Bette Midler

by Mark Bego

  The one sad note about Bette’s triumphant turn in Gypsy was that director Emile Ardolino died of AIDS a month before the debut telecast.

  Gypsy was such a huge hit for Midler that she won a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Madame Rose, in the category of Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture Made for TV. Made in cooperation with Midler’s All-Girls Productions, the executive producer was Bonnie Bruckheimer, and the soundtrack album was coproduced by Arif Mardin, Michael Rafter, and Curt Sobel.

  The Gypsy album includes all seventeen songs that were used in the film. Although Bette sings only seven of those songs, it is worth the price of the disc just to hear her belt her way through “Some People,” “Small World,” “Mr. Goldstone,” “You’ll Never Get Away from Me,” “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” “Together, Wherever We Go,” and the show-stopping “Rose’s Turn.” The rest of the cast performs excellently here, too, accompanied by a full orchestra, conducted by Michael Rafter.

  On December 15, 1993, Radio City Music Hall unveiled it’s new “Sidewalk of Stars,” resembling the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Fourteen stars who have headlined the classic deco theater include Tina Turner, Liza Minnelli, Frank Sinatra, and Bette Midler.

  When the Golden Globe Awards were handed out in Los Angeles on January 25, 1994, Bette was awarded a trophy for her role as Mama Rose in Gypsy. Midler, however, was with her family, vacationing in Hawaii.

  On February 16, 1994, Bette appeared in a Los Angeles courtroom to testify with regard to her production of the film For the Boys. Singer and actress Martha Raye had in real life made a lifelong career out of appearing on USO shows for the American troops, much like the film’s fictional character Dixie Leonard. Raye’s suit alleged that her own biography was used as a basis for the film and that she should be paid for damages. Apparently, Raye had personally met with Bette in the mid-1980s to discuss a Midler version of Martha’s life. However, both 20th Century-Fox and All Girls Productions declined to purchase the Martha Raye biography—Maggie—for the million dollars the veteran comedienne was asking. There was also the ongoing tabloid scandal concerning Raye and her much younger—and allegedly more manipulative—new husband. According to Bette’s testimony that day in court, “The stories have no resemblance except for one thing—they both were entertainers during wartime” (131). Ultimately, the court ruled in Bette’s favor. Sadly, Martha Raye suffered a heart attack and died later that year.

  During the spring and summer of 1994, Bette toured across the American countryside again in her Experience the Divine tour. She announced to the Boston Globe, “We had a fabulous time last year. And when the season rolled around again, we decided to do it again. There were a whole bunch of places we didn’t get to last year, and there were requests to come back to some of the places we did get to, so we strapped on the old harness and here we are again” (131).

  On May 13, Bette opened the tour in St. Petersburg, Florida, at the ThunderDome. The tour wove its way across the countryside, and finally, on September 3 and 4, she headlined at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. This was the first time she had played Vegas since 1976.

  About Bette’s 1994 tour, Susan Wloszczyna, in USA Today, wrote, “It’s been a decade since Midler’s last major tour, and the faithful aren’t just hungry, they’re starved. . . . Though the ode to burlesque had it moments, it was little more than a plug for Midler’s Gypsy TV special. The old material (especially a gospel-charged ‘Delta Dawn’ and a heart-tugging ‘Hello in There’) clearly outshone the new. . . . Midler hasn’t lost her knack for making expertly choreographed extravaganzas seem like spontaneous combustions. Clinton should just declare her the National Diva!” (159).

  Referring to the passage of time since her last tour, Bette commented from the stage, “Ten years! Time flies when you’re on Prozac. Well, enough about you, what about me?” (159).

  Bette told the New York Times that in September of 1994, she officially had moved back to New York City. According to her, “I moved back because of the earthquake. And I needed to get back to a town where I could have a conversation about something other than [film box-office] grosses” (160).

  The earthquakes in Los Angeles in 1993 proved to be “the last straw” for Midler’s fascination with living permanently on the West Coast. Explained Bette, “My daughter’s school was in the valley, just under these homes, and if the earthquake had happened during the day, and the houses had fallen on the school, she would’ve been killed. We couldn’t bear the thought. So we came here” (17).

