Bette Midler (48 page)

According to Moogy Klingman, during this period he heard from
Bette Midler for the first time in years: “She called me, she wanted to work with Buzzy Linhart. She wanted to do a good deed, get him back on his feet. He was kind of broke and homeless. . . . She was giving me money to give to Buzzy. . . . She was sending Buzzy checks through me” (
36
).

Midler wanted to hear some of Buzzy Linhart’s songs, in hopes that she would like one of them and record it, thus helping him financially. “There was a song called ‘Fountain of Youth’ . . . mountains of truth,” recalled Klingman.

According to Buzzy, “We recorded about eight songs in a month. At one point she was maybe going to record one. She’s a real stickler for perfection. It was called ‘Dreams of Sand’ ” (
37
).

Ultimately, none of the songs that Klingman and Linhart wrote for her during this era were released. According to Moogy, “She called me to tell me how much she didn’t like them.” The songs, known as “The Buzzy/Moogy Sessions,” sung by the two songwriters, ended up being sold on the Internet on Klingman’s website. Midler decided to go in a different direction, musically.

In March of 1995, Midler appeared in Washington, D.C., at a White House reception that honored the twenty-fifth anniversary of National Public Radio (NPR). Said Bette that day, “I’m not going to get political. We don’t come to the White House for that. We come hoping that there will be embossed towels that we can take home to our family and friends” (
131
).

On May 18, 1995, Bette guest-starred on the
Seinfeld
TV series. It was an episode called “The Understudy,” and Miss M played herself, involved in a theater project cooked up by the stars of the series. In the plot of the show, she ends up in a typical Seinfeldian comedy of errors. Her performance on the show turned out to be a great comic turn for the diva. Bette had never worked on a sitcom before, so this was a whole new experience for her.
Seinfeld
—which starred stand-up comedian Jerry Seinfeld—was a huge ratings success throughout the 1990s, so Midler was fascinated to see the process in action and was happy to participate in it.

According to Bette, “I didn’t watch
Seinfeld
, but once I was on it, I said, ‘Why are they acting like this? What is this about?’ There was all this cereal on the set, and I didn’t understand it. On my episode, they had a Korean nail lady, and I thought, ‘That’s kind of funny. Because I have been to Korean nail ladies, and I kind of got the joke. So I started
watching it, and of course I was hooked. [Those characters] were such nasty people—that’s what I liked about them, up until the bitter end. And I’d never seen anything like it. Up until then, it was just
[I Love] Lucy
and
The Honeymooners
for me. I’m just old school” (
120
).

Relocated in New York City, Bette began her famed clean-up campaign in Manhattan. On June 12, 1995, she was joined by several local officials and dozens of schoolchildren under the George Washington Bridge at the Little Red Lighthouse, as she announced the successful clean-up of over seven miles of public land on the Upper West Side.

On June 22 she was one of the honorees at the annual “VH1 Honors” celebration in Los Angeles. Every year the televised video network honors celebrities who have done outstanding charity work. Bette was honored for her long-time charity work with AIDS-related causes and for her environmental clean-up campaign.

On December 22, Bette’s beachfront house, which she owned on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, was destroyed in a fire. She was not in the house at the time. The cause of the fire was officially listed as having been started by arson.

For Bette’s next film role, she was one of the stars of the 1995 box-office hit
Get Shorty
. The film tells the story of a gangster, Chili Palmer (John Travolta), who leaves Miami to collect an outstanding debt in Hollywood. In the process, he teams up with a grade “B” film director and goes into the movie business. The self-absorbed actor they want to land to give their film prestige is Martin Weir (Danny DeVito), whose bio-pic of Napoleon is a current hit. Dennis Farina is wildly comic as bumbling mobster Ray “Bones” Barboni. The movie is filled with thugs, guns, and the outlandish doings of several actors—billed and unbilled.

Bette plays Doris, a not-so-bereaved widow. In her first scene, Bette comically throws her body at director Harry Zimm (Gene Hackman). In a surprise visit, she shows up in a faux fur coat and makes a pass at him. Thinking she has come to his Hollywood apartment to grieve the death of her dear departed husband, Murray, Harry watches in awe as Doris opens up her fur coat to reveal herself in sexy lingerie.

