Bette Midler Steals Hollywood

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Ruth was the artistic goad to her girls. She gave them hula lessons and encouraged them to see musicals. Bette's solo debut came in first grade: Silent Night won her a prize. "After that you couldn't stop me from singing," she says. "I'd sing Lullaby of Broadway at the top of my lungs in the tin shower -- it had a really good reverb. People used to gather outside to call up requests or yell that I was lousy." When she was twelve, Bette was taken to see her first stage show, Carousel. "I couldn't get over how beautiful it was. I fell so in love with it. Everything else in my life receded once I discovered theater, and my mother was all for my starting on this journey and going full speed ahead. When I was the lead in the junior- class play, she brought a bouquet of roses and presented them to me over the footlights."

Seven years later Ruth's girl hit New York City. Right away she met Tom Eyen, author of such plays as Sarah B. Divine! and Who Killed My Bald Sister Sophie?, and started working for him, soon graduating to dizzy-bimbo leads. From Eyen she learned about camp. From the East Village Soubrette Black-Eyed Susan, she picked up the retro-chic '30s look. She bought an old velvet dress and coat and started singing songs from the period. Busy Bette. By day she was auditioning or scavenging for obscure sheet music (truly obscure to Bette: she couldn't read music). By night she was appearing in the chorus, then as the eldest daughter, in Fiddler on the Roof. After the show she would sing at any club that would have her. And every spare moment she would study records of Bessie Smith, Ruth Etting, Libby Holman and Aretha Franklin, the adored elder sisters of Bette's vocal style. And when two bigger clubs -- the Improvisation and Continental Baths -- called, Miss M was ready to become Divine.

"Originally," she says, "in my velvet dress with my hair pulled back and my eyelashes waxed, I was convinced I was a torch singer. Because the Improv was a comedy club, you had to be a little bit funny, so I added chatter between songs. There I was, singing my ballads and crying the mascara off my eyes, and in the next breath telling whatever lame joke I'd just heard. By the time I got to the Baths, I had 20 minutes of material but needed 50. So I had to wing it. The Baths was gay, gay, gay in a heartfelt way. The guys would check their clothes, get towels and sit on the floor. They thought my show was fab-ulous. So eventually the big brassy broad beat the crap out of the little torch singer and took over."