Authors: Mark Bego
Speaking of her daughter in 1992, Midler claimed, “She’s a lot like me. So it’s comforting, and also horrifying. She really gets on my nerves sometimes. I love her, but she’s really stubborn. If you ask her to apologize, she won’t do it” (
27
).
She was also very comfortable and happy with her marriage to Martin. However, she admitted that whenever the two of them did have an argument, she simply insisted that she win every difference of opinion. “That’s one of the main things my husband hates about me—I always have to be right. I tell him, ‘I don’t have to be right. I simply am right,” she proclaimed (
27
).
According to her, “I’m a fabulous cook, and my husband is a fabulous cook. I collect cookbooks. I love good food. I sew. You won’t believe it, but I sew. We decorate. We go to flea markets and swap meets. We have a lot of friends who own restaurants, people who like to eat well. I like
that. There’s a certain quality of life that’s missing in this country. People go so fast—everything in this country is about speed, about going faster, having more status, more money. And I find that’s not really the way” (
27
).
On March 23, 1992, the United States Supreme Court made an official ruling on Ford Motor Company’s appeal against Midler’s 1989 judgment, with regard to the recording of “Do You Want to Dance?” According to
USA Today
, “A $400,000 award was upheld for singer Bette Midler against an ad agency that used a ‘soundalike’ for a 1986 TV commercial. Midler’s former back-up singer was told to sound like Midler in the Ford ads” (
154
).
That spring, the voice of Bette Midler was heard narrating the children’s story “Weird Peanuts.” It was telecast on
Shelley Duvall’s Bedtime Stories
series for kids on the Showtime network in America.
On May 21, 1992, Bette Midler had the honorable distinction of being Johnny Carson’s very last guest on
The Tonight Show
. He had announced his retirement, and he wanted to have her on the final show to help him bid TV audiences “good-bye.” Carson had been hosting the late night show on NBC-TV since October 2, 1962.
It was a very touching performance on both of their parts. It was a sentimental event, but Bette kept the program upbeat with her jokes and mugging with Carson. During the program she sang “Dear Mr. Carson” to Johnny, to the tune of “Dear Mr. Gable,” which Judy Garland once sang to Clark Gable in
Broadway Melody of 1938
. She made jokes about people at home having sex while watching
The Tonight Show
. She sang Carson a song that he identified as his favorite, “Here’s That Rainy Day.” Johnny, teary eyed, said the audience, “You people are seeing one hell-uva show.” Indeed, they were. However, the biggest highlight of the evening was Midler serenading and saluting Johnny with a special rendition of the Johnny Mercer/Harold Arlan song “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road).”
The show was a huge ratings hit, and everyone seemed to be talking about what a touching and wonderful performance Midler delivered. According to her, she was overwhelmed by receiving “such an outpouring of love and goodwill from vast numbers of people as I did after that show. What I’m trying to say is that people were so thrilled by that evening, and I think they were so glad because they felt that I had given him something that he deserved, what they wanted to give him if they
could have, I said ‘thank you’ for them in the way they wanted. . . . That was great, just great” (
155
).
For her it was a very special evening, and a magical hour and a half of TV history. Yet, to this day, she refuses to watch a tape of the show. “I did it and I walked away, and I think he did, too. I will always have the memory. . . . I wanted to keep my memory of it the way it is for me. I didn’t want to have to look at it and say, ‘I shouldn’t have done that. I didn’t know that happened. Gee, that’s not the way I remember it,’ which is really truly gorgeous” (
155
).
On August 30, 1992, at the annual Emmy Awards, Bette’s performance on the final episode of
The Tonight Show
was nominated in the category of Best Performance, Variety or Music Program. She won, but was not present to receive the trophy.
Bette, in fact, got so much attention for being Johnny Carson’s last guest on the final episode of
The Tonight Show
that she was later to lampoon herself, on TV’s animated comedy series
The Simpsons
. However, on
The Simpsons
episode that Midler provided the voice to, she was serenading comically Crusty the Clown on his last TV show.
