Bette Midler (50 page)

After an energetic performance of Cole Porter’s “Miss Otis Regrets,” Bette grouses of the venue du jour: “Oy Vegas.” Complaining of her own world-weariness, she proclaims, “Sometimes my brain goes on a CD shuffle. You know, when you put a whole bunch of CDs in the machine and press ‘random’—any old thing comes up.”

She showed off her jazzy side with “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most,” and she showed off her love ballad side with “Bed of Roses.”

One of the funniest moments in this special found her singing an ode to her own sudden box-office success in
First Wives Club
. Lyrically congratulating herself, she sang to the tune of “Everything’s Coming Up Roses”—“I’m in a hit! A big fucking hit, BABY!”

Explaining the sudden success of her latest film, she said, “I’ve never been a first wife before. I was the other woman once or twice.” This was her lead into her solo version of “You Don’t Own Me” from
First Wives Club
.

She goes off on a whole ’70s bent, encompassing the Hues Corporation’s hit “Rock the Boat.” Continuing on her ’70s trip, she made a joke about once knocking over a whole tray of cocaine, only to watch an entire room full of people drop to their knees and try to snort it out of the shag carpeting. And speaking of memories of the “me” decade, her own song “The Rose”—released on album in 1979—still manages to bring down the house

Midshow, she presented her new risqué stripper’s segment—her ode to burlesque. As she proclaims, “It was Vaudeville with an X rating”
This leads to Midler and the Harlettes reviving her song “Pretty Legs and Great Big Knockers.”

When it comes to “off color,” Bette’s Sophie Tucker jokes couldn’t be far behind. They haven’t become any less titillating or decidedly blue: “My boyfriend Ernie said to me, ‘Soph—if you could learn to cook, we could fire the chef.’ I said, ‘Ernie, if you could learn to fuck, we could fire the chauffeur!’ ”

To turn the spotlight to her recent smash portrayal of Mama Rose in the film
Gypsy
, she performed a passionate version of the show-stopping “Rose’s Turn.”

Bringing to the stage the one and only Dolores DeLago, Bette restaged “Drinking Again”—which here is sung in a karaoke bar. However, when she emerges from behind the bar, it is “Dolores” in her mermaid tail, erupting into “MacArthur Park.” It seems that Dolores has been active since last she hit the stage. She now operates the merchandise hotline 1-800-DOLORES, which she uses to sell her own self-help program, “12 Strokes to Satisfaction.”

With the Harlettes as the mermaid fin-wearing, wheelchair-bound DeLago Sisters, Bette and her girls launch into Blondie’s disco hit “Call Me.” “Stop the insanity!” shouts Bette at the top of her lungs. However, as every good Bette fan knows, when it comes to Midler, the insanity has just begun.

They sang “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” in fishtails and performed their Hawaiian ball swinging routine to the Village People’s “In the Navy” The half-fish DeLago quartet also swung into “The Greatest Love of All” and finally “New York, New York,” with top hats and spinning about the stage in their electronic wheelchairs.

Naturally, Bette’s acidic comments throughout the show are classic. Speaking of Joan Rivers selling jewelry on the Home Shopping Network, Midler comically blasts, “Who’s buying all that shit?!”

“Ukelele Lady,” a 1930s song from Hawaii, was turned into a production number, featuring barefoot Bette in a sarong, singing the song of her native state, with an ensemble. Amid the Hawaiian beach fashion-clad performers was Bette’s teenage daughter, Sophie, also singing and playing a ukelele.

Bette, in a spangled brown gown, was forcefully dramatic on the power ballads, including a heartfelt version of “From a Distance.”

She also sang “Do You Want to Dance?” and a very effectively torchy
“To Comfort You,” which was one of the most memorable performances in a show filled with exciting high points.

For the concert’s end, Bette saved “Stay with Me,” “Wind beneath My Wings,” and a beautiful version of “The Glory of Love” from
For the Boys
. She looked great and sounded great throughout. It was a fresh new twist on the constantly evolving
Bette Midler Show
. A well-balanced evening that combined all of Bette’s many musical facets,
Diva Las Vegas
was a huge critical and ratings success.

She rounded up the usual cast of characters for backstage roles as well. The choreography was handled again by Toni Basil, and the show’s special musical material was composed and arranged by Marc Shaiman.

