When Barbra Streisand and Nick Nolte starred opposite each other in the 1991 romance The Prince of Tides, their chemistry was obvious — and the movie, which was nominated for seven Academy Awards, took the world by storm.
Nick played Tom Wingo, a Southern man who moves to New York to help care for his suicidal sister. He meets often with his sister's psychiatrist Susan, played by Barbra.
Tom and Susan fall in love on-screen, and, as it turns out, Nick and Barbra were feeling the heat offscreen as well.
In his 2018 memoir, Rebel: My Life Outside the Lines, Nick Nolte reportedly reveals some of the intimate details of his relationship with the musical legend, and admits their on-screen relationship bled over into their real lives.
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Nick first met Barbra in 1989, when he claims she invited him over to her house to read for the part of Tom Wingo. Barbra was also directing the film, and wanted to meet Nick beforehand.
As reported by the Daily Mail, the actor remembers visiting Barbra at her apartment in Manhattan before filming began, where he claims the two had deep talks about their characters' romantic pull. In Rebel, Nick writes, "'I was powerfully drawn to her just as she was to me, so much so that I knew that early on we needed to talk about the reasons why we shouldn't slip into a romantic and sexual relationship with each other as we worked."
Still, Nick claims he and Barbra found it hard to stay just friends when the cameras weren't rolling. Nick claims Barbra often had him shoot scenes without any clothes on, and that the pair of them lived "in the fantasy of a relationship." He knew their relationship was dangerous, but the chemistry was hard to resist. He writes, "We can live in the fantasy of a relationship and that will survive, but an actual physical relationship might not survive the film."
One day, after filming wrapped up, Nick claims Barbra called him on the phone and asked him to move in with her. He was raising his son Brawley at the time, and said no. But Nick believes Barbra was inspired to call because she was watching the movie, and had fallen in love with Nick's character Tom. She translated those feelings onto him, which created the hard-to-resist chemistry between them.
Nick's been married four times and has since fathered a second child. Barbra has been married twice and has one child, but their time together remains forever documented in The Prince of Tides. This reveal makes me want to go back and watch the movie again just to experience their incredible chemistry.
