I'm the Greatest Star I'm the Greatest Star "I'm the Greatest Star" is a popular song from the 1964 musical "Funny Girl". The show tune was composed by written by Jule Styne with lyrics by Bob Merrill. Barbra Streisand performed it in the role of Fanny Brice, first in the Broadway cast, then again in the 1968 film adaptation. The song was first included on the original Broadway cast recording album "Funny Girl", which was a best-seller in 1964. A review in "Talking' Broadway" notes that Brice "comes out swingin' with 'I'm the Greatest Star. Howard Taubman wrote in "The New York Times" "Miss
The Great Ziegfeld of the performers of the earlier Broadway version of the Ziegfeld Follies were cast in the film as themselves, including Fanny Brice and Harriet Hoctor, the ballet dancer and contortionist. "The Great Ziegfeld" marked Rainer's second Hollywood film role after "Escapade" (also with Powell). Fanny Brice appears as a comedian in the abridged song sequence "My Man" and played an effective version of herself in addition to her routine comic role as the funny girl. Nat Pendleton, a freestyle wrestler who had won the silver medal at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp and had appeared alongside Powell in "The