Bette Midler

by Mark Bego

  One of the most wonderful scenes is that between adult C.C. and her mother, Leona, on a beach in Miami. When Midler whines about the demise of her marriage and the fact that people are constantly disappearing from her life, her mother informs her that it’s because she is so demanding, that she simply wears people out. As Kazan delivers this piece of information, the look on Midler’s face is priceless.

  Hillary’s marriage falls apart, and C.C.’s career falls apart, and the two estranged friends revive their friendship. When Hillary becomes pregnant, and her husband leaves her, the two friends have a new bond of comradeship. Together they face childbirth—and finally illness. As Hillary’s illness progresses, the two old friends find themselves again on a beach.

  Bette has a very funny sequence when she suddenly announces that her career is through. C. C. Bloom decides to give it all up and settle down as the wife of a successful man, Dr. Richard Milstein (Spalding Gray). Modeling her successful-doctor’s-wife outfit, Midler parades in front of her childhood friend, looking completely ridiculous in a Chanel-styled suit and an insane-looking hat. There she stood: the Suburban Miss M.

  The film Beaches also features some very strong supporting characters. Lanie Kazan is perfect as C.C.’s pushy stage mother. And the child actor who played young C.C., Mayim Bialik, is astonishing. She looks and acts exactly like Bette herself must have appeared at the age of eleven. Also, former Harlette Charlotte Crossley and then-current Harlette Jenifer Lewis can both be seen very prominently in the “Otto Titsling” number. In addition, Bette’s longtime pianist and musical director Marc Shaiman is seen in the Hollywood Bowl rehearsal scene at the beginning of the film.

  Beaches became the showpiece of Bette’s All Girls Productions. She was listed as producer/coproducer, Bonnie Bruckheimer-Martell as the producer, and their partner Margaret Jennings South as producer/coproducer. The director they hired was Garry Marshall, who is best known for directing such hits as Pretty Woman, The Runaway Bride, and The Princess Diaries. He is also known as an actor in such films as Soapdish and Jumpin’ Jack Flash.

  With Midler and her production company in creative control, Beaches became the ultimate showcase for her acting and singing. The entire soundtrack of Beaches is one Midler number after another. Although she sings a number of different tunes throughout the film, the song that really epitomizes the film is the powerful anthem of devotion that Bette performs, “The Wind beneath My Wings.” The song, which was used at a pivotal climax in the plot, went on to become the most successful song of her career. The song and the soundtrack album were both such huge hits that they literally revived Bette’s long-sagging recording career.

  Produced by Arif Mardin, the Beaches soundtrack album is a complete Bette Midler album from start to finish. The only cut that she isn’t on is an under-two-minutes instrumental number, “The Friendship Theme.” Bette sounds great on this album. Obviously, the push to come up with a hit single took a backseat to just coming up with a strong soundtrack of Midler songs. It had been five years since the release of her last all-singing album, No Frills, and it was great to have her back in the music business. She had certainly been busy in the interim—having filmed six movies back to back.

  Bette had admittedly been so stung by the poor reception that her 1983 No Frills album received that she basically stayed out of the recording studio for five years. With the soundtrack album for Beaches she was able to return to recording songs without actively chasing that elusive commodity—the hit single. Portraying the role of C.C. Bloom in the film Beaches required music to accompany the many phases of the character’s career—from jazz, to cabaret, to Broadway, to concert performances—as well as background music to underscore the twists and turns in the film’s plot.

  The album opens with Bette’s version of the Drifters’ doo wop classic “Under the Boardwalk,” which is played in the film in the opening sequence when the characters of eleven-year-old C.C. and Hillary meet on the boardwalk at Atlantic City—and their lifelong friendship is formed. Her melodic singing of this classic rock & roll song sets the tone for the basis of the album’s sound: vibrant, sharp, and fresh.

  She was able to record a snappy jazz version of Cole Porter’s “I’ve Still Got My Health,” to personify her character’s brief jazz and cabaret career. And “The Glory of Love” was very effectively used in the Hollywood Bowl concert sequence as a depiction of the strength and depth of C.C. and Hillary’s friendship.

