by Mark Bego
“I didn’t want to concentrate on Janis,” said Bette. “I avoided Janis because I didn’t feel I could do justice to her. I adore her and I had seen her work live and she really changed my life. Changed a lot of people’s lives. I think women were particularly moved by her because she was aggressive and yet she seemed vulnerable. I really adored her and I didn’t want to use her to further my own particular aims. I have a certain ethical code that I try to work by. The character in the film has a little bit of everybody in it. Physically, there is a lot more of men than there is of women in it. The men tend to strut and they tend to get into the gymnastics of rock & roll” (86).
Mark Rydell agreed with Bette’s feelings. “Though it was never intended to be about Joplin,” he explained, “the film does embrace the spirit of those people who, like Joplin, like Hendrix, like James Dean, like Marilyn Monroe or Monty Clift, were tormented and driven to grave ends in their desperate attempts to reveal creative truth. Judy Garland is a perfect example of someone on the edge” (85).
According to Bette, the film required a lot of preparation. “I did a lot of dieting and I worked in the gym a lot,” she stated. “I listened to Sam Cooke till my ears were bleeding, did a lot of reading about the ’60s, watched a few video tapes, and talked to some people. I did it all. I actually spent a good six months at it” (86).
One of the most important aspects of the film was the selection of music. Using Paul A. Rothchild was an inspired move. Paul listened to over 3,000 songs, chose 30 of them, and played them for Bette for her reactions. The final version of the film contains 7 of those 30 songs, and Bette brought in 3 of her own choices: “When a Man Loves a Woman,” “Stay with Me,” and “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.”
Among the songs that Paul submitted to Bette was a ballad written by an aspiring actress-turned-songwriter named Amanda McBroom. The song was called “The Rose.” According to McBroom, “My manager told me it was time to write some Bob Seger-type tunes so we could get a record deal. I sat down and forty-five minutes later there was ‘The Rose.’ It was the fastest song I’ve ever written and I never changed a word. ‘The Rose’ is most unusual in that it’s just one verse repeated three times. When I finished it, I realized it doesn’t have a bridge or a hook, but I couldn’t think of anything to put in there!” (87). The song was to become the signature song of the film and, for that matter, of Bette Midler’s career.
The filming of The Rose was completed on July 18, 1978, two days under schedule. Bette had scarcely recovered from the experience when Aaron announced the dates of her upcoming world concert tour. It opened on September 11 in Seattle, Washington—a three-day domestic “dry run”—then on to London, Brighton, Gothenburg, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Lund, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Munich, Paris, The Hague, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane, and finishing up in Sydney again on November 14, 1978.
Bette invited the girls who now called themselves Formerly of the Harlettes to accompany her on the tour, but Redd, Hedwig, and Crossley declined her offer. Then she placed a want ad in the Hollywood Reporter and held open auditions for a new set of Harlettes. The girls she ultimately hired for the world tour were Linda Hart, Katie Sagal, and Frannie Eisenberg.
Bette felt that she had to come up with some new gimmicks for this tour to enhance the show. It was on this tour that “Dolores DeLago—The Toast of Chicago” was born, along with her mermaid outfit and her electric wheelchair. For her entrance in her foreign concert dates, Bette admitted that she wanted a costume that was completely unique and totally American. One day she hit upon the perfect outfit: She would enter the stage dressed as a hotdog—complete with mustard! Unfortunately, the costume was a colossal pain in the ass to put on and take off, and she stopped wearing it after the second night in Seattle. The wheelchair, the character of Dolores, and the mermaid costume, however, became staples of Miss M’s stage shows from that point forward.
Conquering England was one of the Bette’s goals. She had already had hit records in the United Kingdom—like “You’re Moving Out Today”—but the Brits had yet to experience her insanity live. On September 3, 1978 her Ol’ Red Hair Is Back TV special was broadcast on England’s ITV network, and from September 21 to 23 she headlined the London Palladium, as part of her first European tour. With her mermaid costume in tow, she was determined to make a splash in the British Isles, and splash she did!