On September 23, she attended the fashion industry party “Valentino: Thirty Years of Magic,” with all proceeds going toward AIDS charities. On October 3 she was one of the stars at the biannual Children’s Diabetes Foundation benefit, which was held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. And on December 23 she was among the celebrities to appear on CBS-TV celebrating the
HBO 20th Anniversary
special.
When Bill Clinton was inaugurated president of the United States, several huge gala events were held, at which some of the biggest celebrities in America performed. Bette was included in the special A
Call for Reunion
, on January 17, 1992.
In the summer of 1992, Bette Midler released the American version of her
Greatest Hits
album,
Experience the Divine
. It contains fourteen of Bette’s best, and best-known performances, from her first eleven years on Atlantic Records. Interestingly enough, five of the songs were taken from her
Divine Miss M
album: “Hello in There,” “Do You Want to Dance?”; “Chapel of Love;” the Manilow-helmed version of “Friends;” and the single version of “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” which Manilow also produced. Naturally, the album included her three biggest hits: “The Rose,” “From a Distance,” and “Wind beneath My Wings.” The album also featured “Only in Miami,” “When a Man Loves a Woman,” “Miss Otis Regrets,” “Shiver Me Timbers,” and “In My Life.”
The one never-before-released song was Bette’s rendition of “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road),” taken from her award-winning performance on
The Tonight Show
.
A very good sampling of Miss M’s astonishing career, it also seemed to ignore several of her career highlights. There was nothing from her albums
Bette Midler, Songs for the New Depression, Broken Blossom, Thighs and Whispers
, and
Divine Madness
. Even singles like “In the Mood,” “Beast of Burden,” “Married Men,” and “You’re Moving Out Today” were skipped over.
The album was quite successful. Although it only made it as high as Number 50 on the American
Billboard
charts, it sold progressively well, and it eventually sold a million copies and was certified Platinum. In the U.K. it made it to Number 3 on the album charts.
For her next big screen role, Bette chose a trademark Disney film. She played the leader of a trio of witches in the strictly family-fare Halloween spoof
Hocus Pocus
. Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy portrayed her spellbinding siblings in this light comedy, clearly aimed at children.
The male lead in the film, Max, is played by teenage Omri Katz, who is most famous for having played the role of young John Ross Ewing in the nighttime TV soap opera
Dallas
. And Thora Birch plays eight-year-old Dani, who ends up wrangling with this trio of kooky witches. Birch is so saccharine sweet that it is hard not to wish that a really nasty spell gets put upon her. But alas, she and Katz end up outwitting the evil threesome by the end of the picture—in good Disney fashion.
Choreographer and video director Kenny Ortega was the director of
Hocus Pocus
, and the film was coproduced with Bette’s business partner, Bonnie Bruckheimer.
The beginning sequence starts out suspensefully enough that it looks like it might develop into an adult horror flick. It is 1693, in Salem, Massachusetts, where the three Sanderson sisters are the town terrors. We find them casting a spell to provide themselves with eternal youth. They have the ability to steal the youthful life force from young girls and turn back the hands of time on their own bodies.
When the older brother of their latest victim interferes, the Sanderson sisters simply turn him into a talking black cat—one who has the powers of eternal life. When the townspeople get ready to put the witch trio to death, the women cast another spell, which puts them in some sort of time-warping cosmic suspended animation.
Cut to 1993, when they are brought back to life, only to wrangle with a whole new generation of children and adults—and the same talking black cat who is still hanging around Salem, waiting for vengeance.
Bette obviously had a ball playing the part of Winifred Sanderson. Her clothes and makeup alone are totally over-the-top. As Winny, Midler wears an elaborate, bosom-exposing green velvet Victorian gown. Her hair is a wild mane of carrot orange, her mouth is filled with rat-like teeth, and she has talons for fingernails. Her over-the-top acting is equally as outrageous and scenery-chewing. Throughout, Miss M seems to be doing her best combo impersonation of Edna May Oliver, Margaret Hamilton, and Bette Davis as Baby Jane Hudson.
In fact, all of the witches overact with great delight. Sarah Jessica Parker as Sarah Sanderson is a bit of an airhead, and Kathy Najimy as Mary Sanderson is a ditzy clown. As the Halloween 1993 plot progresses, the supporting characters become more and more cartoonlike. They include a magic spell book that floats through the air, has a winking eyeball on its cover, and possesses the ability to turn its own pages. The witches even bring back to life a ghoul who was buried with his mouth sewn shut.