Bette’s latest special was so popular, and so well-produced, that it became her most highly saluted television outing yet. On September 14, 1997,
Diva Las Vegas
was awarded an Emmy as the year’s Best Individual Performance: Variety or Music Program. November 15, at the Cable ACE Awards, held at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles,
Diva Las Vegas
won the award as the Best Music Special or Series.

In Midler’s film career,
First Wives Club
was a tough act to follow. It was such a huge success that she kept expecting the studio to phone her and propose a
First Wives Club
2-styled sequel for Hawn, Keaton, and Midler. According to Bette, the studio could never seem to get it together. Frustrated that no one seemed to be offering her a film role, she simply produced and starred in her own vehicle. She chose the broad comedy
That Old Feeling
.

Speaking of
That Old Feeling
, Midler said at the time, “It’s funny. It’s really funny. It has a lot. . . . it has everything. It has a lot of heart. It has Dennis Farina in it, who is a terrific comic. It was directed by Carl Reiner. We have really high hopes for it, because we know they [audiences] want to laugh. And, there’s a lot of laughs” (
164
).

Bette not only starred in
That Old Feeling
, she also produced it with Bonnie Bruckheimer and All Girls Productions.
That Old Feeling
gave Bette the chance to create the kind of screwball comedy that she always enjoyed. Directed by Carl Reiner (
The Man with Two Brains, All of Me
), the film is lighthearted and entertaining and gives Bette some inspired moments on the screen.

That Old Feeling
opens with a glittering view of lower Manhattan, with the World Trade Center prominently shown. Then it cuts to a young couple getting engaged in a fancy restaurant. Discussion of wedding plans by the betrothed couple—Molly (Paula Marshall) and Jamie
(Keith Marks)—finds the young girl explaining worriedly that her parents hate each other so much that she is scared to have them in the same room. Naturally, with a build-up like that, it is Bette who plays her difficult, volatile, and eccentric mother, Lillian. It also seems that the mother of the bride-to-be is a famous actress, with an immense ego and sharp wit. She is so famous and has such a devoted legion of fans that she is chased by Joey (Danny Nucci), a relentlessly stalking member of the paparazzi.

Having her own company produce the film assured Bette that she would look great in every shot and that she would be provided with juicy one-liners throughout the film—and she launches into them with gusto. Every second she is on the screen, she sizzles with comic energy. Reapplying her makeup for the big wedding, Bette quips to her new husband, Alan (David Rasche), “I’m not neurotic. I’m just a bitch—all right?”

Lillian hasn’t spoken to her ex-husband, Dan (Dennis Farina), in fourteen years. When they meet again at their daughter’s wedding, predictably they erupt into a screaming cat fight mid-wedding. However, while arguing, Lillian and Dan rediscover the passion that brought them together originally. A physical battle leads to humping on the hood of a limo—and finally sex in a red sports car.

Directed by Carl Reiner, with a screenplay by Leslie Dixon—who had written
Outrageous Fortune—That Old Feeling
is a comedy in the tradition of the ’30s and ’40s screwball classics, and the tone of the film is lighthearted fun. Although the plot of the film starts to lose momentum in the middle, it certainly has its share of comic moments.

Sneaking out on their spouses for “coffee,” Dan and Lilly start acting like teenagers tiptoeing off for sexual encounters—to the chagrin of their daughter. Along the way, Dan’s confused second wife, Rowena (Gail O’Grady), seems emotionally oblivious to the proceedings. In a sentimental scene in a hotel lounge, Bette sings a beautiful ballad, “Somewhere along the Way” to Farina—which also appears on the soundtrack album. Midler and Farina are a hysterical match on camera, but when the supporting cast is called upon to carry several scenes, the action sags and the laughs cease.

As the farcical film progresses, the other cast members also switch romantic partners, and Midler and Farina begin battling again. As frustrated Lilly, Bette has a humorous food-gorging scene. And in one funny
segment, the sleazy paparazzi photographer Joey shows off his file of Midler pix, including a humorously weight-enhanced fat shot of her.

The final sequence—a comic clash at an airport terminal—is cute in sort of a “drawing room comedy” way, with Midler and Farina using their daughter’s honeymoon plane tickets to fly away together.
That Old Feeling
comically crackles in several spots. And when Bette is on camera, she is witty, sharp, and laugh-out-loud funny.

