Bette Midler: Simply Divine
Uploaded by bluemoon on May 27, 2004
There is only one word to describe Bette Midler: Divine. She is the bold and brassy, fragile and flamboyant, gleeful and glorious star of stage, screen, and television. And in my opinion there is no one that compares to her. She is a one of a kind individual with this enormous amount of talent. From the little insecure Jewish girl who grew up in Hawaii to star of sold out performances at Madison Square Garden. Bette Midler is someone who makes everyone feel nothing is wrong. Her climb to the top is remarkable and that is why she is my idol.
Bette Midler was born December 1st, 1945 in Honolulu, Hawaii. The third child of Fred and Ruth Midler. She was named for Bette Davis (her mother thought the last “e” was silent) and her family was the only white Jewish family in an all Japanese, Samoan, and Chinese neighborhood. Growing up, her family was very poor. Her father was a house painter in the navy and her mother stayed home and watched her 3 daughers. Bette never received the attention she needed from her father and it seemed like he was never there. When Bette was 6 years old, her mother had another child, Danny, who was mentally handicapped and that made the relationship between her and her father even more distant. When Bette was 11 years old she realized exactly what she wanted to do. She entered herself in a school talent contest and she sang “Lullaby of Broadway”. She won the 1st prize of 2 dollars and from then on knew she wanted to be a performer because she loved the response form her audience. Then her chance to become a star came when Bette was about 18 years old. The filming for the movie “Hawaii” came to Bette’s homeland and they were looking for extras to be in the film. Bette naturally did all she could to try and get cast, and sure enough she did! With the $1000 she was paid from that experience, she bought a one way ticket to New York City and never looked back.
Bette came to New York City in 1967 and had very little money to do anything. She quickly found herself a job working part time as a go-go dancer and part time in the library at Columbia University. With the money she was making from these small...