"It's the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance."
"I wouldn't say I invented tacky, but I definitely brought it to its present high popularity."
"Cats always seem so very wise, when staring with their half-closed eyes. Can they be thinking, I'll be nice, and maybe she will feed me twice?"
"I made a pact with myself a long time ago: Never watch anything stupider than you. It's helped me a lot. I made a pact with myself a long time ago: Never watch anything stupider than you. It's helped me a lot."
Gloriously flamboyant American entertainer Bette Midler was born in Honolulu, HI, to the only Jewish family in the neighborhood. After dropping out of a drama class at the University of Hawaii, she took a tiny role in the 1966 film Hawaii, playing a seasick boat passenger (though it's hard to see her when viewing the film). Training for a dancing career in New York, Midler made the casting rounds for several months before finally winning a chorus role, and then the featured part of Tzeitel, in the long-running Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof.
It helps to do something well that no one else does, and Midler found her forte by singing at the Continental Baths, a gay hangout in New York. Most bath house performers were painfully bad, but Midler established herself by combining genuine talent with the tackiness expected of her. As the "Divine Miss M," Midler did an act consisting of campy (and dirty) specialty numbers; dead-on imitations of such earlier performers as the Andrews Sisters and Libby Holman; and the most outrageously revealing costumes this side of Bob Mackie. Soon she outgrew the bath houses and went on to nightclub and recording-artist fame, earning a Grammy Award in 1973. After several years of sell-out tours, Midler re-entered films as the star of The Rose, a 1979 film à clef loosely based upon the life and times of Janis Joplin. The film was a success, but it failed to establish Midler as a dramatic actress; audiences, particularly gay fans, still preferred the Divine Miss M.
Jinxed (1982), Midler's next film, lived up to its name with well-publicized production squabbles between Midler, the director, producers, and a few of her co-stars. Following the film's failure, Midler wasn't seen onscreen until she signed a contract with Disney in 1986. Establishing a new film identity as a character comedienne, Midler sparkled in Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), and was even better as a loudmouthed kidnap victim in Ruthless People (1987). Using her restored film stature, Midler set up her own production company and produced Beaches (1988), a pals-through-the-years saga that proved to be a four-hankie audience favorite. Once again attempting to establish herself as a tragedian, Midler starred in Stella (1989), a poorly-received remake of 1937's Stella Dallas. For the Boys (1992), offered Midler in tons of old-age makeup as a Martha Raye-style USO star (Raye responded to this "tribute" by suing the studio). The subsequent Scenes From a Mall (1991), which paired Midler with Woody Allen, and witchcraft fantasy Hocus Pocus (1993) also failed to truly showcase her talents. She rebounded somewhat in 1995 with a role in the wildly acclaimed Get Shorty, and had even greater success the following year co-starring with Diane Keaton and Goldie Hawn in The First Wives Club. In 1999, Midler played herself in two films: the TV mockumentary Jackie's Back and Get Bruce!, a big-screen documentary about legendary comic writer Bruce Vilanch.
In addition to her film work, Midler still performs live concerts to sold-out crowds and continues to release albums, including Bathouse Bette, a tribute to her early singing days. In 1993, she scored an enormous success in a superb TV adaptation of the Broadway musical Gypsy. And, in 2000, Midler extended her talents to television, starring as herself in the aptly-named sitcom Bette. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
Born on December 1, 1945, in Honolulu, HI; daughter of Fred (a house painter) and Ruth Midler; married Martin von Haselberg (a commodities trader and performance artist), December, 1984; children: Sophie. Education: Attended University of Hawaii.
Principal stage appearances include Fiddler on the Roof, 1966-69; Salvation, 1970; Tommy, 1971; and Clams on the Half Shell Revue, 1973-74. Principal film appearances include The Rose, 1979; Divine Madness, 1980; Jinxed, 1982; Down and Out in Beverly Hills, 1986; Ruthless People, 1986; Outrageous Fortune, 1987; Big Business, 1988; Beaches, 1988; Scenes From a Mall, 1991; Stella, 1991; For the Boys, 1992; Hocus Pocus, 1993; First Wives Club, 1996; Isn't She Great, 2000; Drowning Mona, 2000; Stepford Wives, 2004. Signed with Atlanta Records, early 1970s; signed with Warner Bros. Records, 1998.