London loved Bette. The critics couldn’t say enough glowing things about their first taste of Midler live and in person. The London Evening News raved, “With this one, dazzling, magic spellbinding show, Bette Midler conquered Britain.” The London Times marveled that “she received the kind of tumultuously genuine reception which only a star who is many stars in one can evoke.” And the London Daily Telegraph exclaimed, “Miss Bette Midler has hit London, and London will never be the same again. In a series of dazzling solo performances she has rediscovered and updated for all the essentials of great music-hall” (8).
During one of her London Palladium shows, Bette glanced up to the balcony to spot a huge banner that some of her fans had made that read, “We Love Your Tits.” That was all the encouragement she needed: down went her corset. There she stood in tasteful London, “nipples to the wind.” In Copenhagen, the locals loved Bette’s mermaid costume and took it as a tribute to their own famed Little Mermaid statue in the harbor. The whole tour was a roaring success, especially London and all of the dates in Australia.
As a publicity ploy, Aaron announced that during the tour, Bette would be paid in gold. An item in the business section of the July 3, 1978, New York Times stated that half of her $600,000 fee was to be paid upon contract signing in South African gold Krugerrands. It made a great press release, especially since the last person to make such a demand was Sarah Bernhardt, around the turn of the last century. Unfortunately, the deal did not work out, and Miss M had to settle for standard currency this time around. “I was supposed to be paid in gold, but things got mixed-up,” she later explained (88).
As 1978 drew to a close, everything seemed perfect for Bette. Her first movie had been made and was in the editing and postproduction phase. She had conquered the rest of the globe on her latest tour, and her business and personal lives seemed quite happy. In fact, her confidence level was at an all-time high. According to Aaron Russo, “She’s got the best of both worlds now. She’s got Peter [Riegert] at home, who cares for her and is dedicated to her, and me at the office, who cares for her and is dedicated to her” (81).
Bette was indeed very much in love with Peter. According to her at the time, “Since I met Pete, my life has been kind of quiet—not too many orgies, and we’ve been staying out of the hot tub. I’ve been working on my craft. I would like to have children before my uterus falls out!” (8).
In January of 1979, tragedy struck when Bette’s mother, Ruth, died of cancer. “She had leukemia for a long time, cancer of the liver—and of the breast, incidentally, when I was a kid. She suffered most of her life. She just thought I was ‘it!’ She thought I was so funny and so adorable; she just loved all the excitement. She used to say I was the only thing that brought her joy,” said Bette (8).
The year 1979 was obviously going to usher in several changes in her life, some of them good, some of them not so good. With the sudden death of her mother, Bette decided that it was time to take control of her life. She was so determined to find happiness that in February she decided she could do without several large complications in her life: namely, Aaron Russo. There was never a contract between the two of them, and as far as she could see, he had served his purpose. He had made her a “legend” in her own time, and he had to go.
“I couldn’t take it anymore,” she explained. “I felt that what he was doing for me professionally wasn’t worth what he was doing for me personally. I couldn’t sleep. I was in a state of anxiety all the time because I never knew what he was going to pull on me next. It was either, ‘I’m dying of leukemia’ or ‘I’m carrying guns because
they’re out to get me. You’re all that’s left!’ It was a lot of mind control. I was going to say ‘mind fucking,’ but I don’t think it’s an attractive term for a lovely lady to use. And always, of course, there was drama—much, much drama. Eventually, I outgrew my need for drama. At a certain point, when you’re 32 or so, you just no longer require the raving. You start enjoying pleasant days where there is no drama, where instead you have a little food and some pleasant conversation about wine and books” (30).
When The Rose was released in November of 1979, audiences saw several scenes where Rose fights with her manager, Rudge (Alan Bates). There are those who felt that those scenes bore a startling similarity to Midler’s real-life experiences with Russo. According to one of her business associates, “They were fighting constantly, and [in 1974] she wanted to give up the business completely. That’s where the whole thing in The Rose came from: ‘I want to take a year off!’ There is a lot drawn from her story. The firing scene, where the manager fires her—that happened. The psychological subtext of that IS the Bette and Aaron story” (35).
