Authors: Mark Bego
The last two shows that were filmed were broadcast only outside of the United States. One show, #17, was called “The Grammy Pre-Show.” It found Bette scheduled to perform on the Grammy Awards telecast, and the whole family and entourage are invited to join her. Oscar’s grandmother is in town visiting, Connie starts a fashion trend with her new earrings, and Bette keeps trying to destroy her diet—and her ability to fit into her gown—by nibbling constantly. The last one, #18, was called “Method to Her Madness.” In it, Bette sets out on a quest to find the perfect movie role, by doing some real life research on her own. She ends up in a truck stop.
On behalf of Bette and the All Girls Production company, Bonnie Bruckheimer publicly announced, “Bette and I will miss the very talented group of people whom we had the privilege of working with on a daily basis” (
190
).
And that was the sudden and abrupt end to Bette Midler’s brief foray into network television. For Midler, the cancellation of
Bette
was both a relief and a huge a disappointment.
In what is perceived as a career “failure” of a year for Bette Midler, 2001 was actually a very high-profile one for the diva. On January 7, she was on hand for the telecast of CBS-TV’s annual
People’s Choice Awards
. The yearly honors are based on a poll that is tallied by the Gallup organization. Both Midler and her show
Bette
were nominated for awards that evening. Miss M won the trophy as the year’s “Favorite Female Performer in a New Television Series.” The award had nothing to do with ratings or critical perception of the show, but was based on votes from the public. It was an obvious sign that Bette’s personal popularity was—and is—far greater than her highly unpopular TV series.
Two weeks later, on January 21, 2001, Midler was again nominated for an award because of
Bette
. This time around it was the Golden Globe Awards, where she was nominated in the category of “Best Actress in a TV Comedy, Musical, or Variety Series.” However, the award went to the star of
Sex and the City
, Sarah Jessica Parker. In her acceptance speech Ms. Parker graciously commented from the podium that she personally thought Midler was going to win the trophy. Parker had been Bette’s co-star in both
Hocus Pocus
and
First Wives Club
, and her
Sex
show was truly everything that the
Bette
show was not: brilliantly written, witty, controversial, sharp, and funny.
A month afterward, on February 21, Bette and Stevie Wonder were co-presenters of the award for “Album of the Year” at the 43rd Annual
Grammy Awards, which were broadcast from the Staples Center in Los Angeles. There was quite a bit of controversy in the air that night, due to the number of nominations that misogynist and antigay white rapper Eminem had received—including a nod for the year’s best album. Had he taken the award, several human rights groups were expected to verbally protest from the audience. Looking rock & roll chic in a black leather outfit, Bette motioned to Wonder and quipped from the podium, “I was so nervous I brought the most beloved figure in music to hide behind in case some of you want to rush the stage” (
191
). Ultimately, it was not Eminem’s album that won the award, but Steely Dan’s comeback disc
Two against Nature
.
During an awards show streak, on February 24, 2001, three days after the Grammys, Bette was at the annual
TV Guide Awards
celebration. Midler and her show
Bette
were up for three separate awards. She ended up being awarded a trophy for “Actress of the Year in a New Series.”
Irony of ironies, after personally winning both a People’s Choice Award and a
TV Guide
Award, on March 5, 2001, CBS pulled the plug on the
Bette
show. The final episode was broadcast on March 7, and that was the end of the show—no reruns, no big series ending, just the axe. Bette had such high hopes for her TV series. It was a tremendous risk for her to embark upon, and she was crushed when it all came to a dead halt.
According to an article in
Inside
magazine, on March 21, 2001, Midler promptly fired the talent agency she had been signed to, Endeavor. She had been with the firm over the past five years. It had seemed that the agency had steered her into one career blunder after another.
On April 17, 2001, Bette was all smiles when she attended the first anniversary party celebrating the publication of Oprah Winfrey’s monthly magazine,
O
. She looked great posing for photos with Winfrey, wearing a tasteful black suit and a blue-patterned silk scarf around her neck.
According to a May 2 Reuters wire service story, the mystery of whom Midler would choose to next professionally represent her was solved when it was announced that she had been signed by International Creative Management (ICM). It would now be handling all of her business affairs and hopefully would steer her into clearer waters than Endeavor had.