Awards: Grammy Awards, Best New Artist, 1973; Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Female, 1980; Record of the Year for "Wind Beneath My Wings," 1989; Tony Award, 1973; Emmy Award, Outstanding Television Special, 1978; Golden Globe Awards, Best Motion Picture Actress in a Musical Comedy, New Female Motion Picture Star of the Year, both for The Rose, 1980; Best Performance by an Actress in a Musical Motion Picture for For the Boys, 1992; Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture Made for Television for Gypsy, 1993; American Comedy Awards, Funniest Female Performer in a Television Special for Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, 1993; Funniest Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture for Get Shorty, 1996; shared National Board of Review (NBR) Award, Best Ensemble Performance for First Wives Club, 1996; Emmy Award, Outstanding Performance in a Variety or Music Program for Bette Midler in Concert: Diva Las Vegas, 1997; People's Choice Award, Favorite Female Performer in a New Television Series for Bette, 2001; TV Guide Award, Actress of the Year in a Comedy Series for Bette, 2001.
Addresses:Record company—Warner Records, 3300 Warner Blvd., Burbank, CA 91505-4694. Website—Bette Midler Official Website: http://www.bettemidler.com.
Singer
In her early years she was known as "The Divine Miss M.," a campy, raucous vocalist at home in many forms of jazz, swing, and pop. Since then Bette Midler has become a respected film star and a spokesperson for research into acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), an illness that has killed dozens of her friends. For several years in the mid-1980s, Midler preferred starring in and producing movies to singing, but she resurfaced as a pop music superstar, releasing a Grammy-winning single, "Wind Beneath My Wings," in 1989. Combining her theatrical talents with her music, she starred in successive musical comedies in the early 1990s, including For the Boys, and Gypsy, and earned a Golden Globe for each performance. After signing with Warner Bros. in 1998 she released two new albums by the end of the decade, and each achieved gold sales.
In Vanity Fair, Joe Roth, the chairman of Twentieth Century-Fox, described Bette Midler as "one of the few superstars who connect emotionally with an audience as well as entertaining them—only a handful of people are capable of that." Few performers, especially women, sustain pop music careers into their middle years. Midler managed the feat by virtue of her wide range of vocal stylings and her good rapport with fans of all ages. Time magazine contributor Richard Corliss called Midler "the most dynamic and poignant singer-actress of her time."
Midler was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on December 1, 1945. Her father painted houses for the U.S. Navy. Named after the great screen actress Bette Davis, Midler grew up in rural Aiea, Hawaii, a lonely girl who found solace in old Hollywood musicals and the thought that she might become a performer some day. She recalled in Time: "I'd sing Lullaby of Broadway at the top of my lungs in the tin shower—it had really good reverb. People used to gather outside to call up requests or yell that I was lousy."
Midler's parents did not see eye to eye about their daughter's ambitions. Fred Midler was a strict disciplinarian who felt that stage work was for loose women. He never saw Midler in a live performance, even after she became famous. Midler's mother, on the other hand, encouraged all of her daughters to take music and dancing lessons. "My mother was all for my starting on this journey and going full-speed ahead," Midler remarked in Time.
First Foray into Showbiz After graduating from high school—where she was class president—Midler attended the University of Hawaii for a year. She also took a variety of part-time jobs, including sorting pineapple slices at a food processing plant. In 1965 she earned a place as an extra on the set of the film Hawaii. When the production company moved back to Hollywood to complete the movie, she
went along. In Los Angeles she found work with United Artists as an extra, saving her wages to finance a trip to New York City.
After some months of odd jobs and small parts in Catskill Mountains productions, Midler auditioned for the Broadway play Fiddler on the Roof. She earned a chorus role in the New York company in 1966, but quickly graduated to the major part of Tzeitel, the eldest daughter. She stayed with Fiddler on the Roof for the next three years, augmenting her Broadway work with singing stints in clubs, including the famous Improvisation.
Midler used her club dates to experiment with different musical styles. She seemed most successful as a torch singer, but she noticed that the audiences liked to hear jokes between numbers. Slowly she developed the style that would become her trademark—strong vocals mixed with bawdy humor and a campy stage presence. She left the cast of Fiddler on the Roof in 1969 for an entirely new challenge.
