the yeshiva," Streisand writes. "I think he had two or three lines, but he wouldn't look me in the eye. He just stared at my forehead." Later, when she asked Patinkin about his behavior in her dressing room, "His face crumpled and he said, 'I thought we were going to have a more personal relationship,'" she writes.

"'What?' I had no idea what he was talking about," Streisand continues. "[He said,] 'I thought we were going to have an affair.' I looked at him as if he were crazy . . . 1) I would never have an affair with an actor I was directing, 2) he was married, and 3) I wasn't at all attracted to him. But I couldn't tell him he was not exactly fascinating to me. I didn't want to hurt his feelings, so I simply said, 'I don't operate that way.' Tears rolled down his cheeks."

"I said, 'Mandy, this kind of behavior can't continue. I'm prepared to replace you. We're only two weeks in. I can reshoot all your scenes if you can't be more professional. I've waited fifteen years to realize my dream and I will not let you destroy it,'" she writes. Streisand adds that the difficulties with Patinkin led her to scrap a sex scene between their characters.

"By this point Mandy had been making my life miserable for months, and I just couldn't bear the thought of making love with him. I'm not that good an actress," she writes. "So I changed it. I rewrote the scene. And now that I look back on it, I wonder if I allowed my frustration with Mandy to overrule my instincts. Maybe I should have let Yentl . . . and the audience . . . have that moment."

Years later, after Patinkin called her to ask about writing the notes for the back cover of an album he was set to release, Streisand says she learned Patinkin's behavior was rooted in fear. "I said, 'Mandy, you put me through hell. I can't write those notes for you. I'm sorry, but I just can't do it. Why did you give me such a hard time?'" she writes. "[He said,] 'Well, I was scared.' I guess people have different ways of reacting to fear. I was scared, too, but it made me quieter."

Reps for Patinkin didn't immediately respond to EW's request for comment.

Streisand won a Golden Globe for best director and Academy Award for best original song score at the 1984 ceremonies for Yentl, which starred the EGOT winner as a young Jewish woman who disguises herself as a boy so she could enroll in a male-only religious school following the death of her father.

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