Bette Midler
Bette Midler is an American actress, comedian, singer, and author. Throughout her six-decade career Midler has received numerous accolades, including four Golden Globe Awards, three Grammy Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, and a Kennedy Center Honor, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards and a British Academy Film Award.
Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Midler began her professional career in several off-off-Broadway plays, prior to her engagements in Fiddler on the Roof and Salvation on Broadway in the late 1960s. She came to prominence in 1970 when she began singing in the Continental Baths, a local gay bathhouse where she managed to build up a core following. Since 1970, Midler has released 14 studio albums as a solo artist, selling over 30 million records worldwide, and has received four Gold, three Platinum, and three Multiplatinum albums by RIAA. Many of her songs became chart hits, including her renditions of "The Rose", "Wind Beneath My Wings", "Do You Want to Dance?", "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy", and "From a Distance". She won Grammy Awards for Best New Artist, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "The Rose", and Record of the Year for "Wind Beneath My Wings".
Midler made her starring film debut with the musical drama The Rose, which won her the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical, as well as nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress, the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress, and the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress. She went on to star in numerous films, including Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Ruthless People, Outrageous Fortune, Big Business, Beaches, Stella, Hocus Pocus and its sequel, The First Wives Club, The Stepford Wives, Parental Guidance, and The Addams Family and its sequel. Midler also had starring roles in For the Boys and Gypsy, winning two additional Golden Globe Awards for these films and receiving a second Academy Award nomination for the former.
Midler held a residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas with the show Bette Midler: The Showgirl Must Go On from 2008 to 2010. She starred in the Broadway revival of Hello, Dolly!, which began previews in March 2017 and premiered at the Shubert Theatre in April 2017. The show was her first leading role in a Broadway musical. Midler received the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance.
Early life
Bette Midler was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. She was the third of four children born to Ruth and Fred Midler. Midler's family was one of the few Jewish families which lived in a mostly Asian neighborhood. Her mother was a seamstress and housewife, and her father worked at a U.S. Navy base in Hawaii as a painter, and also painted houses. Both were born in New Jersey. She was named after actress Bette Davis, although Davis pronounced her first name in two syllables and Midler uses one syllable. She was raised in Aiea and attended Radford High School in Honolulu. She was voted "Most Talkative" in the 1961 school Hoss Election, and "Most Dramatic" in her senior year.Midler majored in drama at the University of Hawaii at Manoa but she dropped out after three semesters. She performed as an extra in the 1966 film Hawaii, playing an uncredited seasick passenger named Miss David Buff.
Career
1965–1971: Beginnings and early theatre work
Midler relocated to New York City in the summer of 1965, using money from her work in the film Hawaii. She studied theatre at HB Studio under Uta Hagen. She landed her first professional onstage role in Tom Eyen's off-off-Broadway plays in 1965, Miss Nefertiti Regrets and Cinderella Revisited, a children's play by day and an adult show by night. In October 1966, she joined the Broadway company of Fiddler on the Roof, playing the ensemble role of Rivka and understudying the oldest daughter Tzeitel. She assumed the role of Tzeitel in February 1967, and played the role until February 1970. After Fiddler, she joined the original cast of Salvation in 1969.In the summer of 1970, Midler began singing at the Continental Baths, a gay bathhouse in the basement of the Ansonia Hotel. During this time, she became close to her piano accompanist, Barry Manilow—also a regular performer at the Continental Baths—who produced her first album in 1972, The Divine Miss M. It was during her time at the Continental Baths that she built up a core following. In the late 1990s, during the release of her album Bathhouse Betty, Midler commented on her time performing there, "Despite the way things turned out , I'm still proud of those days. I feel like I was at the forefront of the gay liberation movement, and I hope I did my part to help it move forward. So, I kind of wear the label of 'Bathhouse Betty' with pride."
Midler starred in the first professional production of the Who's rock opera Tommy in 1971, with director Richard Pearlman and the Seattle Opera. It was during the run of Tommy that Midler first appeared on ''The Tonight Show.''