When Harry begins to eulogize Murray’s talent as a screenplay writer, Doris snaps back, “What he was, was a ‘hack.’ He couldn’t get a job working for anyone but you.” When Harry attempts to deflect her sexual advances, she reaches down to his crotch and reports, “You seem to feel fine about it.”

And what about poor dear departed Murray? Hackman inquires. “Murray’s dead,” says a nonplused Bette.

Her second scene comes in the hospital where Harry is being treated. It seems that he has had a wrangle with someone to whom he owed money. Showing up in the hospital with Chili and Karen (Rene Russo), Doris is especially friendly with a pair of hunky cops she passes in the hallway. “Goodnight, Todd. Goodnight, Louis,” she says as they walk by her.

Although Bette doesn’t have any onscreen scenes with her, Linda Hart has a prominent part in
Get Shorty
. She plays the wife of a bungling embezzler who has faked his own death and collected on the insurance policy.

Bette was in another hit film, and the reviews for
Get Shorty
were incredibly strong. According to Michael Wilmington in the
Chicago Tribune, “Get Shorty
is one of the sharper, funnier, better-cast, better-written movies around . . . with unbilled actors like Harvey Keitel, Penny Marshall, and Bette Midler” (
161
). And Janet Maslin in the
New York Times
especially loved “a quick cameo from Bette Midler as one very merry widow” (
162
).

Also in 1995, Bette Midler released her final album for Atlantic Records,
Bette of Roses
. Bette and her long-time producer Arif Mardin decided that it was time for a musical departure for Miss M.
Bette of Roses
has the distinction of being the first all love ballad album of her career. Furthermore, it contained no jazz songs, no ’40s cover tunes, no rock & roll, and no girl group camping.

Explaining her musical vision for
Bette of Roses
, the diva claimed, “The songs are nonjudgmental. I’ll stand-by-you types of songs. They’re very upbeat, with sweet, positive messages, and the production is very soothing and comforting. In other words: Mom” (
160
).

Said Arif Mardin at the time, “Bette’s voice has improved tremendously. She has a beautifully controlled two-octave range” (
160
). Indeed, Bette’s voice and her range isso much wider on
Bette of Roses
than on any of her previous recordings.

Midler explained at the time, “When I was doing
Gypsy
, I found a singing teacher, Marge Rivinston, who took my voice out of my throat, and put it in my head. She helped me get a new set of vocal abilities that allowed me to choose songs I would never sing before, because I couldn’t hit the notes without screeching. I’m not going to say I’m Maria
Callas or anything, but I have made terrific strides. I’m not going to stop until I’m a great singer” (
160
).

With regard to the dozen songs that they recorded for
Bette of Roses
, Mardin said, “We went through about 50 songs, selecting around 30 of them and going into the studio with just a keyboard player. Out of these we chose 11 for the album plus one for the B side of a single. When Bette sings a song, she lives it. There is always the question of who is singing, this extra investigation into the character in the song” (
160
).

Bette of Roses
created no big hits, and it wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. But there is no denying that it is the most focused album she has ever recorded. Anyone who was expecting her alter ego of the Divine Miss M to be anywhere present was sadly disappointed. In that way,
Bette of Roses
struck Midler fans as either a “dream” or a “dud.”

First of all, Bette’s recording of “To Deserve You” is perhaps—technically—the best song she has ever recorded in her career. In terms of emotionally connecting with her lyrics and really singing, the intensely yearning “To Deserve You” is an undeniable Midler masterpiece. She pours her heart into this song, and she commands your attention with her performance. Another, more subtle classic is the slightly bluesy “To Comfort You,” which features Ula Hedwig in the background.

The album opens with this collection’s most whimsical song, Cheryl Wheeler’s “I Know This Town,” which finds Midler singing as a little girl showing a stranger around her hometown.

Showing off the newfound upper register of her voice to full advantage, she sings with herself on multilayered tracks, singing high against her lower voice, turning “The Last Time” into a multi-octave power ballad. Playing on the title of the album, Bette laments about wasted years and wasted tears on this perfect and simple ballad.

The album ends with a bit of the autobiographical pining of a “baby boomer” on “I Believe in You.” In the song, Midler sings of the ’60s, the Beatles, Haagan Dazs ice cream, and Johnny Carson. It seems custom-fitted to her personality and her own personal perspective.

