Bette Midler Read Free Page A

the children’s album
In Harmony
. She broke box-office records at New York City’s famed Radio City Music Hall for ticket sales of her “De Tour” shows in 1983. In 1980 she was nominated for an Academy Award and won a Golden Globe for her performance in
The Rose
. Her hit “The Wind beneath My Wings” in 1990 won her a fourth Grammy Award. In 1993 she received another Academy Award nomination and another Golden Globe for her dream project
For the Boys
. And the list goes on and on.
    Tornado of energy that she is, her stardom has also catapulted several members of her musical entourage to fame. In the early 1970s her musical director was a then-unknown piano player named Barry Manilow. He coproduced her first two hit albums and launched his own career as an incredibly successful solo superstar. When Bette made her Carnegie Hall debut, one of her first background-singing Harlettes was an aspiring songwriter named Melissa Manchester. She has also become a huge singing star. Another trio of Harlettes left her to record their own successful album. In the 1990s former Harlette Katie Sagal became a TV star when she portrayed the role of Peg Bundy on the hit series
Married with Children
. And both Jenifer Lewis and Linda Hart have gone on to successful acting careers in films and TV since their Harlette days with Midler.

    In addition to her dazzling career glories, Bette Midler’s bizarre road to fame is dotted with personal heartbreak and tragedy. For a large part of her career, it seemed that every time she attained one of her creative goals, she suffered a personal loss.
    Born the youngest of three daughters to a house painter and his wife, Bette grew up the only Caucasian in her school class in Honolulu, Hawaii. She remembers, “It wasn’t easy being a Jewish kid in a Samoan neighborhood” ( 6 ). Having always felt like a misfit in school, Betteeventually gained self-confidence when she discovered that she had the ability to make people laugh at her jokes and her comedic singing. She studied drama at the University of Hawaii and earned money by packing pineapples in a canning plant. Not exactly glamorous. But when there was an “extra” casting call for the film
Hawaii
, Bette landed a featured role as a seasick missionary, and suddenly she was in show business.
    With the earnings from her role in
Hawaii
, Bette left home and headed for New York City, attracted by the lure of Broadway. It wasn’t long before she landed a part in the hit show
Fiddler on the Roof
. During her three-year run in the show, her sister Judy came to visit her in New York City. In a freak accident, Judy was struck by a moving car, pinned against a wall, and killed.
    After three years in
Fiddler
, Bette began to develop her own signature sound in small nightclubs like Hilly’s in Greenwich Village and the Improvisation. It wasn’t long before she started performing her act for men dressed in bath towels at the Continental Baths. Next came television, records, and her own triumphant Broadway revue.
    At the height of her initial success, Bette suffered a near collapse from nervous exhaustion. Just as Midler was about to celebrate the popularity of her first film, her mother, Ruth, died of cancer. Like the character called “The Rose,” throughout her life Bette had always had on odd relationship with her parents. While her mother loved her career, her father was distant. Finally, by 1986, Bette made peace with her father when she discovered she was pregnant. Fred Midler had long refused to see his “foul-mouthed” daughter perform in concert, but they at last learned to deal with each other’s opposing viewpoints. Just as she was enjoying her newfound film success, however, her father died, leaving much of the responsibility for taking care of her retarded younger brother, Danny, on Bette’s shoulders. Hers has not always been an easy life.

    Bette Midler has had a wildly erratic career, only further accentuated by the reviews she