  Midler also recorded a pair of contemporary standards: Randy Newman’s pensive “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today” and her version of the Dean Pitchford/George Merrill/Shannon Rubicam composition “I Know You by Heart.” The lilting lullaby “Baby Mine” is used when Hershey’s character is expecting to give birth in the film, and the silly brassiere ditty “Otto Titsling” is used in the C.C. Bloom-on-Broadway segment.

  One of the best songs on the album is the techno-pop song “Oh Industry.” Sounding like it would have fit in very well on the No Frills album, it was composed by Bette and noted singer/songwriter Wendy Waldman.

  However, the most dramatic and effective song on the Beaches soundtrack was Midler’s touching interpretation of the song “Wind beneath My Wings.” This song of friendship and devotion was the one that made this album one of the most successful discs of her entire career. Interestingly enough, it had already been a huge hit for two other recording acts. In 1983, country star Gary Morris had a hit with the song on the country music charts. And that same year Gladys Knight & the Pips had a hit with it on the R&B/Soul charts—under the title “Hero.” The song had also been recorded on albums by a diverse number of artists, including Sheena Easton, Lou Rawls, and even Willie Nelson. It seemed an unlikely long shot as a hit single when Bette recorded it and Atlantic Records released it as a single in 1988.

  It was the right song at the perfect time for Bette. Her vocal performance on the sentimental song of one friend living in the shadow of another, flashier one was wonderfully emotional. In June 1989, in America, Bette’s version of “The Wind beneath My Wings” became the first Number 1 song of her career. In England, the single hit Number 5. The Beaches soundtrack album also bounded up the charts to land at Number 2 in the United States and Number 21 in the U.K.

  It had taken her ten years to reclaim the kind of across-the-board career success that she had in 1979 with The Rose—the movie, the single, and the album. With Beaches, she did it all over again. The film became a popular box-office hit, the single was the biggest of her career, and the album sold over three million copies in the United States alone—becoming the best-selling LP of her career to date.

  A lot of careful planning went into creating the success of Beaches, especially how it was marketed. Knowing they had a sentimental picture on their hands, Disney made a preview trailer to run in theaters months in advance to publicize the film. Originally, they created a trailer that played up the maudlin aspects of it. Robert John of Disney Pictures explained, “We cut a very, very emotional and touching trailer. In fact, we showed it in a marketing meeting to a room full of men. There were some dewy eyes” (126).

  When the trailer was subsequent played before a movie audience, a woman who was opinion polled afterward gave them the feedback they needed. According to Robert John, “She said, ‘I like to see Bette singing and laughing and dancing” (126). With that, they cut a new trailer playing up the fun aspects of the film instead of the sad ending.

  The Washington Post called it “a bi-coastal crowd pleaser . . . brightened by Bette Midler’s sass and sweetened by her songs.” The Hollywood Reporter called it “Funny, touching and consistently engaging” (127). And film critic Leonard Maltin found it a “bittersweet saga of a thirty-year friendship . . . as a vehicle for Midler it’s dynamite, with several opportunities for her to sing” (128).

  Like Big Business before it, Roger Ebert gave Beaches only two and a half stars and basically hated the film. He wrote, “Hillary is played in the movie by Barbara Hershey, as a rich WASP to Mi
dler’s irreverent Jewish girl. . . . Maybe, in a strange way, one of the problems is Midler herself. She has a reputation for intelligence and irreverence that is mostly deserved, and so when we go to see her in a movie we don’t expect her to be portraying a character completely dictated by convention. We expect a little spin on the ball. Beaches gives us nothing that can’t be spotted coming a mile down the road” (129).

  Based on the majority of favorable reviews and a strong word-of-mouth popularity, Beaches became a huge box-office hit for Bette when it was released in early 1989. Beaches has great pacing, sharp dialogue, and some of the best character-driven material she has ever had on the screen. The juxtapositioning of Midler and Hershey works perfectly. Because of Beaches—the movie, the album, and the single it yielded—Bette was back in a big way! However, this time she was behind the steering wheel.