1972–1980: ''The Divine Miss M'' and success
Midler released her debut album, The Divine Miss M, on Atlantic Records in December 1972. The album was co-produced by Barry Manilow, who was Bette's arranger and music conductor at the time. It reached Billboard's Top 10 and became a million-selling Platinum-certified album, earning Midler the 1973 Grammy Award for Best New Artist. It featured three hit singles—"Do You Wanna Dance?", "Friends", and "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy"—the third of which became Midler's first No. 1 Adult Contemporary hit. "Bugle Boy" became a successful cover of the classic swing tune originally introduced and popularized in 1941 by the Andrews Sisters, to whom Midler has repeatedly referred as her idols and inspiration, as far back as her first appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Midler told Carson in an interview that she always wanted to move like the sisters, and Patty Andrews remembered: "When I first heard the introduction on the radio, I thought it was our old record. When Bette opened at the Amphitheater in Los Angeles, Maxene and I went backstage to see her. Her first words were, 'What else did you record? During another Midler concert, Maxene went on stage and presented her with an honorary bugle. Bette recorded other Andrews Sisters hits, including "In the Mood" and "Lullaby of Broadway".Her self-titled follow-up album was released at the end of 1973. Again, the album was co-produced by Manilow. It reached Billboard's Top 10 and eventually sold close to a million copies in the United States alone. Midler returned to recording with the 1976 and 1977 albums Songs for the New Depression and Broken Blossom. In 1974, she received a Special Tony Award for her contribution to Broadway, with Clams on the Half Shell Revue playing at the Minskoff Theater. From 1975 to 1978, she also provided the voice of Woody the Spoon on the PBS educational series Vegetable Soup. In 1977, Midler's first television special, whose title, Ol' Red Hair is Back, was a takeoff on Frank Sinatra's Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back, premiered, featuring guest stars Dustin Hoffman and Emmett Kelly. It went on to win the Emmy Award for Outstanding Special – Comedy-Variety or Music. In 1977 she also released her first live album, Live at Last, a double album taken from concert performances in Cleveland, Ohio.
Midler made her first motion picture in 1979, starring in the 1960s-era rock and roll tragedy The Rose, as a drug-addicted rock star modeled after Janis Joplin. That year, she also released her fifth studio album, Thighs and Whispers. Midler's first foray into disco was a commercial and critical failure and went on to be her all-time lowest charting album, peaking at No. 65 on the Billboard album chart. Soon afterward, she began a world concert tour, with one of her shows in Pasadena being filmed and released as the concert film Divine Madness.
Her performance in The Rose earned her a nomination for Academy Award for Best Actress, a role for which she won the Golden Globe for Best Actress. The film's acclaimed soundtrack album sold over two million copies in the United States alone, earning a Double Platinum certification. The single version of the title song, which Amanda McBroom had written and composed, held the No. 1 position on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart for five consecutive weeks and reached No. 3 on Billboard's Hot 100. It earned Midler her first Gold single and won the Grammy award for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female.
1981–1989: "Wind Beneath My Wings", ''Beaches'', and chart comeback
Midler worked on the troubled comedy project Jinxed! in 1981. However, during production, there was friction with co-star Ken Wahl and the film's director, Don Siegel. Released in 1982, the film was a major flop. Midler did not appear in any other films until 1986; however, she was an early choice for Miss Hannigan in the 1982 film Annie. During those four years, she concentrated on her music career and in 1983, released the album No Frills, produced by Chuck Plotkin, who was best known for his work with Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. The album included three single releases: the ballad "All I Need to Know", a cover of Detroit native Marshall Crenshaw's "You're My Favorite Waste of Time"—which Midler fell in love with after flipping his 45 of "Someday Someway"—and Midler's take on the Rolling Stones' "Beast of Burden". She also released an all-comedy album called Mud Will Be Flung Tonight in 1985.Midler performed on USA for Africa's 1985 fund-raising single "We Are the World", and participated at the Live Aid event at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. Also in 1985, she signed a multi-picture deal with the Walt Disney Studios, where she starred in a string of successful films produced by the studio's newly formed Touchstone Pictures division. She also produced them through her production banner, All Girl Productions with producing partner Bonnie Bruckheimer. She was subsequently cast by director Paul Mazursky in Down and Out in Beverly Hills, beginning a successful comedic acting career. She followed that role with several more Touchstone comedies, Ruthless People, Outrageous Fortune, and Big Business. Later in 1988, Midler lent her voice to the animated character Georgette, a snobbish poodle, in Disney's Oliver & Company, and had a hit with Beaches, co-starring Barbara Hershey. The accompanying soundtrack remains Midler's all-time biggest selling disc, reaching No. 2 on Billboards album chart and with U.S. sales of four million copies. It featured her biggest hit, "Wind Beneath My Wings", which went to No. 1 on Billboards Hot 100, achieved Platinum status, and won Midler her third Grammy Award – for Record of the Year – at the 1990 telecast.