Bette Midler: Everything’s Coming Up Roses!
From Broadway and Film to Television and Music, Bette Midler’s career has entertained audiences for more than five decades. Otherwise known as “The Divine Miss M,” her distinctive singing voice and unique style of performing never ceases to amaze. In addition to portraying many remarkable characters on-screen in movies, she has also made a great impact simply live on stage “as herself,” and it works beautifully one way or the other. Throughout her career, she has done it all, not to mention several things for the Walt Disney Studios.
She was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on December 1st, 1945. Her mother, Ruth, named her after Bette Davis, though she thought Davis’s name, was in fact, pronounced “Bet.” As a result of being voted “Most Dramatic” in High School, she majored in drama at University of Hawaii in Manoa. At 21 years of age, she got a part as an extra in the movie Hawaii (1966) which starred Julie Andrews and Max von Sydow. Having been paid a decent sum of money from the film, she moved to New York City in the hopes of pursuing a career in performing.
After appearing in a few Off-Broadway plays, she assumed Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof, replacing the original Joanna Merlin. After her run in “Fiddler,” she starred in the rock opera Tommy at the Seattle Opera (1971). (“Tommy,” was readapted as a film in 1975 with Ann-Margret in the lead role.) Next she began singing at the Continental Baths, a gay bathhouse in the Ansonia Hotel. At that time, she became very close with her piano accompanist, Barry Manilow, and together they produced her first solo album, The Divine Miss M in 1972. It featured the songs “Do You Wanna Dance?” “Friends” and “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” which became Midler’s #1 Adult Contemporary Hit. The album earned Midler her first Grammy Award for Best New Artist. (Manilow also produced the albums: Bette Middler (1973), Bette Midler Sings the Rosemary Clooney Songbook (2003) and Bette Midler Sings the Peggy Lee Songbook (2005)). She also won a special Tony Award in 1974 which was simply for adding lustre to the Broadway season.
After her first two collaborations with Barry Manilow, and a few more bit parts in the movies The Detective (1968) and Goodbye, Columbus (1969), Bette Midler made her television debut in The Bette Midler Show (1976), a live taped recording of her concert tour known as “The Depression Tour.” Three years after that came her first leading role in the movie The Rose (1979), portraying the role of Mary Rose Foster, a character modeled after Janis Joplin. The role earned her Oscar and Golden Globe Nominations for Best Actress, and she won the latter. She also won a special second Golden Globe for New Star of the Year. She was directed in the movie by Mark Rydell, with whom she reunited in the movie For the Boys (1991) which also earned her Oscar and Golden Globe Nominations for the female lead role of Dixie Leonard. Again, she won the Globe. (She lost the Oscars to Sally Field in Norma Rae (1979) and Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs (1991)). She also won a third Golden Globe for starring as Mama Rose in the made-for-television adaptation of the Broadway musical Gypsy (1993) opposite former boyfriend Peter Reigert as Herbie.
Between her 70s and 90s awarded successes, she also made the Touchstone films: Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), Ruthless People (1986), Outrageous Fortune (1987), Big Business (1988), and Beaches (1988). “Beaches,” resulted in her Third Grammy Award, for the song on the film’s soundtrack “Wind Beneath My Wings.” The same year as “Big Business,” and “Beaches,” she was also cast by the Walt Disney Studios as the voice of Georgette, the prima donna of a poodle, in Oliver & Company (1988). She also made the Touchstone films Stella (1990) and Scenes from a Mall (1991), as well as Disney’s Hocus Pocus (1993) and made an introductory host cameo in Fantasia 2000 (1999), Disney’s theatrical sequel to Fantasia (1940).
She returned to Broadway in 2011 producing the musical Priscilla, Queen of the Desert which won the Tony Award for Best Costume Design. Just recently, she starred in the lead role of Dolly Levi in the revival of Hello, Dolly! which resulted in her first Tony for Best Actress in a Musical. She was also in a limited Broadway engagement called I’ll Eat You Last: A Chat with Sue Mengers.
Bette Midler is an unstoppable performer, having covered every medium in the entertainment industry. Besides all her work as an entertainer, she also founded the New York Restoration Project (NYRP) in 1995 which is a non-profit organization that rejuvenates decaying neighborhood parks in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods in New York City, and she continues that work with a group of local volunteers today.
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