  During this same period, Bette Midler had been the subject of a huge lawsuit. Back in 1984 and 1985, the Ford Motor Company had produced and broadcast a series of television commercials to advertise its 1985 Mercury Sable. The song used in the commercials sounded very much like Bette Midler singing her first hit, “Do You Want to Dance?” However, it was not Bette Midler at all. In fact, it was her former background singer, Ula Hedwig, who had been paid to go into the recording studio and sing the song identically to the way Miss M did.

  Midler didn’t just get mad, she got her lawyer involved. She sued the Ford Motor Company for impersonating her and misrepresenting her voice and performance, for $10 million. The trial commenced on September 25, 1989. Finally, on October 31—Halloween, no less—Bette was awarded $400,000 in damages. She didn’t just get mad—she got rich! That just goes to show you: Don’t fuck with Miss M!

  16

  FROM A DISTANCE

  Bette Midler entered the 1990s with a tidal wave of multimedia creativity. She had three highly varied films in the movie theaters, scored the second biggest hit of her recording career, released a Double Platinum album, won another Grammy Award, was nominated for another Oscar, won another Golden Globe, and, last but not least, she had one of the most harrowingly disappointing film experiences of her career.

  Her first project of the new decade found her on the big screen. For Bette’s next film, she returned to drama in Stella. It was a reworking of a popular Barbara Stanwyck vehicle, 1937’s Stella Dallas, which was one of the greatest performances of Stanwyck’s long and distinguished film career. She was nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal of Stella, a self-sacrificing mother during the Depression.

  According to the producer of this ’90s remake, Samuel Goldwyn, Jr., “I wanted to remake this picture because of the astonishing power of its set scenes. We had to make it relevant through the problem of single mothers, but its strength is still the tremendous sympathy we have for Stella as she blunders through life” (130).

  Although Stella did have some funny Midler moments in it, the film was a somber soap opera of a drama. It was projected that it would tug at the heartstrings in the same way that Midler did when she played C. C. Bloom. Bonnie Bruckheimer said at the time, “I believe people want Bette Midler to be funny, but maybe not as much after Beaches. Bette enjoyed that and wanted to do another drama. I’ve wanted her to do more drama since working with her on The Rose. And I think her audience will accept that when it sees the brilliant work she’s done here” (130).

  The way that Bette portrays the character, Stella is her own worst enemy because of her stubbornness and pride. According to Midler, she instinctively veered toward the soap opera dramatics that the role seemed to beg for. However, the film’s director, John Erman, took her into a different direction. “My tendency is to go toward the weepiness of it, but John is always after me to undercut that,” she explained at the time. “He’s right. No real character is completely humorless. All the single mothers I met had a sense of humor about their situation” (130).

  Erman was especially happy to work with Midler. “This is the closest Bette has come to playing a character other than herself,” he claimed. “My biggest worry had been whether she would allow herself to dance on that tightrope, but she fully embraced the concept of playing this woman in a very real way—though not without some difficulty” (130).

  Bette felt that in many ways she really identified with the role of Stella. “I’m from working-class people,” she explained. “I grew up with them, I know them well. A lot of my Stella is based on my mother, who worked hard all her life. Even in the 1950s, mothers were the unsung heroes. This is a kind of hymn to her” (130).

  To immerse herself in the part of Stella, Bette even attended bartending classes. “I was surprised by how much stuff I had to learn. I’m quite the housekeeper myself, but I never expected I’d have to get out there and make a tuna casserole,” she laughed (130).

  Bette was also able to use her own relationship with her daughter Sophie as an inspiration for her interactions with her daughter in the film: “That comes out in the scenes I play with Jenny. There’s a depth that’s linked to Sophie and the passion I have for her. I wouldn’t have known about that without having had a child” (130).

  In her efforts to understand Stella’s life, Bette did a lot of character research. “There are lots of single mothers out there, and I interviewed a number of them in Niagara, New York,” she explained. “I was surprised and devastated by their stories. Many of them live hand to mouth. They work long hours, often for the minimum wage, and none of them were getting child support. They’re struggling hard, they’ve not giving up, and they have positive attitudes” (130).