One of Midler's acting teachers suggested that she apply to sing at the Continental Baths, a public bath-house catering to gay men. She was hired at $50 per night, and there she and her pianist-arranger Barry Manilow honed an outrageous and entertaining show that pulled musical numbers from every decade between 1930 and 1970. In her autobiography A View From a Broad, Midler recalled of the bathhouse: "I was able to take chances on that stage that I could never have taken anywhere else. The more outrageous I was, the more [the patrons] liked it. It loosened me up."
Became "The Divine Miss M." Billing herself as "The Divine Miss M.—Flash with class and sleaze with ease," Midler began to attract attention outside the gay community. By 1971 she had signed with an ambitious manager who promoted her to television talk shows and bigger stage revues. Almost a decade before the emergence of pop icon Madonna, Midler dared to flirt, make bawdy jokes, and dress flamboyantly in her act. By 1972 she had released an album and was singing in Las Vegas and at the Lincoln Center.
One of Midler's first big hits was an Andrews Sisters song, "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy." New Republic correspondent Richard Poirier commented that the entertainer "has the vocal resources to sing in the style of any woman vocalist of the past 30 years…. Midler doesn't imitate or parody a specific singer through an entire song, however. Rather, like a person truly haunted, Midler in the phrasing of a song will suddenly veer off from one coloration into another. It sometimes happens with an air of true discovery. As with most great jazz singers, she therefore never does a song
exactly the same way twice. The avenue of experimentation is always left open."
Her success as a singer assured, Midler moved on into film. Her first movie was The Rose, a serious work about a self-destructive rock star. The film was a success, earning Midler two Golden Globe Awards, including New Female Motion Picture Star of the Year. Also in this role she was recognized with an Academy Award nomination, and she received the Grammy Award for Best Vocal Performance by a Female for the title song. Flush with success, Midler felt invincible. Then her career took a nosedive. A concert film, Divine Madness, did not perform as expected at the box office. Worse, Midler's next movie, Jinxed, earned her a reputation for temperamental behavior that took years to live down. Her live appearances lacked the zest of earlier years, and she entered a prolonged depression. "I couldn't face the world," she admitted in Time. "I was drinking to excess—I was miserable."
Midler's 1984 marriage to businessperson and performance artist Martin von Haselberg helped her to regain her equilibrium. Around the same time she signed a contract with Touchstone Films, a division of Walt Disney Studios. Through Touchstone Midler starred in several well-received comedy films, including Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Ruthless People, and Outrageous Fortune. Together these movies earned more than $60 million and revived Midler's flagging career.
Midler has not lacked film roles since then. She has starred in such vehicles as Beaches, Big Business, filmmaker Woody Allen's Scenes From a Mall, and a movie she produced herself, For the Boys. The latter film was that rarest of all types of modern motion pictures—a musical—with Midler appearing as a U.S.O. performer through three wars. This project earned Midler the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Musical.
Midler might have given up recording entirely, given her busy schedule in the film industry. Instead she released a 1991 album, Some People's Lives, featuring the inspirational track, "From a Distance," for which she had earned a Grammy nomination in 1990. The song topped the charts during the Desert Storm hostilities, in which several nations, including the United States, intervened in a dispute between Iraq and Kuwait; the lyrics present a view of the world from space, noting how peaceful earth seems.
Returning to her Broadway roots again in 1993 she appeared in the made-for-television version of the musical comedy, Gypsy, earning a fourth Golden Globe Award in the process. As the decade progressed, so too did Midler's acting career. She starred as Brenda Cushman in Hugh Wilson's 1996 feature film First Wives Club, and contributed a cameo performance in Barry Sonnenfeld's light crime drama, Get Shorty, with John Travolta and Gene Hackman.
Socially Active and Aware Following the release of Bette of Roses in 1995, Midler ended her affiliation with Atlantic Records, after more than twenty years. She signed with Warner Bros. in 1998, and made her label debut that same year, with Bathhouse Betty. As sales of this album surpassed the one-half million mark, she focused again on acting and produced Bette, a situation comedy series for television, based on her life. In the summer of 2004 she appeared among the star-studded cast of the Frank Oz film version of Ira Levin's The Stepford Wives.
