Bette Midler Informations

Bette Midler (/bɛt/; born December 1, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, comedian, and film producer. 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. Throughout her career, many of her songs became hits on the record charts, including her renditions of "The Rose", "Wind Beneath My Wings", "Do You Want to Dance", "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy", and "From a Distance".

Midler made her motion picture debut in 1979 with The Rose, which earned her a Golden Globe for Best Actress, as well as a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She has since starred in a number of hit films, which include: Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), Ruthless People (1986), Outrageous Fortune (1987), Big Business (1988), Beaches (1988), Hocus Pocus (1993), The First Wives Club (1996), The Stepford Wives (2004), and Parental Guidance (2012). She also starred in For the Boys (1991) and Gypsy (1993), winning two additional Golden Globes for these films and receiving a second Academy Award nomination for the former. In 2008, she signed a contract with Caesars Palace in Las Vegas to perform a show titled Bette Midler: The Showgirl Must Go On, which ended in 2010.

In a career spanning almost half a century, Midler has won three Grammy Awards, four Golden Globes, three Emmy Awards, and a Tony Award. She has sold over 30 million records worldwide, and has received four Gold, three Platinum, and three Multiplatinum albums by RIAA. Midler's latest work included appearing on Broadway in a revival of Hello, Dolly!, which began preview performances on March 15, 2017 and premiered at the Shubert Theatre on April 20, 2017. It was her first leading role in a Broadway musical. On June 11, 2017, Midler received the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for the title role in Hello, Dolly!.

Bette Midler was born in Honolulu, where her family was one of the few Jewish families in a mostly Asian neighborhood. Her mother, Ruth (née Schindel), was a seamstress and housewife, and her father, Fred Midler, worked at a Navy base in Hawaii as a painter, and was also a housepainter. Both parents were born in New Jersey. She was named after actress Bette Davis, though Davis pronounced her first name in two syllables, and Midler uses one. 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 (class of 1963). Midler majored in drama at the University of Hawaii at Manoa but left after three semesters. She earned money in the 1966 film Hawaii as an extra, playing an uncredited seasick passenger named Miss David Buff.

Midler married artist Martin von Haselberg on December 16, 1984, about six weeks after their first meeting. Their daughter, Sophie von Haselberg, who is also an actress, was born on November 14, 1986.

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. From 1966 to 1969, she played the role of Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway. After Fiddler, she joined the original cast of Salvation in 1969.

She began singing in the Continental Baths, a gay bathhouse in the Ansonia Hotel, in the summer of 1970. During this time, she became close to her piano accompanist, Barry Manilow, 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 [with the AIDS crisis], 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.

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 rock 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 1975–1978, 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.

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 (1980).

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 (Comedy or Musical). 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.

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 cover "Beast of Burden". She also released an all-comedy album (with a few songs tied into the comedy) 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 (1986), Outrageous Fortune (1987), and Big Business (1988). Later in 1988, Midler lent her voice to the animated character Georgette, a snobbish poodle, in Disney's Oliver and Company, and had a hit with the tearjerker Beaches, co-starring Barbara Hershey. The accompanying soundtrack remains Midler's all-time biggest selling disc, reaching No. 2 on Billboard's 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 Billboard's Hot 100, achieved Platinum status, and won Midler her third Grammy Award – for Record of the Year – at the 1990 telecast.

Midler's 1990 cover of the Julie Gold song "From a Distance", the first offering from her seventh studio album Some People's Lives (1990), topped the Billboard Adult Contemporary charts and achieved platinum status in the US. The same year, she starred along with Trini Alvarado as the title character in John Erman's drama film Stella. The third feature film adaptation of the 1920 novel Stella Dallas by Olive Higgins Prouty, Midler portrayed a vulgar single mother living in Watertown, New York, who, determined to give her daughter all the opportunities she never had, ultimately makes a selfless sacrifice to ensure her happiness. The movie scored mediocre reviews, while Midler received her first Razzie Award nomination for Worst Actress.

She co-starred with Woody Allen in the 1991 film Scenes from a Mall, again for Paul Mazursky. In the film, Allen's character reveals to his author wife Deborah, played by Midler, after years of a happy marriage, that he has had an affair, resulting in her request for divorce. The movie performed poorly, and received a mixed reception by critics. Midler fared somewhat better with her other 1991 project For the Boys, on which she reteamed with The Rose director Mark Rydell. A historical musical drama, it tells the story of 1940s actress and singer Dixie Leonard, played by Midler, who teams up with Eddie Sparks, a famous performer to entertain American troops. While the film received a mixed reception from critics, Midler earned rave review for her portrayal. The following year she was awarded her second Golden Globe and received her second Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.

Midler turned down the lead role in the musical comedy Sister Act in 1992, which instead went to Whoopi Goldberg. Midler won an Emmy Award in 1992 for her performance on the penultimate episode of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in May 1992, during which she sang an emotion-laden "One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)" to Johnny Carson. That night, Midler began singing "Here's That Rainy Day", Carson's favorite song; Carson joined in a few lyrics later. In 1993, she starred with Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy in the Walt Disney comedy fantasy film, Hocus Pocus, as Winifred Sanderson, the head witch of the Sanderson Sisters. Released to initially mixed reviews, through various outlets such as strong DVD sales and annual record-breaking showings on 13 Nights of Halloween, the film has achieved cult status over the years. In relation to Hocus Pocus, every year Midler hosts her annual Hulaween costume party, which benefits the New York Restoration Project. Her television work includes an Emmy-nominated version of the stage musical Gypsy and a guest appearance as herself in Fran Drescher's The Nanny.

She appeared on Seinfeld in the 1995 episode "The Understudy", which was the season finale of that show's sixth season in 1995. That same year, Midler had a supporting role in Get Shorty. Her 1997 HBO special Diva Las Vegas earned her a third Emmy Award, for Outstanding Performance in a Variety or Music Program. Midler's other 1990s films include The First Wives Club (1996). In 1997, Midler, along with her co-stars from The First Wives Club, Goldie Hawn, and Diane Keaton, was a recipient of the Women in Film Crystal Award, which honors "outstanding women who, through their endurance and the excellence of their work, have helped to expand the role of women within the entertainment industry."

Midler starred in her own sitcom in 2000, Bette, which featured Midler playing herself, a divine celebrity who is adored by her fans. Airing on CBS, initial ratings were high, marking the best sitcom debut for the network in more than five years, but viewers percentage soon declined, resulting in the show's cancellation in early 2001. Midler openly griped about the show's demanding shooting schedule, while the show itself was also reportedly rocked by backstage turmoil, involving the replacement of co-star Kevin Dunn whose departure was attributed to his behind-the scenes bickering with Midler by the media. However, Midler, critically praised, was awarded a People's Choice Award for her performance in the show and received a Golden Globe Award nomination the following year. Also in 2000, Midler made an uncredited cameo appearance in Nancy Meyers' fantasy rom–com What Women Want, starring Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt. In the film, she portrayed a therapist who realizes that central character Nick, played by Gibson, is able to understand women's thoughts. Released to generally mixed reviews, it became the then-most successful film ever directed by a woman, taking in $183 million in the United States, and grossing upward of $370 million worldwide.

Complete article available at this page.