Midler was later to underscore those comments by stating, “Our relationship was so much sicker than anything in that film. Aaron was very protective of me—in his way. He made a lot of enemies on my behalf. You see, we had a personal relationship at the beginning of everything, and when our personal relationship floundered, it tainted our professional relationship. I was so dumb; I didn’t think that’d happen. He was so overbearing, and he kept me very isolated, kept the bad stuff away from me and a lot of the good stuff, too. For a long time I never saw people backstage, never read anything about myself, never had fun. He would have a magazine article about me in his hand as I was going on stage, and I’d say, ‘Oh boy, lemme see that!’ But he’d say, ‘I don’t want you to read it now or later. It’ll only upset you.’ Long, long afterward, I would find out it said bad things about HIM, not me!” (8).
While The Rose was in production, Aaron took credit in the press for steering Bette into the film. He told the New York Times, “I wanted her first film to be a role that only Bette Midler could play. I mean, who else could play ‘The Rose?’ Liza Minnelli? You know what I’m saying?” (89).
According to Bette, her lowest point came during the 1978 world tour, on which Aaron accompanied her. “I used to do shows,” she explained, “and no matter how good they were, it didn’t matter until HE told me it was okay. And he used to withhold this approbation from me all the time. THAT game. And that’s a real horrible mind-fuck to get into. I was pretty messed up there for a long time. I don’t know why—emotional retardation, I guess. He was the only one I trusted. I started out with a lot of people around me and eventually they all left, and I was alone with Aaron. I knew that if I didn’t get out at that point, I would never be happy again” (8).
In May 1979, Bette appeared as the musical guest on the TV show Saturday Night Live. She sang her latest song, the Top 40 hit “Married Men,” and a song by Tom Waits about lost love, called “Martha,” which was never released on record. By the time she finished singing the Waits ballad, tears were running down her cheeks. She later explained, “That song calls up a lot of deep things for me. That night of the show, I was thinking about my mom” (8).
In September, Bette released her first album since breaking loose from Aaron Russo. At long last she had recorded an album that matched the fun, the emotion, the excitement, and the total listenability of her first two LPs. The album, which was produced by Arif Mardin, was entitled Thighs and Whispers, and it drew immediate critical acclaim. Stereo Review proclaimed that “her wonderful new Atlantic album . . . certainly shows that she hasn’t forgotten any of her old tricks.” And Billboard announced that “Midler covers a lot of ground. . . . [she] has been searching for her niche on record since her big initial success with The Divine Miss M in 1973, and she may have found it in the sheer diversity of this package” (8).
However, Steven Holden, in the Village Voice, hated the album—a lot. According to his review, “Midler’s latest studio album teams her with Arif Mardin, whose elegant pop-soul arrangements obviously scared her to pieces. Though for a change she stays on pitch most of the time, this hard-won precision requires a near-total sacrifice of personality. The best cut, ‘Big Noise from Winnetka,’ is an arranger’s showpiece. The worst, Johnny Bristol’s ‘Hang On in There, Baby,’ has Midler sounding like a luded-out Donna Summer, her voice a frightened mew in a swamp of production” (90). Oh well, you can’t please everyone.
However, if you loved this album, you really loved it. The highlights on Thighs and Whispers include the rousing ’40s swing number “Big Noise from Winnetka,” which was borrowed from Bob Crosby & the Bobcats. This was the perfect song to rekindle Midler’s association with the songs of the 1940s swing era. Her background vocals were fittingly provided by three of her Harlettes: Ula Hedwig, Robin Grean, and Merle Miller.
James Taylor’s “Millwork,” from the Broadway show Working, was a real treat. Bette took this song and gave it the same kind of slow and pensive treatment that she gave to “Hello in There.” On this song she brings to life a character who is singing of her sad and dismal life, working at a mill, day after monotonous day. With just a simple piano and cello behind her, this is one of Midler’s most touching vocal performances.