At the end of April it had been announced that Bette, together with her business partner Bonnie Bruckheimer, would pen a book about the disastrous
Bette
TV show experience. They were talking with Simon & Schuster Publishers about writing a bitter tome called
Canceled
. However, on May 7, only two weeks later,
Canceled
had also been canceled. Speculation around the project suggested that the reason was that since both Simon & Schuster and CBS-TV were owned by Viacom Inc., it would have been a matter of biting the hand that feeds one, to publish a book bashing the same company by which the publisher was owned.
Midler was one of the stars to appear in New York City on May 22, at a benefit held at the 92nd Street YMCA, called the Spring Gala. Making jokes about her ill-fated TV show, she said snickeringly from the stage, “Los Angeles can be so cold, so cruel, after you’ve been . . . what’s the word? Oh, yes, ‘fired.’ ” She also took time to bash Tom Cruise a bit, pointing out the concurrent tabloid stories questioning his sexuality. Said Miss M, “All these rumors about him being gay. I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it for one minute. He hasn’t been to one of my shows!” (
192
).
The week of June 15, 2001, Bette’s latest single, a disco remix CD of “In These Shoes,” reached Number 8 on the
Billboard
magazine’s Dance/Club Play charts. The single featured seven different dance remixes of the song. The funniest one is called the “Sound Factory Vox Mix,” which has a unique Midler performance. As the rhythm section begins the song, Midler frantically announces, “Gentlemen, gentlemen, gentlemen, please, please, please: SHUT THE FUCK UP! I’ve got something to say! Why isn’t anybody listening to me? This is really starting to get on my nerves. Pay attention!” That Bette, always the lady!
On June 18, 2001, Bette and her husband, Martin, were on hand to attend a screening of the bio-pic
James Dean
, produced by TNT Cable network and co-starring and directed by actor/director Mark Rydell. It was Rydell who had directed Midler in both of her Oscar-nominated roles,
The Rose
(1979) and
For the Boys
(1991).
It was announced on August 31, 2001, that the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) had officially certified Bette’s album
Bette of Roses
as having achieved Platinum status. This marked her fifth album that had logged sales in excess of a million copies in the United States (joining her other Platinum albums:
The Divine Miss M, The Rose, Some People’s Lives
, and
Experience the Divine)
.
The events of September 11, 2001, were so frighteningly horrific that
the whole world—and especially New York City—was in a state of shock. When terrorists hijacked four jet liners on suicide missions and brought down the World Trade Center in a matter of hours, killing thousands, the planet watched in awe. That act, combined with the attack on the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and the downed plane in Pennsylvania, made that date the single most devastating day in U.S. history in over a century. The site once known as the most architecturally soaring in all of Manhattan was reduced to a twisted pile of rubble, now dubbed “ground zero.”
Ten days later, Bette Midler, actress Candice Bergen, boxer Joe Frazier, and promoter Don King were among the famous people who received a guided tour of “ground zero” on the 21st of September. The visit was the idea of New York’s most famous recent mayor, Rudolph Giuliani. He felt that the teams of rescue workers at the site could use a morale boost by his inviting some “star” visitors.
On Sunday, September 23, 2001, a crowd gathered at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx to pray, praise, cry, and bid public farewell to the thousands who had lost their lives on September 11. The event was entitled
A Prayer for America
, and it featured prayers from many denominations, including Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, and Hindu. Hosted by Oprah Winfrey, the performing guests included operatic tenor Placido Domingo, patriotic country singer Lee Greenwood, and Bette Midler. Before a crowd of approximately 30,000 people, the inspiring Miss M sang her song of hope “The Wind beneath My Wings,” bringing the crowd to tears.
What strange irony it indeed is, in retrospect. The image of the World Trade Center had very oddly been in so many of Midler’s films. It was behind her in the heliport scene in
The Rose
and in films such as
Oliver & Company
and
That Old Feeling
, in what is known as an “establishment” shot of the most famous skyline in the world. Now Bette was called upon to help the public properly mourn its demise—and to salute all of the innocent people killed in this horrific attack.