Midler in 2000 released a self-titled album that achieved gold-level sales, and in 2004 the singer headlined a road show, called Kiss My Brass. In an interview with Vanity Fair she acknowledged that her resurgence in the pop music field in the 1990s had come as a surprise to her, said "It was not planned at all…. Not for one second. If it disappeared tomorrow, I wouldn't be surprised, either."
Still, she confessed in the same profile, "I feel I have to create. I have to dig in the earth. I have to make something grow. I have to bake something. I have to write something. I have to sing something. I have to put something out. It's not a need to prove anything. It's just my way of life."
Singing, she has discovered, is one way in which she can communicate her concern for AIDS victims. "In her early divine crassness, She shared with her audiences the lighthearted freedom she was discovering in herself as a moxie-mouthing soubrette," wrote Kevin Sessums in Vanity Fair in 1991. "Now [she] … is heavier-hearted, and no longer endows her fans with a frivolous sense of hope, but instead instills in them a survivor's hard-won dignity." When the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center left New York City, (and the world), in anguish in 2001, Midler stifled her tears as she comforted mourners with an especially poignant rendition of "Wind Beneath My Wings," which she performed live at an official memorial service for the victims. She also helped raise millions of dollars for the victims of the attack. In late spring 2004 she made time to perform in two benefit concerts with Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond, to collect funds for the Democratic presidential campaign that year.
Selected discography The Divine Miss M., Atlantic, 1972. Bette Midler, Atlantic, 1973. Broken Blossom, Atlantic, 1977. Live at Last, Atlantic, 1977.
Thighs and Whispers, Atlantic, 1979. Songs for the New Depression, Atlantic, 1979. Divine Madness, Atlantic, 1980. No Frills, Atlantic, 1984. Mud Will Be Flung Tonight (comedy), Atlantic, 1985. Some People's Lives, Atlantic, 1991. For the Boys (motion picture soundtrack), Atlantic, 1992. Experience the Divine, Atlantic, 1993; reissued, Wea International, 2000. Bette of Roses, Atlantic, 1995. Bathhouse Betty, Warner Bros., 1998. Bette, Warner Bros., 2000. Bette Midler Sings the Rosemary Clooney Songbook, Sony, 2003. From a Distance, Atlantic, 2003.
Selected writings A View From a Broad, Simon & Schuster, 1980.
The Saga of Baby Divine, Crown, 1983.
Sources Periodicals Billboard, November 3, 2001, p. 10. Hollywood Reporter (International Edition), January 20, 2004, p. 60. New Republic, August 2, 1975. Newsweek, May 22, 1972; June 30, 1986; January 26, 1987. New York Times, December 3, 1972; December 29, 1972; January 14, 1973. People, November 14, 1983; February 3, 1986; June 21, 2004, p. 29. Rolling Stone, February 5, 2004, p. 24; June 10, 2004, p. 20. Time, March 2, 1987. Vanity Fair, December 1991.
Bette Midler counts singing as only one of her talents; since 1972, when she first came to national recognition, it singing seemed to be the least of her talents. Still, she managed to score a number of major hits in her career as a recording artist. In 1979 she starred in the film The Rose; the title track became a Top Ten hit. Her next film, Jinxed (1982), however, was a major flop, and subsequent records didn't fare well. In 1989, her version of "Wind Beneath My Wings" from her film Beaches became a chart-topping hit, rejuvenating her singing career. ~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi
Bette Midler (born December 1, 1945) is an American singer, actress, and comedian, also known by her informal stage name, The Divine Miss M. She became famous as a cabaret and concert headliner, and went on to star in successful and acclaimed films such as The Rose, Ruthless People, Beaches, and For The Boys. During her more than forty-year career, Midler has been nominated for two Academy Awards, and won three Grammy Awards, four Golden Globes, three Emmy Awards, and a special Tony Award. She has sold over 30 million albums worldwide.[1] Her voice type is categorized as deep mezzo soprano.[2]
Midler was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. Her parents moved from Paterson, New Jersey to Honolulu before she was born, and hers was one of the few Jewish families in a mostly Asian neighborhood.[3] 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.[4] She was named after actress Bette Davis, though Davis pronounced her first name in two syllables, and Midler uses one, /ˈbɛt/.[5] She was raised in Aiea and attended Radford High School, in Honolulu.[6] She was voted "Most Talkative" in the 1961 school Hoss Election, and in her Senior Year (Class of 1963), "Most Dramatic".[7] Midler majored in drama at the University of Hawaii, but left after three semesters.[8] She earned money in the 1966 film Hawaii as an extra,[5] playing an uncredited seasick passenger named Miss David Buff.
