Bette Midler

Actress

• Born: December 1, 1945
• Place of Birth: Honolulu, Hawaii

SINGER AND ACTOR

Midler has commanded the stage in concert venues with her brilliant voice and comedic flair, and she has dominated the box office for three decades with her award-winning performances in films.

AREAS OF ACHIEVEMENT: Entertainment; music

Early Life

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on December 1, 1945, Bette Midler was the daughter of Fred, a house painter for the US Navy, and Ruth, a seamstress and homemaker. Midler’s mother named her after the actor Bette Davis, believing that the film star pronounced her name “Bet.” Midler and her three siblings were raised in Aiea, a rural and poor area of Hawaii. They were the only Jewish family in a predominantly Asian neighborhood. Midler, who discovered that she loved to perform in front of an audience at an early age, sang “Silent Night” in front of her class in the first grade and won an award for her performance. When she was twelve years old, she saw the stage show Carousel (1945) and decided that she wanted to be a theater performer.

After she attended the University of Hawaii as a drama major for one year, Midler quit school in order to pursue a career onstage. In 1965, she was hired for a small part in the film, Hawaii (1966). When the production company finished filming in Hawaii, Midler returned with it to Los Angeles. After she arrived, she was employed in several part-time jobs in order to support herself, including working as an extra for United Artists Studios. In 1966, she relocated to New York City, where she was hired as a member of the chorus line for the Broadway musical, Fiddler on the Roof (1964). Within a year, her talents on stage earned her the part of Tzeitel, the eldest daughter of Tevye, the protagonist of the story. In 1969, Midler left the production in order to pursue other theater interests. She took acting and singing lessons with Herbert Berghof at his HB Studio. In 1970, she was hired as a weekend performer at Continental Baths, a popular New York City bathhouse. She developed a nightly show that included both singing and comedy routines. Enormously popular with the bathhouse audiences, Midler began getting offers to perform on television and in nightclubs. As her show became more popular with mainstream audiences, Midler began calling herself the Divine Miss M.

Life’s Work

In 1972, Midler released her debut album, The Divine Miss M, for which she earned a Grammy Award for best new artist. In total, she had three hit singles from the album, including, “Friends,” “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” and “Do You Want to Dance?” In 1973, she released her second album, simply titled Bette Midler. She returned to Broadway in 1975 for the production of Clams on the Half Shell Revue. From 1975 to 1978, Midler provided the voice of Woody the Spoon in the Public Broadcasting Service’s children’s show, Vegetable Soup. In 1979, Midler achieved superstar status with her leading role in her first feature film, The Rose. Her portrayal of a self-destructive rock star earned her a Golden Globe Award for best actress in a musical or comedy and an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. In 1982, Midler starred in the comedy film, Jinxed. The film was poorly received at the box office, and Midler’s career faltered.

In 1985, she signed a contract with Touchstone Films, a division of Walt Disney Studios. Her first film for Touchstone, Down and out in Beverly Hills (1986), earned her a Golden Globe Award for best actress in a motion-picture musical or comedy. That same year, she also starred in another box-office hit, Ruthless People. In the coming years, she found success with such films as Outrageous Fortune (1987), Big Business (1988), and Beaches (1988). Midler, who also sang the title song, “Wind Beneath My Wings,” for the film Beaches, won the Grammy Award for record of the year. In 1988, she provided the voice of Georgette in the Disney animated film, Oliver and Company. Then in 1991, she won the Grammy Award for song of the year for her rendition of the ballad, “From a Distance,” from her album, Some People’s Lives (1990).

Throughout the 1990s, Midler continued to star in numerous successful motion pictures. In 1991, she costarred with James Caan in the film musical, For the Boys, for which she won a Golden Globe Award for best actress in a motion-picture musical or comedy. She was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. That same year she costarred with Woody Allen in the film, Scenes from a Mall. Other popular films Midler starred in during the 1990s include Gypsy (1993), Hocus Pocus (1993), Get Shorty (1995), The First Wives Club (1996), Get Bruce (1999), What Women Want (2000), The Stepford Wives (2004), Then She Found Me (2008), Parental Guidance (2012), and The Addams Family (2019) and its sequel (2021). In 2024, Midler starred in The Fabulous Four, a film with a star-studded cast including Susan Sarandon and Megan Mullally.

In 2003, Midler teamed up with Barry Manilow to record the Grammy Award-nominated album, Bette Midler Sings the Rosemary Clooney Songbook. That same year, she also went on tour with a new and highly successful show, Kiss My Brass. In 2005, she traveled to Australia to go on tour with her show, Kiss My Brass Down Under. She once again collaborated with Manilow when she recorded the album Bette Midler Sings the Peggy Lee Songbook in 2005. In 2006, Midler recorded the Christmas album Cool Yule, which earned her another Grammy Award nomination, this time for best traditional pop vocal album. In 2008, she released an album of her greatest hits titled, Jackpot: The Best Bette. In 2008, Midler entertained Las Vegas audiences in her show, The Showgirl Must Go On, at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace, which ran until January 2010. She also starred in the Broadway revival of Hello, Dolly!, which premiered at the Shubert Theatre in April 2017. Midler won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance.

In 2012, Midler was awarded the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award from the Songwriter's Hall of Fame. The following year, she appeared on Broadway for the first time in over thirty years in the play I'll Eat You Last: A Chat with Sue Mengers. After a successful run in New York, the play moved to Los Angeles to the Geffen Playhouse. In 2019, she produced and starred in the documentary Mae West: Dirty Blonde.

Significance

A highly dedicated, hardworking, award-winning vocalist and actor, Midler has obtained iconic status as an American entertainer. Her unique talents onstage as a singer and as a comedian catapulted her to stardom during the 1970s. For four decades, she has entertained audiences with her music and at the box office. Midler’s numerous talents enabled her to obtain superstar status in several different entertainment venues. She earned the distinction of being a Grammy Award-winning recording artist and simultaneously became a popular box-office draw.

Bibliography

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"Bette Midler to Star as Mae West in HBO Biopic." Variety. Variety Media, 9 Dec. 2013. Web. 31 Mar. 2016.

Healy, Patrick. "After Years of Playing Bette, Another Role." New York Times. New York Times, 10 Apr. 2013. Web. 31 Mar. 2016.

Mair, George. Bette: An Intimate Biography of Bette Midler. Secaucus: Carol, 1995. Print.

Martin, Linda, and Kerry Segrave. Women in Comedy. Secaucus: Citadel, 1986. Print.

Midler, Bette. Bette Midler: A View from a Broad. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981. Print.

Orgill, Roxane. Shout, Sister, Shout! Ten Girl Singers Who Shaped a Century. New York: Margaret K. McElderry, 2001. Print.

Rahman, Abid. "Bette Midler Responds to Backlash Over Her Tweets About 'Erasure' of Women." The Hollywood Reporter, 5 July 2022, www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/bette-midler-backlash-trans-1235175880/. Accessed 3 Sept. 2024.

Sochen, June. "Bette Midler." JWA. Jewish Women's Archive, n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2013.