Profile of Bette Midler on Famous Like Me

Bette Midler (born December 1, 1945), is a singer, actress, and comedian. She is named after the legendary actress Bette Davis, although Midler pronounces her name as one syllable, not two. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii to Jewish parents from New Jersey, she majored in drama at the University of Hawaii, but got her start singing in the Continental Baths, a gay bathhouse in New York City, where, she became friends, with, among others, Barry Manilow, who was her piano accompanist. He produced her first major album, The Divine Miss M (also the name by which she is known to her fans).

Her first role was in Hawaii in 1966, as a passenger who is shown to be seasick. Midler appeared in Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway, but it was her singing that made her a star. In 1974, she received a Special Tony Award for her great addition to Broadway for the "Clams on the Half Shell Review" at the Palace Theater. She was tapped for the role of the 1960s drug-addled rock music star in The Rose, modeled after Janis Joplin, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Bette married Martin von Haselberg on December 16, 1984. They had a daughter, Sophie, in 1986.

In 1986, director Paul Mazursky cast her in Down and Out in Beverly Hills, beginning a successful comedic acting career. She appeared in such other popular late-1980s comedies as Ruthless People, Outrageous Fortune, and Big Business.

In 1988, she starred in the film Beaches. She also contributed her voice to the animated character Georgette, a snobbish poodle, in Disney's Oliver & Compnay that same year. She has won four Grammy Awards including the 1973 Best New Artist and the prestigious Record of the Year in 1989 for the soaring # 1 hit "Wind Beneath My Wings." Her rendition of 1990's "From a Distance" also earned her a Grammy and is another of her most popular songs. In 2004 she reunited with Manilow to record Bette Midler Records the Rosemary Clooney Songbook, which was nominated for a Grammy and was one of her best-selling albums in 20 years.

When The American Film Institute announced "The 100 years of the Greatest Songs" on June 22, 2004, two of her hits were selected by the board: "Wind Beneath My Wings" (#44) and "The Rose" (#83).

Other films include Scenes From a Mall, For the Boys (for which she was again nominated for an Academy Award), Hocus Pocus, The First Wives Club, and The Stepford Wives. Her television work includes a production of Gypsy. She won an Emmy Award in 1992 for her memorable performance on the penultimate episode of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in May of that year. She had her own short-lived sitcom Bette (2000-2001). Although the initial ratings were high, numbers soon declined and in the show's short lifespan, her daughter (played by Lindsay Lohan) was written out and her husband (played by Kevin Dunn) was recast. The show was reportedly rocked by backstage turmoil, and did not last a full season.

In 1995, Midler founded the New York Restoration Project, a non-profit organization with the goal of revitalizing neglected neighborhood parks in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods of New York City. These include Highbridge Park, Fort Washington Park, and Fort Tryon Park in upper Manhattan and Roberto Clemente State Park and Bridge Park in the Bronx. In 1999, the city planned to auction 114 community gardens for commercial development. Midler led a coalition of greening organizations to save them. NYRP took ownership of 60 of the most neglected plots. Today, Midler and her organization work with local volunteers and community groups to ensure that these gardens are kept safe, clean, and vibrant. In 2003, Midler opened Swindler Cove Park, a new five-acre public park on the Harlem River shore, featuring specially designed educational facilities and the Peter Jay Sharp Boathouse, the first community rowing facility to be built on the Harlem River in more than 100 years. The organization offers free in-school and after-school environmental education programming to students from high-poverty Title I schools.

In 2003-2004 Midler toured her new show 'Kiss My Brass' to sell-out crowds around the United States. In 2005 'Kiss My Brass' was equally successful in Australia. Bette Midler's new album 'The Peggy Lee Songbook' is eagerly awaited for it's release in October, 2005.

Filmography

• Hawaii (1966)
• Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers (1972) (voice only)
• The Thorn (1974)
• The Rose (1979)
• Divine Madness! (1980)
• Jinxed! (1982)
• Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986)
• Ruthless People (1986)
• The Lottery (1987) (short subject)
• Outrageous Fortune (1987)
• Big Business (1988)
• Oliver & Company (1988) (voice)
• Beaches (1988)
• Stella (1990)
• Scenes from a Mall (1991)
• For the Boys (1991)
• Hocus Pocus (1993)
• A Century of Cinema (1994) (documentary)
• Get Shorty (1995) (Cameo)
• The First Wives Club (1996)
• That Old Feeling (1997)
• Get Bruce (1999) (documentary)
• Fantasia/2000 (1999)
• Drowning Mona (2000)
• Isn't She Great (2000)
• What Women Want (2000)
• The Stepford Wives (2004)

Albums

• 1973 The Divine Miss M
• 1973 Bette Midler
• 1976 Songs for the New Depression
• 1977 Live at Last
• 1977 Broken Blossom
• 1979 Thighs and Whispers
• 1979 The Rose soundtrack
• 1980 Divine Madness
• 1983 No Frills (Bette Midler album)
• 1985 Mud Will Be Flung Tonight
• 1988 Beaches soundtrack
• 1990 Some People's Lives
• 1991 For the Boys soundtrack
• 1993 Gypsy soundtrack
• 1993 Experience the Divine
• 1995 Bette of Roses
• 1998 Bathhouse Betty
• 2000 Bette
• 2003 Bette Midler Sings the Rosemary Clooney Songbook

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