“Cradle Days,” which was written by Aaron Neville, gave Miss M a great, torchy rhythm & blues song, singing about the love of her life. After recording so many pristine and smoothly produced songs in recent years, on this one she delivers a nice, occasionally ragged torch performance. The backgrounds here are provided by Luther Vandross, disco singer Ullanda McCullough, and Diva Gray—on her way to becoming a Harlette.
The outrageously tongue-in-cheek “My Knight in Black Leather” was just the kind of silliness that Bette’s last two studio albums lacked. It is the Divine Miss M here, singing to a disco beat, of falling in love with a hunk in black leather who “smelled just like a new car.” This totally crazy disco number was understandably a huge hit in discotheques in 1979, which was the absolute height of disco mania. With a chorus of background singers, including Luther and Ula, Midler unleashes her strong belting voice. This song was a smash at Studio 54.
Bette’s seductive “Hang On in There, Baby” is the Bette’s disco homage to Johnny Bristol’s 1974 hit. She gives the song the same sexy come-on that “Do You Want to Dance?” possessed.
Again trying her hand at songwriting, this time with Randy Kerber, Midler penned the song “Hurricane.” A song about love, “Hurricane” features the diva singing, “you blow me away,” with an ethereal choir, to a sweeping disco beat. Her version of the Dr. John (Mac Rebenack) composition “Rain” emerged as an arty jazz blues ballad.
Finally, the album ends with Bette’s comic version of the song “Married Men,” which is another disco-ized spree. On the comic dance song, Midler sings of her advice about the pitfalls of dating philandering married men who are never going to divorce their wives.
Thighs and Whispers was a lively and excellently recorded album, and Bette was finally on the right track musically. It peaked at Number 65 on the Billboard chart, as compared with Broken Blossom having made it to Number 51. Although it wasn’t a huge seller, Thighs and Whispers did win a German Record Award as 1979’s best international album, and it won an avalanche of critical acclaim that Broken Blossom and Songs for the New Depression had failed to draw.
Bette herself was quite pleased with Thighs and Whispers. According to her, “People say it’s the best thing I’ve done in a long time and that’s gratifying. I really do love the ballads. For someone like me, they keep you alive. I think ‘Cradle Days’ is one is one of the best things I ever did. I love old tunes and disco and rock, but ballads really are the key to my soul” (85).
In the summer of 1979, Bette went back to Europe for a brief tour and then a one-shot American concert tour that took her into autumn. Billed as Bette! Divine Madness, the show was a preparation for a Broadway openi
ng on December 5 at the Majestic Theater. Her engagements in San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Detroit were all successful, especially teamed with the advance word on The Rose as a tour de force for Miss M. Her Harlettes for this tour were Linda Hart, Frannie Eisenberg, and Paulette McWilliams (who had replaced Katie Sagal).
One night onstage in Detroit, the ever-unpredictable Bette spontaneously showed more of herself than usual. She had done the encore number, and the crowd was still clamoring for more. Midler was already in her dressing room, wrapped in a towel, when Jerry Blatt came and knocked on her door to tell her to come out onstage again. Jerry half jokingly said to Bette as she walked into the wings, “Please, whatever you do, don’t flash them” (16). That was all the encouragement that she needed!
The date was November 6, 1979. The place was the Ziegfeld Theater in New York City. The event was the world premiere of The Rose. And the opening night party was—where else?—the Roseland Ballroom. Said the newly blond Miss M, “It was the most exciting opening I’ve ever been to, and I’ve been to a few. Thank God, this one was mine!” (91).
The film tracks the last year in the life of a flamboyant rock & roll star. Through a haze of booze and drugs, the Rose (Bette Midler) fights with her tyrannical manager Rudge (Alan Bates), desperately clings to a male lover (Frederic Forrest), confronts a former female lover, tries in vain to reconcile with her parents, and comes up emotionally empty-handed on all fronts. In the final scene she ODs on stage, drowning in a sea of misery.
The opening-night premiere and party in New York City was used to raise funds for the famed drug-rehabilitation organization Phoenix House. “It’s such a good cause,” remarked Midler that night. “I only wish the opening-night party in Los Angeles was for Alcoholics Anonymous. That would be PERFECT!” (92).