Bette Midler Read Free Page B

receives in the press. Critics either love her projects or viciously hate them. However, Bette’s career has never been fueled or destroyed by good or bad reviews. Her true fans flock to her movies and her concerts or purchase her record albums regardless of what the critics have to say. And if she releases an occasional “turkey,” she hasthe ability and the drive to simply go back to the drawing board and invent a new winning formula.
    Cinematically, she has stood at the fork of many roads. Often she heads down the right path to success
(The Rose, Down & Out in Beverly Hills, Outrageous Fortune, Beaches, First Wives Club)
, and occasionally she unwittingly heads in a completely opposite direction (
Isn’t She Great?, Stella, Drowning Mona)
. When she was a huge hit in her first film role as
The Rose
, it seemed as if every time she would get in front of the movie cameras, it would turn into gold. Unfortunately, the movie business isn’t like that at all. Some of the best blueprints look great on paper, but, once constructed, are less than architectural feats. Back-to-back box-office bombs—
Divine Madness
and
Jinxed
—nearly drove her to a nervous breakdown and right out of Hollywood in the early ’80s.
    Work on television has likewise proved “hit” and “miss” for Miss M. She has won an Emmy Award and Golden Globe Awards for her most successful forays into broadcast and cable television (
Ol’ Redhair Is Back, The Tonight Show
finale,
Gypsy)
. Yet on the other hand, she has also misguidedly stumbled into what is destined to be remembered as the worst quagmire of her entire career—her disappointing TV sitcom.
Bette
was perhaps the worst TV series ever overproduced for a major multimedia star. Joyless, forced, and decidedly unfunny, it sent her in a complete downward spin. However, for Midler, it merely meant she was ripe for yet another comeback.

    Bette has been captured on film and on record many times over the past four decades, but to really understand and appreciate her as a performer, one must see her live in concert. Few stars expend so much energy and share so much of themselves with an audience as she does. In her ever-changing stage show she has invented several different personas to bring to life her most outrageous antics. First and foremost, there is her bawdy and trashy diva, “the Divine Miss M.” When she tells dirty jokes, she is Soph, the sluttish vaudeville-like comedienne, who was originally modeled after Sophie Tucker. There is Vickie Eydie, the cheesy lounge singer who is trapped in a tacky nightclub act not of her own design. There’s the Magic Lady—also known as Nanette, the forlorn shopping bag woman who turns despair into optimism. Bette’s screaming rock & roll blues-singer persona is clearly an extension of thefictional character she portrayed in
The Rose
. And last but not least: Dolores De Lago, the Toast of Chicago, the schmaltzy songstress in a mermaid suit.
    Bette has always held the great female vocalists in high esteem. Her long-time favorites include Aretha Franklin, Edith Piaf, and Bessie Smith. However, there are also a few singers of whom she has never been too fond. This list includes Helen Reddy—“She
should
be singing ‘I am Woman.’ Who could tell?” ( 6 ); the Carpenters: “I can’t believe I’m on the same stage where Karen Carpenter got her drums banged!” ( 6 ); and Madonna: “The only thing that girl will ever do like a virgin is have a baby in a stable!” ( 7 ). In 1999 Midler scored her first Number 1 dance hit, by singing the celebratory song of self-deification “I’m Beautiful.” In other words: Don’t cross this diva!

    “In your young life, you rebel against values you think are square. After you’ve lived awhile, you realize they are good values, and there’s a reason they’ve been around for thousands of years” ( 8 ). Wait a minute, Bette said that? She couldn’t have possibly said that . . . not “the Divine Miss