Bette Midler

Bette Midler (/bɛt ˈmɪdlər/ bet MID-lər; born December 1, 1945) is an American actress, comedian, singer, and author. Throughout her six-decade career Midler has received numerous accolades, including four Golden Globe Awards, three Grammy Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, and a Kennedy Center Honor, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards and a British Academy Film Award.

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, selling over 30 million records worldwide, and has received four Gold, three Platinum, and three Multiplatinum albums by RIAA. Many of her songs became chart hits, including her renditions of "The Rose", "Wind Beneath My Wings", "Do You Want to Dance?", "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy", and "From a Distance". She won Grammy Awards for Best New Artist, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "The Rose", and Record of the Year for "Wind Beneath My Wings".

Midler made her starring film debut with the musical drama The Rose (1979), which won her the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical, as well as nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress, the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress, and the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress. She went on to star in numerous films, including Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), Ruthless People (1986), Outrageous Fortune (1987), Big Business (1988), Beaches (1988), Stella (1990), Hocus Pocus (1993) and its sequel (2022), The First Wives Club (1996), The Stepford Wives (2004), Parental Guidance (2012), and The Addams Family (2019) and its sequel (2021). Midler also had starring roles in For the Boys (1991) and Gypsy (1993), winning two additional Golden Globe Awards for these films and receiving a second Academy Award nomination for the former.

Midler held a residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas with the show Bette Midler: The Showgirl Must Go On from 2008 to 2010. She starred in the Broadway revival of Hello, Dolly!, which began previews in March 2017 and premiered at the Shubert Theatre in April 2017. The show was her first leading role in a Broadway musical. Midler received the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance.

Bette Midler was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. She was the third of four children born to Ruth (née Schindel; 1911–1979) and Fred Midler (1908–1986). Midler's family was one of the few Jewish families in a mostly Asian neighborhood. Her mother was a seamstress and housewife, and her father worked at a U.S. Navy base in Hawaii as a painter, and also painted houses. Both were born in New Jersey. She was named after actress Bette Davis, although Davis pronounced her first name in two syllables (phonetically like "Betty") and Midler uses one syllable (phonetically like "bet"). 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 performed as an extra in the 1966 film Hawaii, playing an uncredited seasick passenger named Miss David Buff.

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. In October 1966, she joined the Broadway company of Fiddler on the Roof, playing the ensemble role of Rivka and understudying the oldest daughter Tzeitel. She assumed the role of Tzeitel in February 1967, and played the role until February 1970. After Fiddler, she joined the original cast of Salvation in 1969.

In the summer of 1970, Midler began singing at the Continental Baths, a gay bathhouse in the basement of the Ansonia Hotel. During this time, she became close to her piano accompanist, Barry Manilow—also a regular performer at the Continental Baths—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 (1998), 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."