Midler married Martin von Haselberg on December 16, 1984, about six weeks after their first meeting. Their daughter, Sophie Frederica Alohilani Von Haselberg, was born on November 14, 1986.[9]
Career
Theater work
In the summer of 1965, Midler relocated to New York City, using the money from her work in the film Hawaii. 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.[10] From 1966 to 1969, she played the role of Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway.[5] After Fiddler, she joined the original cast of Salvation in 1969.[11]
In the summer of 1970, Midler began singing in the Continental Baths, a gay bathhouse in the city.[5] During this time, she became close to her piano accompanist, Barry Manilow, who produced her first album in 1972, The Divine Miss M.[10] 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".[12]
Midler released her debut album, The Divine Miss M, on Atlantic Records, in December 1972. It reached Billboard's Top 10 and became a million-selling Platinum-certified album,[14] earning Midler the 1973 Grammy Award for Best New Artist.[15] It featured three hit singles, with "Do You Want To Dance?", "Friends", and "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy", which became Midler's first No. 1 Adult Contemporary hit. "Bugle Boy" became a very successful rock cover of the classic swing tune originally introduced and popularized in 1941 by the famous Andrews Sisters, of whom Midler has repeatedly referenced 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 once 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?'"[16] During another one of Midler's concerts, 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."[16]
In 1974, she received a Special Tony Award for her contribution to Broadway,[18] 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, Ol' Red Hair is Back, premiered, featuring guest stars Dustin Hoffman and Emmett Kelly. It went on to win the Emmy Award[19] for Outstanding Special — Comedy-Variety or Music.[20]
In 1979, Midler made her first motion picture, starring in the 1960s-era rock and roll tragedy The Rose, as a drug-addicted rock star modeled after Janis Joplin.[5] 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.[21] 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).
In 1979, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Rose, a role for which she won the Golden Globe for Best Actress (Comedy or Musical).[5] The film's acclaimed soundtrack album sold over two million copies in the United States alone, earning a Double Platinum certification.[14] The single version of the song 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[14] and won the Grammy award for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female.[15]
1981–89: Wind Beneath My Wings and Beaches
In 1981, Midler worked on the troubled comedy project Jinxed!. However, during production, there was friction with co-star Ken Wahl and the film's director, Don Siegel.[citation needed] Released in 1982, the film was a major flop.[citation needed] Midler did not appear in any other films until 1986. 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"[citation needed] – and Midler's take on the Rolling Stones cover "Beast of Burden". The rock and New Wave album became Midler's third lowest charting album in the U.S.
In 1990, Midler's single "From A Distance" topped the charts and achieved platinum status. The next year, Midler co-starred with Woody Allen in Scenes from a Mall, again for Mazursky. She earned another Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for 1991's For the Boys, directed by Mark Rydell, who also directed The Rose. For the latter, she was awarded another Golden Globe for Best Actress (Comedy or Musical).[20] She turned down the lead role in 1992's Sister Act, which instead went to Whoopi Goldberg.[23] In 1993, she starred with Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy in the movie, Hocus Pocus, as Winifred "Winnie" Sanderson, the head witch of the Sanderson Sisters.[5][24]
Midler's other films include Stella (1990), The First Wives Club (1996), and The Stepford Wives (2004).[5] 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. 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 FilmCrystal 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".[25]
Her 1997 HBO special Diva Las Vegas earned her a third Emmy Award, for Outstanding Performance in a Variety or Music Program.[20]
In 1995 and 1999, she reached the top of the US Dance Charts with remixes of her hits "To Deserve You"[27] on Atlantic and "I'm Beautiful"[28] on Warner Brothers Records. "To Deserve You" reached No. 2 and "I'm Beautiful" reached No. 1.