Although Bette and her evil sisters are the stars of the film, the plot is driven by and centers around the modern-day brother and sister, who are the protagonists to the wicked Sanderson gals. It is October 31—the one night of the year when dead spirits can come to life. When Max and his sister Dani “trick or treat” at the house of a teenage girl he likes at school, Allison (Vinessa Shaw), the three children set out for the Sanderson house—on a day that just happens to be the 300th anniversary of the witches’ public lynching. It seems that the witches set their postmortem, time machine of a spell to revive them on exactly that date, whenever a virgin lights the enchanted candle. In this case, much to his embarrassment, it turns out to be Max.
Like events that occurred 300 years previously, the teenage brother attempts to save his little sister from the clutches of the evil sisters, with the help of the three-century-old talking black cat. This is strictly a cartoonish comic adventure, so one has to abandon belief in logic and go with the
Wizard of Oz
sense of reality that this film conjures up.
There are some slapstick comic moments along the way. When the Sanderson sisters travel the streets of Salem on their brooms, goofy Najimy, at a loss for a good broom, grabs the next best thing—a vacuum cleaner.
In one of the silliest sequences comes when the sisters stumble into the household of Garry Marshall and Penny Marshall. Since it is Halloween, the modern Salem citizens don’t think anything is odd about the Sandersons’ 300-year-old garb. Garry is dressed as Satan, and Bette and her witch sisters mistake him for the real master of the gates of Hell.
The most amusing Midler scene comes when the witches follow the kids to a costume party. Not one to miss a spell-binding musical moment, Bette ends up onstage singing her own wicked version of the Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ hit “I Put a Spell on You.” The script doesn’t miss the chance to use every pun it can get its hands on, including “The witch is back!”
The kids end up being savvy enough to trap the witches in the pottery kiln of the local high school, in an attempt to shake and bake them into oblivion. However, when that plan backfires, Bett and her sister witches come back for another round of battle with the mere mortals. Justifiably, the witches get even with the two bullies who bedeviled Max at the beginning of the film. As this is a Disney children’s flick, by the end of the film the kids win, and the witches are exiled to oblivion.
Released in the summer of 1993,
Hocus Pocus
received mixed reviews, but did well at the box office, as “G”-rated family fare. Said Miss M at the time, “I did [
Hocus Pocus
] because I’ve got a six-year-old kid and there’s nothing out there for her to see. It’s harmless: it’s got no four-letter words—the violence is minimal. It’s broad and silly, but I don’t have to worry what I look like. . . . It’s nice to just romp” (
131
).
She was also happy to find out that her witch film sold more tickets at the box office than
For the Boys
did. This, especially, was good news to hear. “Well, I’m not disappointed anymore!” she exclaimed at the time, “Because y’know, I got my box office grosses [for
Hocus Pocus
] today and I’m just swimming along. Yes! I have a new hit! I don’t have to think about
For the Boys
anymore. So there!” (
155
).
Bette’s next film appearance was both “inspired” and “divine.” Ever since she played the Rose in her first film, she had toyed with the idea of portraying Mama Rose in the timeless Broadway classic
Gypsy
.
It was filmed in eight weeks in Los Angeles, California, with an estimated budget of $14 million. CBS-TV paid in excess of $5 million to broadcast it twice. Bette was thrilled to be cast in the role. “I always wanted to play that character,” she claimed. “I would have played it in stock if I had had the chance. The score is extraordinary. The writing is
just incomparable.” She also joked, “Nothing was skimped on. Except my salary” (
155
).
Filming
Gypsy
reinforced Bette’s feelings of frustration at the difficulty of producing movie musicals. According to her, “I feel bad that the whole nation doesn’t get to celebrate this tradition more often because it is valuable and it is well-crafted and it is something that we should be proud of. Yet we seem to throw the magical things that we’ve made aside or tear them down and tramp on them. Maybe it’s because we’re constantly reinventing ourselves, but personally I think it’s a real waste” (
155
).