When the film was released, the critics seemed to love it. The
New York Times
called it “[A] raucous, high-spirited romantic comedy. . . . Mr. Reiner and Ms. Dixon pack a lot of comic smarts into
That Old Feeling
and their expert cast makes the most of it. . .” (
98
).
USA Today
said, “Bette Midler flings the usual zingers with fang-baring zeal in a part that plays to her brassy strengths” (
98
). And in the
Los Angeles Times
, John Anderson claimed, “She’s seldom been more Bette than as the brassy, sassy, and lethally theatrical Lilly of
That Old Feeling
, a schticky situational comedy that pays tribute to director Carl Reiner’s roots in television while giving some well deserved exposure to a lot of talented people.
That Old Feeling
is a very traditional comedy in a surreal sort of way. [It] is generally fun, thanks to old pros Midler and Farina” (
168
).

A big and cartoonish film,
That Old Feeling
was a fun screen romp for Midler that seemed to come and go in and out of theaters with little fanfare. It was originally supposed to be released on Valentine’s Day, but was later rescheduled for April 1997. The first weekend, the film grossed less than $5 million at the box office and dropped off from there.

On April 30, Bette showed up as a guest star on the Fran Drescher hit comedy
The Nanny
. Again she was dabbling in the TV sitcom arena and obviously testing the waters for future projects.

Along with contributions from two of her prime rivals—Paul Simon and Madonna—Bette in 1997 was heard on the charity album
Carnival! The Rainforest Foundation Tribute
. Bette contributed the song “Sweet and Low” to the LP. It was a song that Midler later explained had special meaning for her, as it was one of her mother’s favorites.

On February 6, 1998, Bette performed in New York City at the Theater at Madison Square Garden to launch the National Basketball Association’s All-Star Weekend. As off-the-wall as that sounds, there were other rumors afoot that spring. One of them claimed that Midler was considering doing a staged version of the Bette Davis/Joan Crawford
horror film
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
Who would they have cast to play “Blanche” to her “Jane”? Cher? However, it didn’t materialize that season.

What did materialize, however, was her first album for Warner Brothers Records. And it was well worth the wait! Entitled
Bathhouse Betty
, it was the best Midler album since the 1970s. For all of the Midler fans who were waiting for a worthy update of her classic, multi-mood Divine Miss M formula, this was it.

According to Bette, she arrived at the formula of
Bathhouse Betty
from the feedback she received from her last album,
Bette of Roses:
“With the last record, I had friends calling me up saying, ‘There’s no variety.’ Now they say there’s too much. The only thing I don’t do in this record is sing in Chinese. I want to do what I want to do. I don’t want to do what the demographics tell me to do. I’m too old for those games” (
169
).

To assure the most variety possible, she chose to open up the producing tasks to a new breed of people—and just for safety’s sake, to include a couple of cuts by her long-time producer Arif Mardin. Among the new producers she worked with on
Bathhouse Betty
were Ted Temple-man, Brock Walsh, David Foster, Chuckii Booker, and her own musical director Marc Shaiman.

According to Bette, the album’s peculiar title actually came from the words a crazed fan shouted outside her Manhattan home. “He was outside my house screaming, ‘Bathhouse Betty! Bathhouse Betty!’ It’s funny—I’m the only person who’s ever been stalked who was listening. Now there’s going to be a million guys coming out of the woodwork, saying, ‘It was me! It was me!’ ” (
169
).

A wildly mood-swinging album, it opens with the touching Leonard Cohen/Bill Elliott/Jennifer Warnes ballad “Song of Bernadette.” It is based on the legend of Bernadette, who once saw the “queen of Heaven,” only to have no one believe her story. However, this spiritually driven song has such an optimistic message of faith in love that it comes across as beautifully inspirational.

It was produced by Ted Templeman, who was responsible for all of the great Doobie Brothers albums on Warner Brothers Records in the 1970s—like
Livin’ on the Fault Line
and
Takin’ It to the Streets
. The background singers on this cut include the longest-running Harlette—Ula Hedwig—and Patty D’Arcy, who was featured in
For the Boys
.

Not lingering in any one mood or mode for more than five minutes;
the next song jacks up the beat, as Bette Midler’s first foray into danceable rap. If ever there was a song that was 100 percent ideal for Miss M, this is it: “I’m Beautiful.” Loaded with full-of-herself chorus lines like, “I’m beautiful, DAMN IT!” this was the ultimate sign that the Divine Miss M was truly back in full form.