  Stella’s coarse personality, low self-esteem, and tragically sad life choices, along with her thick New England accent, were all elements that Bette had to focus on to bring her portrayal to life in a believable way. “The challenge was to strike the right tone, to keep it real,” said Midler. Referring to Stella’s drab blouses and pants, she explained. “Those weren’t made. They came right off the rack. Barbara Stanwyck was very, very endearing, but she was so out-to-lunch with her clothes. Poor people, even if they’re sewing, don’t have the money to dress like that” (130).

  Stella, like Beaches, is the kind of film that Bette Davis, or Joan Crawford, or Barbara Stanwyck would be starring in, in the 1930s. Maudlin and old-fashioned, the film is based on Stella Dallas by Olive Higgins Prouty. However, this new version was updated to a 1990s context. The most major change in the plot is that Stella chooses not to marry the father of her child.

  The Stella Claire whom Bette Midler plays here is a bawdy bar waitress. She plays the role with a very thick Boston/New England accent. Hers is a dismal life. Her father was killed in an accident, and her mother drank herself to death. She has few ambitions and few cares in the world.

  Bette’s former Harlette buddy Linda Hart plays the part of Linda, who is another waitress in Ed’s Bar, where Stella works. Ed, as played here by John Goodman, is a drunken “loser” of a slob—who is one of Stella’s closest pals.

  The first scene we see Bette in, the patrons at the tavern coerce her into dancing on top of the bar, doing a bump and grind to the bawdy David Rose song “The Stripper.” It is 1969 in the film, and Midler is dressed in a pair of patched blue jeans.

  In several of the scenes, Bette really gets to let loose and be a bit outrageous. In the striptease scene she is obviously having a blast. She also cuts up in a scene where she stages a food fight. These comic moments enliven her obviously drab and excitement-free life. For the most part, her life is dismal and decidedly lower class. She lives in a slummy apartment and has few goals or ambitions.

  While working in the dive bar, she catches the eye of a young medical student named Stephen Dallas (Stephen Collins). With maximum ease, Stephen sweeps her off her feet and seduces her. However, she very quickly realizes that she is outclassed by him. In one of their initial scenes together, she is seen giggling uncontrollably at a classical vocal concert. Clearly, she is more suited for a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert than a recital.

 
; When Stella announces that she is pregnant, Stephen offers her money for an abortion. When he fills a room full of balloons and proposes marriage, Stella turns down both the marriage and the money. Sympathetic to her plight, Ed also offers to marry Stella, but she turns him down as well.

  Stella is judgmental and stubbornly proud—to her own detriment. She is also a gloomy and negative character. She would rather do without than accept anything from anyone else. Having just given birth, she even seems to be blasé about seeing her daughter. However, it is maternal love at first sight, as hard-as-nails Stella breaks into tears of love when she finally does lay eyes upon newborn daughter Jenny. Now she finally does have something to focus upon.

  When Stephen comes back into her life, again she refuses him. Stephen’s world is dining at the Plaza Hotel. Hers is drinking at the local seedy bar with her friends. Bette’s best scenes with her daughter come after Jenny (Trini Alvarado) becomes a teenager. That is also the point at which the mother-daughter problems between them escalate.

  It is very funny to see working-class Bette running up a dress for her daughter on the sewing machine, so that Jenny can “look like that Madonna girl.” There is also a touching sequence with Bette singing “California Dreamin’ ” a cappella with Trini. These scenes establish the obviously deep-flowing love that Stella feels for her daughter.

  At one point in the film, Stella clashes with a snooty member of the local school board (Eileen Brennan). Afterward, Stella says to her, “I think you probably haven’t had a good lay in years. I think your legs have been together longer than the Lennon Sisters.”

  When Stella is arrested in a barroom brawl, the mother she previously clashed with sees her being led to the paddy wagon. It is followed by a sad sequence in which no one comes to Jenny’s sixteenth birthday party—a party she had so looked forward to throwing. The only “guests” who do show consist of a carload of teenage boys driving by and “mooning” the apartment. Perceptively, Stella comes to realize that she is ruining her teenage daughter’s life.