While the lesser songs on this album emerge as “merely pleasant,” the aforementioned high points ultimately buoy the results of this album.
Bette of Roses
has the distinction of being her first album to pick one single mode—in this case, contemporary ballads, some happy and some sad—and adhere to it end to end. Unlike Bette’s other releases,
Bette of Roses
is the kind of album that requires several listenings to
fully appreciate. For one album, and one album only, it was “Midler light!”

Howard Cohen, in the
Miami Herald
, claimed, “Bette Midler’s first album in five years is one of the summer’s pleasant surprises. . . . seldom has Midler been so willing to use her full vocal range. . . . 
Bette of Roses
isn’t perfect. Midler’s good-natured vulgarity and delightful brassiness of the olden days are missing . . . and there are too many ballads. But overall, this is the best Bette in some time” (
163
). And Stephen Holden, in the
New York Times
, remained noncommittal when he wrote, “Ms. Midler’s three biggest hit records, ‘The Rose,’ ‘The Wind beneath My Wings’ and ‘From a Distance,’ have all been songs that played on [the] heartstrings. This more serious side dominates
Bette of Roses
 . . . made up entirely of contemporary pop ballads, it dispenses completely with the sort of camp nostalgia favored by the Divine Miss M” (
160
).

In America, the album reached a peak position of Number 45 on the
Billboard
charts. In the U.K., it made it to Number 55. One single, the dramatic “To Deserve You,” was released. The cassette single version of “To Deserve You” also featured the rare bonus cut “Up! Up! Up!” which she had recorded with the Manhattan Transfer. There was a CD single version, as well as several dance remixes, of the song. Although it didn’t become a hit-making blockbuster of an album, it became known as Bette Midler’s “all-ballad” disc, and it steadily sold. In January of 1996 it was certified Gold, and by 2002 it had gone Platinum in the United States.

In 1995, in Australia, a version of
Experience the Divine: Bette Midler’s Greatest Hits
was issued with four more “bonus” cuts missing from the American version of the album. The album begins with one of the fantastic remixes of “To Deserve You,” and the last cut on the album is the album version of the same song. From the
No Frills
album came “Beast of Burden” and “My Favorite Waste of Time.” This eighteen-cut Australian version of the “best of” Bette LP gives an even more rounded and varied sampling of the Divine Miss M’s singing talents and more fully spans her entire Atlantic recording career.

As she released
Bette of Roses
in 1995, Bette stopped to look around at the new crop of female singers she was now competing with—both in the record stores and on the airwaves. “The standard of musicianly singing has gone crazy with the Whitney Houstons and Mariah Careys, who have really upped the ante,” proclaimed Midler. “Then there’s k.d. lang. Oh my God, what a voice! And she has this wonderfully sophisticated
sensibility. I think Annie Lennox makes great records. And I have every Nina Simone record ever made. To me, she is like a national treasure” (
160
). Well, the Modest Miss Midler, you ain’t so bad yourself!

For Bette, this was a new era of change. Her work on the film
Hocus Pocus
ended her long streak of working exclusively for Disney. Both
Gypsy
and
Get Shorty
were done for other motion picture companies. From this point forward, Bette was no longer obligated to have her All Girls Productions distributed by Disney either. In 1995 Midler told the
New York Times
, “I had a lot of fun at Disney for the first five pictures. But it got to a point where they wanted to do pictures with their own stamp and didn’t want to hire outside writers. They wanted to have their own people, who worked for their prices, reporting to them. That’s when things got dicey. And I had a big setback with
For the Boys
. Although I know privately what went wrong, I have no desire to point fingers. I was handsomely paid and did the best work I could, and people chose not to go to it. What can you do? You can’t put a gun to people’s heads and force them to go to your movie” (
160
).

Bette Midler claimed in 1995 that she had attained a new level of self-confidence. According to her, “It came after
For the Boys
. We worked like dogs on that and tried so hard. We had a great idea, but we were thwarted every step of the way. When you put that much passion into something and it doesn’t work out, sometimes you think it’s best not to care quite that much, because the disappointment is so painful. I also think that age has had a lot to do with it. You see the way the world works, and you cannot change the world. It has its own tempo and its own speed and its own motivations. You keep on doing what you do for the people who love what you do” (
160
).