Bette Midler Looks Back on Her Life, Career Highs and Lows

A quarter-century ago, frustrated by Hollywood’s paucity of good roles for middle-aged women, Bette Milder renounced the industry, declaring, “Movies are over for me.” Today, at 78, with a new comedy in theaters and a handful of other flicks burbling in development, she’s obviously had second thoughts. “When did I say that?” she asks. “I must have been in the dumps. I’m often in the dumps.”

Any artist might find themselves in the dumps, and Midler, an admitted chronic tsuris sufferer, may have spent periods of her six-decade-plus career feeling down, even momentarily out of fashion, but she inevitably locates one opportunity or another to propel herself up. Because Midler can do it all — sing, act, tell jokes and hoof pretty well, too, even imprisoned onstage in a mermaid costume — her career has been marked by a kind of Whac-a-Mole movement around the industry, flourishing in one genre only to skedaddle when her mood, or her opportunities, changed. She’s triumphed in music, the movies, on tour, in Vegas and on Broadway. Television might have proved a hair less triumphant — her autobiographical 2000 CBS sitcom, Bette, didn’t survive a season — but it did yield a lot of great lines about her faux enmity for Sally Field, who, in winning the 1980 best actress Oscar over Midler’s debut film performance in The Rose, first deprived Midler of the “O” in her EGOT. Midler also has made a mark outside the industry as a philanthropist, founding New York Restoration Project, which for almost 30 years has created parks, green spaces and gardens for New York City’s underserved communities.

Midler fans will rejoice in the fact that iconic actresses are now enjoying a cultural moment. “There’s been a bunch of these movies, like Book Club and 80 for Brady,” Midler says. “It’s all women of a certain age. We’re old-timers who have been through a lot, are very well-known and kind of loved by the population.” In The Fabulous Four, in theaters July 26, Midler’s libertine widow, Marilyn, faces off against uptight cat enthusiast Lou (Susan Sarandon), aiming to resolve a decades-long simmering feud over a man — with encouragement from mutual friends played by Megan Mullally and Sheryl Lee Ralph. Here, the legend joins THR to break down the highlights — and lowlights — of an extraordinary life and brilliant career.

What trait do you think is most responsible for your success?

This kind of compulsion, a determination. I was just going to make it no matter what. In my defense, I couldn’t do anything else. I’d had jobs before and had always failed at them. When I was a salesgirl, I was completely bewildered when someone came in to return something. I wouldn’t understand how it was done. I worked for Western Union for months. I didn’t understand how to send a telegram. So, it’s not that I didn’t try to do other things, but if it didn’t have a performative aspect to it, I didn’t know how it was done. And I was terribly lucky.

You grew up in Hawaii, moved to New York City and ended up on Broadway in Fiddler on the Roof in 1967. But then you got your big break when you played at the Continental Baths in 1970, a gay bathhouse on the Upper West Side.

Yeah, I used to say that was going to be my tombstone: “She started her career at the Continental Baths.” I always say that I was liberated by people who were in the closet but seeking liberation.

As soon as you incorporated the Divine Miss M persona, you took off. Did having to compete with anonymous sex in a venue where attendees wear towels inform how outrageous your act was?

They were wearing bathrobes — occasionally, they would wear a towel. Everyone thinks I should have been so shocked. But I had started in community theater when I was about 14. There were plenty of gay people around, and I often went out to their clubs with them on a Saturday or after a performance. I saw drag queens when I was 14, it didn’t faze me. It was all show business.

Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegun saw you perform at a Manhattan nightclub and immediately signed you — but admitted it was hard to market you, because you weren’t jazz, you weren’t pop or rock. You sang a lot of old songs. Do you feel like you’ve always been hard to categorize?

Probably. But I think that I made a category for myself. I sang what I loved, I wore what I liked, and I did what I was good at, and people enjoyed it. I built this character that allowed me to say and do anything. I forget who it was that said not being successful is a failure of imagination. I sometimes believe that’s true.

