Bette Midler
Real Name: Bette Davis Midler
Date of Birth: 1 December, 1945
Place of birth: Honolulu, Hawaii
Profession: American singer, actress and comedienne
Bette Midler was named after the actress Bette Davis although Davis pronounced her first name in two syllables and Midler uses one. Her mother was Ruth Schindel, a seamstress and housewife and her father Fred Midler, was a house painter who painted for the Navy while in Hawaii.
Fred and Ruth were originally from New Jersey, but moved to Honolulu shortly before Midler was born. The Midler’s were one of the few Jewish families in a mostly Asian neighborhood.
Bette attended Radford High School in Honolulu and majored in drama at the University of Hawaii, but she left after only three semesters. She managed to get a job as an extra in the 1966 release of the movie Hawaii staring Julie Andrews and Richard Harris. Bette played a seasick passenger.
She relocated to New York City using the money she received for her role in Hawaii and landed an onstage role in Tom Eyen’s Off-Off-Broadway plays in 1965, Miss Nefertiti Regrets and Cinderella Revisited, a children’s play during the day and somewhat risqué play at night for adults. From 1966-1969, she played the role of Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway. It was during this period that she lost her sister Judith, who was killed by a taxi cab when she visited New York to see her sister in the play.
Midler began singing in the Continental Baths, a gay bathhouse in the city in 1970. During this time she become close to her piano accompanist, Barry Manilow who produced her first major album, The Divine Miss M in 1973.
Midler was quoted in the Houston Voice as saying: “Despite the way things turned out (with the AIDS crisis), I am 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 received a Special Tony Award for her contribution to Broadway for her Clams on the Half Shell Revue at the Place theater in 1974. In 1979, she played a drug addicted character modeled after Janis Joplin in the movie The Rose, for which she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress, but lost out to Sally Field for her role in Norma Rae. Bette often jokes that she hand wrestles Field’s for the Oscar, but always looses.
Bette Midler won four Grammy Awards. In 1973 she won Best New Artist for the album ‘The Divine Miss. M’, and in 1980, she won for the Best Female Pop vocalist for ‘The Rose’. In 1989 she won the Record of the Year for the number one hit ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’, from the movie Beaches. In 2003, she won Best Pop Vocal Album for ‘Bette Midler Sings the Rosemary Clooney Songbook.” She is nominated for the 2008 Best Pop Vocal Album for “Bette Midler Sings The Peggy Lee Songbook.’
She began a successful comedic acting career with her appearance in the 1986 movie ‘Down and Out in Beverly Hills, which led to her starring in ‘Ruthless People,’ ‘Outrageous Fortune,’ and ‘Big Business.’
Other films Midler appeared include, ‘Scenes from a Mall,’ ‘For the Boys’, (which she was nominated for an Academy Aware), ‘Hocus Pocus,’ ‘The First Wives Club,’ and ‘The Stepford Wives.’ In television, she garnered an Emmy nomination for her version of the stage musical Gypsy.
On Johnny Carson’s finale show in 1992, Bette Midler won an Emmy Award for her appearance on the show during which she sang an emotion-laden ‘One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)” to Johnny Carson. She appeared with Robin Williams and rumors of the time had them feuding with each other because Williams supposedly accused Bette of stealing the show. Both have denied the rumors and have since appeared together on several other talk shows, including The Rosie O’Donnell Show in 2003.
Midler guest-starred on The Simpsons in an episode entitled ‘Krusty Gets Kancelled,’ where Midler is seen traveling a highway picking up trash when she is besieged by Bart and Lisa who want Midler to appear on a show to revive Krusty’s dying career. She also appeared on Seinfield in the episode ‘The Understudy,’ which was the season finale of the show’s sixth season.
Bette Midler teamed with Barry Manilow after a 20-year feud in 2003 to record ‘Bette Midler Sings the Rosemary Clooney Songbook,’ which she won a Grammy Award. In 2003-2004 Midler toured her new show Kiss My Brass to sell-out crowds around the United States. The show was equally successful in Australia in early 2005. Bette joined forces again with Manilow for another tribute album, Bette Midler Sings the Peggy Lee Songbook released in October 2005, with the album selling 55,000 copies the first week of release and debuted at number 10. The album has been nominated for a Grammy Award for 2008.
Bette Midler has been happily married since 1984 to Martin von Haselberg. They have one daughter, Sophie Frederica Alohilani von Haselberg, who is currently a student at Yale University. Midler is on the Dean’s Council at the Yale School of Architecture.