2000–01
Midler has guest-starred in various sitcoms over the years, including The Simpsons in the episode "Krusty Gets Kancelled" (she is first seen traversing a highway picking up trash when she is approached by Bart and Lisa with a request for Midler to appear on a show to revive Krusty's dying career). In 2000, Midler starred in her own sitcom, Bette. Airing on CBS, initial ratings were high but soon declined and the show did not last a full season, being cancelled in early 2001. During the show's short lifespan, Bette's daughter (played by Lindsay Lohan in the pilot, then by Marina Malota starting with the third episode) and her husband were recast (Robert Hays succeeded Kevin Dunn in the final episode aired). The show was also reportedly rocked by backstage turmoil. Also in 2001, Bette or Bust, a book chronicling Midler's "Divine Miss Millennium Tour", was released.
Music
Midler has won three Grammy Awards.,[29] Best New Artist, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "The Rose" and Record of the Year for "Wind Beneath My Wings". Two of her recordings, "Wind Beneath My Wings" and "From a Distance" won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year. "From a Distance" became her longest running No. 1 – six consecutive weeks – on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart. When the American Film Institute announced "The 100 Years of the Greatest Songs" on June 22, 2004, two of Midler's recordings were selected by the board: "Wind Beneath My Wings" (No. 44) and "The Rose" (No. 83). However, after years of erratic record sales, Midler was dropped from the Warner Brothers label in 2001, after nearly three decades with Warner Music Group.
After a reported long-standing feud with Barry Manilow, the two joined forces after many years in 2003 to record Bette Midler Sings the Rosemary Clooney Songbook. Of the project, Manilow said he'd had a dream that he was recording with Midler again, so he called her up with the idea and she agreed that it was due time to work together again. Manilow duetted with Midler on the song "(I'd Like to Get You on a) Slow Boat to China", after a little dialogue between the two artists at the start of the track. Now signed to Columbia Records, the album was an instant success, being certified gold in only a few weeks. One of the Clooney Songbook selections, "This Ole House", became Midler's first Christian radio single shipped by Rick Hendrix and his positive music movement. The album was nominated for a Grammy the following year.[30]
In 2003–04, Midler toured the U.S. in her new show, Kiss My Brass, to sell-out audiences. In early 2005, an Australian tour, Kiss My Brass Down Under, was equally successful. Midler joined forces again with Manilow for another tribute album, Bette Midler Sings the Peggy Lee Songbook. Released in October 2005, the album sold 55,000 copies the first week of release, returned Midler to the Top 10,[31] and was nominated for a Grammy Award.[32]
On December 6, 2007, Midler's album Cool Yule received a Grammy nomination for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album.[33]
Midler had a Vegas show entitled Bette Midler: The Showgirl Must Go On at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace. The show comprised The Staggering Harlettes, 20 female dancers called The Caesar Salad Girls and a 13-piece band. The show debuted on February 20, 2008, and played its final performance on January 31, 2010, after a two-year run.[34] The show was nominated for an Emmy for outstanding variety,music or comedy special in 2011.[35]
A new "best of" album, Jackpot: The Best Bette, was released in 2008 and reached No. 66 on the U.S. charts, and No. 6 in the UK, where it was certified Platinum for sales of over 300,000 copies.[36]
In 2010, Midler voiced the character Kitty Galore in the animated film Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore. The film was a modest success, grossing $112 million worldwide.[38] In November 2010, Midler released Memories of You, another compilation of lesser known tracks from her catalog. She promoted the album to her UK fans on Daybreak and The Graham Norton Show, on the latter of which she also performed "Dreamland" from For the Boys.[citation needed]
Midler will be co-starring alongside Billy Crystal in the movie Parental Guidance due to be released in 2012. Midler also auctioned her outfits and achievements from her 40-year career in November 2011 in order to raise money for the New York Restoration Project.
Midler has an estimated net worth of $175 million.[40]
In June 2012, she is slated to receive the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award at the Songwriters Hall of Fame in New York in recognition of her having "captivated the world" with her "stylish presentation and unmistakable voice".[41]
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 5-acre (20,000 m²) 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.[42]
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