When was the first time you realized you were famous?

It wasn’t evident until I moved from nightclubs to theaters to Carnegie Hall and then to arenas. That’s when I really hit the big time, because all the travel changed. Before you were riding in a car or a truck or a bus, and next thing you knew, you were on a private plane, after my first couple of movies in the ’80s. I remember the first time my label booked me into The Connaught [hotel in London], and the butler arrived to ask if there was anything I needed. That’s when I said, “Oh, this is something different.”

Did you have that Beatles experience — that crush of people descending on you?

I did, I did. And I cannot say that it was the most thrilling thing that ever happened. It could be pretty scary. And when I watch old footage of The Beatles or Liz Taylor getting crushed, it’s a little bit of a trigger for me, but fortunately, those days are past and I have a whole skill set of passing completely unnoticed.

How do you go unnoticed?

Well, now I’m invisible because I’m old. But in the old days, I had no makeup and very down-market clothes, and I would put a hat on my head or a turban. And nobody wants to know you with a turban on your head.

You were an unpopular girl in high school. You graduated in 1963 but got to live a fantasy in that you returned victorious 10 years later, playing a packed stadium in Honolulu. Was that experience wonderful?

It was absolutely fantastic. Everybody turned out. We had a luau and dancing girls, and I ate kalua pig. My old crew from high school came. My mom and dad came. I was shocked because my dad, he didn’t want to come, but he came anyway. It was everything it was cracked up to be.

Were you able to visit the homes of any of your tormentors and say, How you like me now?

No, you don’t go to your tormentors’ homes. Your tormenters don’t want you in their homes.

I’m surprised to hear you say your father, Fred, a painter on the local Navy base, came to the concert. I had read that he barely ever saw you perform.

Very rarely. Very rarely.

Do you think your father’s lack of support motivated you to succeed?

It did. It was disappointing, but I kind of got it. He was very straitlaced. He was very puritanical and was the enforcer in his family, and he hated that role. But if he saw his sister smoking, he’d beat the crap out of her, that kind of thing. Old school. But he was what he was. He did the best he could. He provided three square meals. He never struck my mother. Love and child-rearing were a different thing in those days. If you didn’t behave, you got the belt. People didn’t talk about their frickin’ feelings every five minutes. They just didn’t.

You’ve said that you brought much of yourself into the role of the doomed rock star in The Rose. It’s a magnificent performance, but it’s also one of the most painful, unpleasant depictions of show business on film. Did you ever feel like stardom was all too much?

That’s a good question. The thought must have crossed my mind. Sometimes the adrenaline in live performing is completely overwhelming, and it is very, very hard to bear. I will say that. And I felt that I knew the stresses of having an overbearing manager, which I had at the time.

Yes, the late Aaron Russo, who convinced you to do the film. Before you worked together, he asked you what you wanted. You said, “Make me a legend.” And here we are.

That sounds like something I would say.

He was in love with you, and you dated for a time. Your fights were legendary.

Well, that’s hyperbole. Maybe once or twice. I miss him. I think of him often. I never met anyone quite like him. I still meet people who say, “Oh, wasn’t he a gangster?” And I say, “No, he was just this Jewish guy.” Everyone thinks he was some Italian mobster. And now I’m going to hear from the Italians. I remember Aaron came to me backstage when I was doing Divine Madness, my first show after I fired him. I was throwing up from nerves and something terrible had happened to my hair — it had turned white. And he said, “You look like an albino out there. You need to come back to me.” I mean, the scene was so Jimmy Cagney and Doris Day, in that movie [1955’s Love Me Or Leave Me] about [early 20^th Century stage and screen star] Ruth Etting and her manager. 

So, do you think managers like Aaron Russo should be given credit for making careers?

Oh, absolutely, if they’re good. Do I think they’re worth more than 15 percent? No.

What was the worst creative note you ever got?

