Barbra Streisand: A strong woman is simply a woman with an opinion

How did Barbra Streisand land husband James Brolin? It started with a blind date — because yeah, there’s “a certain amount of intimidation and fear” when it comes to asking La Streisand out — and an insult.

“I met him at a dinner and expected a bearded mountain-man type, and he had cut off all his hair and was clean-shaven,” she says in W Magazine’s December issue. “I asked him, ‘Who screwed up your hair?’

“He later told me that’s when he fell in love with me. My fella likes to hear the truth, which is unusual.”

Strong women, she says, are simply women who have opinions.

“[T]hey have always been treated with suspicion,” noted the 74-year-old, whose bare legs rock the room on the mag’s cover and in her inside photo spread. “Look at Hillary Clinton. And, sadly, the strong women usually don’t get the guy at the end of the film.”

One of the reasons she decided to direct and star in 1996’s “The Mirror Has Two Faces,” she says, was because her character, Rose Morgan, found love along the way.

“I thought, ‘Hmm, I’ve been alone too long,’ ” Streisand says. “I think I’ll do this movie, and then, in real life, I also got the guy at the end! I wound up getting married. In a sense, I believe you can manifest your reality.”

The actress-singer-director did, however, get off on the right foot where long-term relationships are concerned, starting with the first boy she ever kissed.

“I think I was about 5, and it was with Irving Borookow, on Pulaski Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn,” Streisand says. “He was my first boyfriend, and we keep in touch. I invite him to my concerts!”

Follow Christie D’Zurilla on Twitter @theCDZ.