  On September 11, 1994, Bette Midler appeared on the 46th Annual Emmy Awards in Los Angeles. Since Gypsy was nominated as the Outstanding Made-for-TV Movie, she performed the show-stopping song “Rose’s Turn.” The AIDS-themed And the Band Played On ending up taking the trophy, but Midler, in her own inimitable fashion, stole the show!

  When the Manhattan Transfer recorded its 1994 album Tonin’, the group’s members invited several guest celebrities into the studio to do duets with them. Since Arif Mardin was producing the album, Bette was a natural choice to join the vocal quartet. Among the other performers on the album are Laura Nyro on “La-La Means I Love You,” Smokey Robinson on “I Second That Emotion,” James Taylor on “Dream Lover,” Frankie Valli on “Let’s Hang On,” Phil Collins on “Too Busy Thinking about My Baby,” Ben E. King on “Save the Last Dance for Me,” Chaka Kahn on “Hot Fun in the Summertime,” and B. B. King and Ruth Brown on “The Thrill Is Gone.” The song that Bette sings with the Manhattan Transfer is “It’s Gonna Take a Miracle.” Dueting with Transfer singer Janis Siegel and harmonizing with the rest of the quartet, Miss M sounds fabulous on this harmonic and cleverly conceived album.

  Bette started the year 1995 in the recording studio, as she commenced work on her sixteenth album for Atlantic Records. It was to be called Bette of Roses, and it would prove to be a whole new musical direction for her.

  According to Moogy Klingman, during this period he heard from Bette Midler for the first time in years: “She called me, she wanted to work with Buzzy Linhart. She wanted to do a good deed, get him back on his feet. He was kind of broke and homeless. . . . She was giving me money to give to Buzzy. . . . She was sending Buzzy checks through me” (36).

  Midler wanted to hear some of Buzzy Linhart’s songs, in hopes that she would like one of them and record it, thus helping him financially. “There was a song called ‘Fountain of Youth’ . . . mountains of truth,” recalled Klingman.

  According to Buzzy, “We recorded about eight songs in a month. At one point she was maybe going to record one. She’s a real stickler for perfection. It was called ‘Dreams of Sand’ ” (37).

  Ultimately, none of the songs that Klingman and Linhart wrote for her during this era were released. According to Moogy, “She called me to tell me how much she didn’t like them.” The songs, known as “The Buzzy/Moogy Sessions,” sung by the two songwriters, ended up being sold on the Internet on Klingman’s website. Midler decided to go in a different direction, musically.

  In March of 1995, Midler appeared in Washington, D.C., at a White House reception that honored the twenty-fifth anniversary of National Public Radio (NPR). Said Bette that day, “I’m not going to get political. We don’t come to the White House for that. We come hoping that there will be embossed towels that we can take home to our family and friends” (131).

  On May 18, 1995, Bette guest-starred on the Seinfeld TV series. It was an episode called “The Understudy,” and Miss M played herself, involved in a theater project cooked up by the stars of the series. In the plot of the show, she ends up in a typical Seinfeldian comedy of errors. Her performance on the show turned out to be a great comic turn for the diva. Bette had never worked on a sitcom before, so this was a whole new experience for her. Seinfeld—which starred stand-up comedian Jerry Seinfeld—was a huge ratings success throughout the 1990s, so Midler was fascinated to see the process in action and was happy to participate in it.

  According to Bette, “I didn’t watch Seinfe
ld, but once I was on it, I said, ‘Why are they acting like this? What is this about?’ There was all this cereal on the set, and I didn’t understand it. On my episode, they had a Korean nail lady, and I thought, ‘That’s kind of funny. Because I have been to Korean nail ladies, and I kind of got the joke. So I started watching it, and of course I was hooked. [Those characters] were such nasty people—that’s what I liked about them, up until the bitter end. And I’d never seen anything like it. Up until then, it was just [I Love] Lucy and The Honeymooners for me. I’m just old school” (120).

  Relocated in New York City, Bette began her famed clean-up campaign in Manhattan. On June 12, 1995, she was joined by several local officials and dozens of schoolchildren under the George Washington Bridge at the Little Red Lighthouse, as she announced the successful clean-up of over seven miles of public land on the Upper West Side.