“Sing disco.” And unfortunately, I did sing disco and it was practically the end of my creative life. 

Interesting. You did one disco album [1979’s Thighs and Whispers]. Did it not do well? 

It laid an egg, as they used to say, and I actually never really recovered from it. It was so far removed from what I believed in and loved, and I felt like such a sellout trying to chase the charts. In those days, the label A&R man was kind of in charge, and I didn’t have the guts to stand up to the label. I actually love dancing and dance music, but I [performed] these strange, odd numbers that were pandering, and I thought, that’s not for me. I don’t want to pander to anybody. And it was just an odd time my life. I really did lose track of where I was. And that’s not a good thing when you’re a performing artist. My recording career was very checkered. Some albums were really good and some albums would just lay there. But this one was particularly odious, the disco.

Starting in 1980, after The Rose, you turned to making movies. Given how much love you got from your live audiences, it’s a little hard to imagine trading that kind of adulation for sitting on a movie set, waiting all day to get called, and maybe getting the occasional compliment from your director. 

The performing, of course, it’s great, it’s fantastic, but it’s hard on your body because it was two hours in heels, sweating, trying to remember lines, where you’re going, sometimes literally crawling under the stage wearing a mermaid tail. It was rough. After that, movie sets were like a holiday. I’m very basic. I always did a movie when I wanted a vacation because you got a breakfast burrito, which I loved. They fed you and you got to sit around and read for hours on end. 

Early on, your act was pretty overtly sexual. You’d do this song “Long John Blues,” about a dentist with a very big “drill” who instructs you to “open wide” so he can “fill [your] hole.” Were you what they now call sex positive in your personal life?

Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, you’re only young once. I had such fun. I had a lot of boyfriends. We did it all. And it was great fun until it wasn’t. And then everything came to a screeching halt and life intervened.

Who’s the sexiest famous man you’ve ever encountered?

I’ve encountered? Jesus Christ. OK. David Bowie. Mick Jagger.

So why did all your fun come to a screeching halt?

Well, AIDS for one. There were people leaving, dying, having breakdowns. I came to a fork in the road, privately and personally, and I said, “This is not going to end well, so let’s just stop.” So I did. That’s kind of when I started trying to be a little more responsible. It’s all part of growing up. Most people do grow up. And I did. It took me a minute, but I did. I married, I had a daughter, and nothing will tighten up your lifestyle like a child.

In 1984, you married Martin von Hasselberg, who performed as Harry Kipper in a performance art duo called The Kipper Kids. Do you call him Martin or Harry?

I call him both.

You’ve been married for forty years. What’s the secret to your long marriage?

Separate bedrooms. My husband is a snorer. I used to be a champion sleeper. Not now. I don’t sleep at all. So I didn’t want to stay up. There you go.

In 1986, you gave birth to your daughter Sophie von Hasselberg. Did you actually tell her that if she got into show business that you would never speak to her again? 

No, I said “I’ll kill you.” Which is worse.

Sophie has a pretty impressive list of comedic roles on IMDb. She’s produced some stuff. And she’s even got a small role in The Fabulous Four. So how goes the silent treatment?

I was so wrong. I never should have done that. But I was afraid for her because I was afraid of the rejection. I was just afraid. She had learned Chinese. She hitchhiked from Beijing to the Uyghurs in China. I mean, she is very intrepid. But then she came home and said, “I want to be an actor.” And we were like, “Oh, really?” But then we backed her and she’s so happy. She’s never happier than she is when she’s performing.

There are several YouTube videos of millennial women recording themselves weeping while watching the end of Beaches. Were there tears on the set of the film?

We all sort of wept when we shot that final scene down at Crystal Cove in California, which is very, very beautiful. But Garry Marshall was Garry Marshall, and he runs a really happy set. So even when things didn’t go well or turn out so good, he was the king of chicken salad from chickenshit. He could turn a scene so that you suddenly saw it in a whole different light, so that it was not just funny, but got roars.

