Bette Midler Steals Hollywood

(7 of 8)

Midler is a trouper pleased to have joined the big smooth circus. But she is careful to keep stardom in perspective. She calls Beverly Hills a "happy experience. Plus they gave me the underwear my character wore. The furniture was what really slayed me, but I didn't get that. But I did get the bras." Nor does she make many distinctions among her three recent hits: "Was it Outrageous Ruthless People in Beverly Hills? The films have certainly indicated a direction to stay in. The whole package is a surprise: to be a box-office success hand in hand with Disney. A real shocker. I mean, Walt Disney never would have hired me."

Lounging in her Beyond Tasteful Mediterranean-style house above Beverly Hills, the supine Miss M looks and behaves not at all like the Divine One. The Amazonian figure that fills the most capacious theater proves to be a miniature, magnified by stagecraft and star quality. Shopping or seeing a movie, she can easily go unrecognized. Out of the limelight, says Bonnie Bruckheimer-Martell, Bette's friend and partner in All Girl Productions, "she's basically shy. She'd never think of wearing anything low cut. She calls herself a librarian." No dust on this star's bookshelves. "She's a cleanliness freak," notes Bruckheimer-Martell. "She calls herself Harriet Craig, after the Joan Crawford character who was constantly cleaning." Manilow recalls Bette's perfectionism, "from neatness at home to the 95th take of a song. Once we were walking on a Chicago beach, deep in conversation. She kept picking up bottles and caps, all this crap in the middle of our heavy talk, dumping it into the garbage pail."

The new mother is preoccupied with the chain of continuity that gurgles in her lap. Bette has just noticed that Sophie's ears, like little wings on her bald head, resemble those of Ruth Midler's as a child. Bette softens and tenses as she talks of never appreciating her mother's sacrifice. "When my baby was born," she says, "I was so tired. I kept thinking, 'How did she do it? How could she raise four children and still be standing?' I finally got the message, but it was too late."

Bette tries to be both tickled and modest about her mainstream celebrity. "I really don't even feel I deserve all this," she says earnestly. "I have been a very lucky girl. Now I'm working and doing good work and loving it. I'm not going to say 'Woe is me.' I can't. I'm too happy that anybody noticed I had any talent at all. But I would make a wonderful Lady Macbeth. I'll wear a pair of platform shoes or something." Instead of Shakespeare, though, she is preparing yet another comedy, Big Business, in which she and Lily Tomlin play mismatched sets of identical twins for Ruthless People Director Jim Abrahams. And in the haze of hope, a musical biography of Ina Ray Hutton, '40s leader of her all-girl band. And maybe a remake of Gypsy, with Bette as Mama Rose. Possibly even a Divine Miss M movie. But for now, no albums or concert tours.

Fettered Bette is better than no Bette at all, we guess. But why should she not do what she does uniquely well? Perhaps because Hollywood just now does not care to see the blowsy, pug-beautiful singer, alone and proud on the screen. Instead it wants a Bette Midler like the woman she plays in Ruthless People: bound and blindfolded and sending out comic danger signals. Illuminating these undemanding comedies uses about one green fingernail's worth of her gift.