  On June 22 she was one of the honorees at the annual “VH1 Honors” celebration in Los Angeles. Every year the televised video network honors celebrities who have done outstanding charity work. Bette was honored for her long-time charity work with AIDS-related causes and for her environmental clean-up campaign.

  On December 22, Bette’s beachfront house, which she owned on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, was destroyed in a fire. She was not in the house at the time. The cause of the fire was officially listed as having been started by arson.

  For Bette’s next film role, she was one of the stars of the 1995 box-office hit Get Shorty. The film tells the story of a gangster, Chili Palmer (John Travolta), who leaves Miami to collect an outstanding debt in Hollywood. In the process, he teams up with a grade “B” film director and goes into the movie business. The self-absorbed actor they want to land to give their film prestige is Martin Weir (Danny DeVito), whose bio-pic of Napoleon is a current hit. Dennis Farina is wildly comic as bumbling mobster Ray “Bones” Barboni. The movie is filled with thugs, guns, and the outlandish doings of several actors—billed and unbilled.

  Bette plays Doris, a not-so-bereaved widow. In her first scene, Bette comically throws her body at director Harry Zimm (Gene Hackman). In a surprise visit, she shows up in a faux fur coat and makes a pass at him. Thinking she has come to his Hollywood apartment to grieve the death of her dear departed husband, Murray, Harry watches in awe as Doris opens up her fur coat to reveal herself in sexy lingerie.

  When Harry begins to eulogize Murray’s talent as a screenplay writer, Doris snaps back, “What he was, was a ‘hack.’ He couldn’t get a job working for anyone but you.” When Harry attempts to deflect her sexual advances, she reaches down to his crotch and reports, “You seem to feel fine about it.”

  And what about poor dear departed Murray? Hackman inquires. “Murray’s dead,” says a nonplused Bette.

  Her second scene comes in the hospital where Harry is being treated. It seems that he has had a wrangle with someone to whom he owed money. Showing up in the hospital with Chili and Karen (Rene Russo), Doris is especially friendly with a pair of hunky cops she passes in the hallway. “Goodnight, Todd. Goodnight, Louis,” she says as they walk by her.

  Although Bette doesn’t have any onscreen scenes with her, Linda Hart has a prominent part in Get Shorty. She plays the wife of a bungling embezzler who has faked his own death and collected on the insurance policy.

  Bette was in another hit film, and the reviews for Get Shorty were incredibly strong. According to Michael Wilmington in the Chicago Tribune, “Get Shorty is one of the sharper, funnier, better-cast, better-written movies around . . . with unbilled actors like Harvey Keitel, Penny Marshall, and Bette Midler” (161). And Janet Maslin in the New York Times especially loved “a quick cameo from Bette Midler as one very merry widow” (162).

  Also in 1995, Bette Midler released her final album for Atlantic Records, Bette of Roses. Bette and her long-time producer Arif Mardin decided that it was time for a musical departure for Miss M. Bette of Roses has the distinction of being the first all love ballad album of her career. Furthermore, it contained no jazz songs, no ’40s cover tunes, no rock & roll, and no girl group camping.

  Explaining her musical vision for Bette of Roses, the diva claimed, “The songs are nonjudgmental. I’ll stand-by-you types of songs. They’re very upbeat, with sweet, positive messages, and the production is very soothing and comforting. In other words: Mom” (160).

  Said Arif Mardin at the time, “Bette’s voice has improved tremendously. She has a beautifully controlled two-octave range” (160). Indeed, Bette’s voice and her range isso much wider on Bette of Roses than on any of her previous recordings.

  Midler explained at the time, “When I was doing Gypsy, I found a singing teacher, Marge Rivinston, who took my voice out of my throat, and put it in my head. She helped me get a new set of vocal abilities that allowed me to choose songs I would never sing before, because I couldn’t hit the notes without screeching. I’m not going to say I’m Maria Callas or anything, but I have made terrific strides. I’m not going to stop until I’m a great singer” (160).

  With regard to the dozen songs that they recorded for Bette of Roses, Mardin said, “We went through about 50 songs, selecting around 30 of them and going into the studio with just a keyboard player. Out of these we chose 11 for the album plus one for the B side of a single. When Bette sings a song, she lives it. There is always the question of who is singing, this extra investigation into the character in the song” (160).