Imagine I told you I was going to work with one of your collaborators and I needed guidance. What would you tell me about working with Barry Manilow, your first accompanist and arranger, who started with you at the Baths?

Be funny. Be engaged, and be on your toes. And know your scales.

Bob Dylan, with whom you dueted in 1975 on his song “Buckets of Rain”?

I would say, “Don’t get in the car afterward. He’s a terrible driver.”

Dustin Hoffman, whom you stripped to his underwear while he was playing piano in your 1977 CBS special, “Ol’ Red Hair Is Back”?

Just say yes. Agree to everything he says, but then don’t do any of it.

How about Nick Nolte and Richard Dreyfuss, with whom you starred in 1986’s Down and Out in Beverly Hills?

Fabulous! They’re both fabulous. But don’t get in the car with either one of them.

Former CBS head Les Moonves, who convinced you that starring in the 2000 sitcom Bette, based on your life, was a fantastic idea?

Don’t listen to him. That was a terrible idea!

Vulture recently ranked the 37 contributors to 1985’s charity single “We Are the World” and put Smokey Robinson and you at positions 29 and 30, respectively, to protest you two not being featured prominently. The writer wrote, “How did these two legends not get solos?”

I don’t know. I think they wanted Quincy [Jones’] artists, and Quincy had the final say. I actually was right in the center front, but then they moved me to [the side next to] La Toya [Jackson]. I don’t know why he did it, but I really did feel like it was a thing, and it was a little bit hurtful, but I got over it.

You’ve been clear on social media about your negative feelings about Donald Trump’s administration, and he’s insulted you as well on social media.

Oh many times. But it’s all performative. I’m sure he hates my guts, but it’s a performance. And I think it’s so interesting because he probably wanted to be an actor or a comic, and he probably would’ve been a pretty successful one, because he does have a certain look and a certain brashness and a bravado, and he has certain people who enjoy him. As a performer, I think he probably would’ve been a sensation, but he’s performing in a role for which he is not suited. That’s my problem with him. I think it’s very, very dangerous because it’s very hard for some people to separate the performative aspect of Donald Trump with the actual governing and administrative, managerial — all those truly serious, diplomatic things about the job. You cannot hand over the reins of government and the nuclear codes to someone who is as much of a flibbertigibbet as this guy.

He’s said some truly terrible things about you.

Yes. Just the other day, in the paper, he said, “I had her to my apartment. She says the nastiest things.” I only have one Donald Trump story, and this is it: It must’ve been the ’90s. He called my office and said, “We’re having a birthday party for André Leon Talley [Vogue‘s former creative director who died in 2022] and we’d like Ms. Midler to come.” So I thought, well, André, we love him! So my husband and I went to Trump Tower, and I get to the apartment, and this is the party: André, me, my husband, Donald Trump and Melania. That was the party. I was so confused because I loved André and I would do anything for him. And I didn’t know Mr. Trump at all. For years I’d think, “What was that about?” Finally, years later, I realized, “Oh, it must’ve had something to do with Vogue and he said he wanted to meet me.” André delivered me to him. Because other than that, it made absolutely no sense.

One last question: You are so associated with the Divine Miss M persona, who you often described as “sleazy.” She’s bawdy. She’s tacky. But offstage Bette is a big reader, a philanthropist, a homebody with extraordinarily refined taste, as anyone who ever saw your Fifth Avenue penthouse in Architectural Digest would be able to see. There’s a huge schism between the two. Has there always been?

I just love The Divine at rock bottom. I think there’s room for both. You can be a duchess and a brothel keeper, too. It’s something that I do wrestle with from time to time because sometimes I meet people and I know that they’re expecting The Divine, and yet I just can’t gin it up and I just have to be who I am. And sometimes I think they’re a little bit let down, and that’s a little bit sad, but it’s something that I did to myself. 

This story first appeared in the July 31 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.