Barbra's 'royal conquest'

Barbra Streisand had a secret affair with Prince Charles, an explosive biography claims.

The prince, who once said the singer was 'my only pin-up', is said to have romanced her in November 1994 while on a trip to the U.S.

He had separated from Princess Diana two years earlier and was involved with Camilla Parker Bowles at the time.

Sources quoted in the biography Barbra - The Way She Is say Charles had a private dinner for the singer nine months later where they seemed 'very affectionate toward each other'.

The unauthorised biography's claims attracted widespread coverage in the New York press yesterday.

It also alleges that Miss Streisand, now 63, had affairs with Diana's lover Dodi Fayed, Warren Beatty, Liam Neeson, Omar Sharif, Ryan O'Neal, Jon Voight, Andre Agassi and Don Johnson - while Hillary Clinton was also convinced that her husband Bill was obsessed with the star.

Prince Charles met Miss Streisand, who is six years his senior, in 1974 on the set of Funny Lady, after he turned up at Columbia Studios in Hollywood in the hope of seeing her. They shared a mug of coffee and a 20-minute conversation. Charles later wrote: 'I still contend she has great sex appeal'. And Miss Streisand joked that if she had not been so nervous of meeting him, she might have beaten Diana to be his wife.

The book, by Christopher Anderson, says the couple saw each other again in London in April 1994 when she performed for his Prince's Trust charity at Wembley Arena. She serenaded him and teased him about what the headlines would be if they got together.

But it was during the prince's trip to Los Angeles, in November that year, that the two allegedly became close after she attended a gala dinner in his honour.

Within days both were said to have cleared their diaries to have an intimate 'tea date' at Charles's Bel-Air hotel.

The book quotes the late Burke's Peerage managing director Harold Brooks-Baker as saying: 'The official explanation was that Prince Charles and Barbra Streisand had a private tea. Well, Charles has "had a private tea" with quite a long procession of women over the years.

'From what I understand, he was absolutely besotted with Barbra Streisand. Did anyone ever turn Charles down? Not to my knowledge.' The following August, Miss Streisand arrived in London with her lover Jon Voight, father of Angelina Jolie. That apparently did not stop her visiting the prince at Highgrove, his country home.