  Bette of Roses created no big hits, and it wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. But there is no denying that it is the most focused album she has ever recorded. Anyone who was expecting her alter ego of the Divine Miss M to be anywhere present was sadly disappointed. In that way, Bette of Roses struck Midler fans as either a “dream” or a “dud.”

  First of all, Bette’s recording of “To Deserve You” is perhaps—technically—the best song she has ever recorded in her career. In terms of emotionally connecting with her lyrics and really singing, the intensely yearning “To Deserve You” is an undeniable Midler masterpiece. She pours her heart into this song, and she commands your attention with her performance. Another, more subtle classic is the slightly bluesy “To Comfort You,” which features Ula Hedwig in the background.

  The album opens with this collection’s most whimsical song, Cheryl Wheeler’s “I Know This Town,” which finds Midler singing as a little girl showing a stranger around her hometown.

  Showing off the newfound upper register of her voice to full advantage, she sings with herself on multilayered tracks, singing high against her lower voice, turning “The Last Time” into a multi-octave power ballad. Playing on the title of the album, Bette laments about wasted years and wasted tears on this perfect and simple ballad.

  The album ends with a bit of the autobiographical pining of a “baby boomer” on “I Believe in You.” In the song, Midler sings of the ’60s, the Beatles, Haagan Dazs ice cream, and Johnny Carson. It seems custom-fitted to her personality and her own personal perspective.

  While the lesser songs on this album emerge as “merely pleasant,” the aforementioned high points ultimately buoy the results of this album. Bette of Roses has the distinction of being her first album to pick one single mode—in this case, contemporary ballads, some happy and some sad—and adhere to it end to end. Unlike Bette’s other releases, Bette of Roses is the kind of album that requires several listenings to fully appreciate. For one album, and one album only, it was “Midler light!”

  Howard Cohen, in the Miami Herald, claimed, “Bette Midler’s first album in five years is one of the summer’s pleasant surprises. . . . seldom has Midler been so willing to use her full vocal range. . . . Bette of Roses isn’t perfect. Midler’s good-natured vulgarity and delightful brassiness of the olden days are missing . . . and there are too many ballads. But overall, this is the best Bette in some time” (163). And Stephen Holden, in the New York Times, remained noncommittal when he wrote, “Ms. Midler’s three biggest hit records, ‘The Rose,’ ‘The Wind beneath My Wings’ and ‘From
a Distance,’ have all been songs that played on [the] heartstrings. This more serious side dominates Bette of Roses . . . made up entirely of contemporary pop ballads, it dispenses completely with the sort of camp nostalgia favored by the Divine Miss M” (160).

  In America, the album reached a peak position of Number 45 on the Billboard charts. In the U.K., it made it to Number 55. One single, the dramatic “To Deserve You,” was released. The cassette single version of “To Deserve You” also featured the rare bonus cut “Up! Up! Up!” which she had recorded with the Manhattan Transfer. There was a CD single version, as well as several dance remixes, of the song. Although it didn’t become a hit-making blockbuster of an album, it became known as Bette Midler’s “all-ballad” disc, and it steadily sold. In January of 1996 it was certified Gold, and by 2002 it had gone Platinum in the United States.

  In 1995, in Australia, a version of Experience the Divine: Bette Midler’s Greatest Hits was issued with four more “bonus” cuts missing from the American version of the album. The album begins with one of the fantastic remixes of “To Deserve You,” and the last cut on the album is the album version of the same song. From the No Frills album came “Beast of Burden” and “My Favorite Waste of Time.” This eighteen-cut Australian version of the “best of” Bette LP gives an even more rounded and varied sampling of the Divine Miss M’s singing talents and more fully spans her entire Atlantic recording career.

  As she released Bette of Roses in 1995, Bette stopped to look around at the new crop of female singers she was now competing with—both in the record stores and on the airwaves. “The standard of musicianly singing has gone crazy with the Whitney Houstons and Mariah Careys, who have really upped the ante,” proclaimed Midler. “Then there’s k.d. lang. Oh my God, what a voice! And she has this wonderfully sophisticated sensibility. I think Annie Lennox makes great records. And I have every Nina Simone record ever made. To me, she is like a national treasure” (160). Well, the Modest Miss Midler, you ain’t so bad yourself!