Three days later, Bette was to deliver a similar emotion-filled memorial performance in Boston, the site of Logan Airport, where the two fatal World Trade Center–bound flights originated. It was her desire that her appearance not be publicized, for fear that celebrity-followers would come to Boston to see her and not to pay their respects to the victims of the tragic flights. However, both the New York and Boston newspapers got wind of her forthcoming appearance and leaked the
news to the public. The knowledge of Midler’s appearance did not upset the touching effect of her appearance in Massachusetts.
On October 21, 2001, Bette was one of the high-profile acts to perform in Washington, D.C., at RFK Stadium as part of the fundraising concert
United We Stand: What More Can I Give?
Over 48,000 tickets were sold to the all-evening event, ultimately raising over $2 million. What had been intended as an eight-hour event stretched out to twelve hours, and the stadium was not properly stocked to accommodate such a long event. They ran out of food, they ran out of drinks, but they certainly didn’t run out of talent that evening. Among the acts on the bill were the Backstreet Boys, James Brown, America, Destiny’s Child, Rod Stewart, Mariah Carey, Michael Jackson, and Pink. That night Midler sang her sentimental classic “From a Distance” and her patriotic “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.” As she was getting ready to sing “The Rose,” Miss M said to the crowd, “I want to sing you a song not of sorrow but of hope” (
193
). A two-hour special was cut from the twelve-hour event and broadcast on November 1, 2001. However, Midler and several of the other older acts were omitted from the ultimate broadcast, in an effort to capture a younger TV-viewing audience. What an insulting and stupid move on the part of that TV network~
Speaking of all the rescue efforts and fundraisers, Midler said at the time, “The number of charities and charitable events has absolutely mushroomed beyond all belief. There’s hardly any social life anymore outside of that. In this town, in New York, people go from benefit to benefit to benefit” (
194
).
On November 24, 2001, it became official that All Girls Productions was no more: Bette and Bonnie Bruckheimer decided to amicably go their separate ways. The company’s last film production,
Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood
, would not be affected by this news.
Bette was one of the stars whose voice was used in the HBO holiday television special
’Twas the Night
. She was heard singing the Jewish song “Chanukah, Oh Chanukah,” alongside Doris Day’s “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song,” Los Lobos’ “Feliz Navidad,” Macy Gray’s “Winter Wonderland,” and Frank Sinatra’s “The Christmas Waltz.” The special was largely animated with cartoons, based on classic Grandma Moses paintings, and it combined the celebrations of Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa.
January 1, 2002, Bette had the honor of singing “The Star Spangled Banner” to kick off the inauguration of New York City’s new mayor,
Michael Blumberg. The event was held outdoors in freezing cold temperatures, on the steps of Manhattan’s City Hall, only blocks from “ground zero,” before a crowd of 4,000 invited guests that included former mayors Ed Koch and David Dinkins, outgoing mayor Rudy Giuliani, and New York state senators Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer. Midler sang the National Anthem in a lower key than usual, giving the song a sense of both sadness and hope, which was apropos, considering what the city had been through in the last several months.
There are so many talented people in the diva’s past who have made the Bette Midler saga so full and fascinating. Barry Manilow has naturally gone on to become a hugely successful superstar and as big an international name as Miss M herself. Barry’s own multimillion-selling albums have yielded such hits as “Mandy,” “Could It Be Magic?” and “Copacabana.” Melissa Manchester has also had her own highly successful run in show business and in the recording world. Her catalog of hits includes “Midnight Blue,” Whenever I Call You Friend,” and “You Don’t Know How She Talks about You.” Former Harlette Linda Hart holds the record as Bette Midler’s most frequent movie co-star. Linda has been in the Midler films
Divine Madness, Stella, Get Shorty
, and
Gypsy
. Katie Sagal found post-Harlette TV fame in the hit series
Married with Children
. Jenifer Lewis had her first move role in
Beaches
and went on to have a varied acting career that included
What’s Love Got to Do with It, The Temptations, The Preacher’s Wife
, and starring as Jackie Washington in
Jackie’s Back
—in which Bette made a guest appearance as herself. Ula Hedwig is Midler’s most recurring Harlette in the recording studio, appearing most recently on the
Bathhouse Betty
album. Charlotte Crossley lives in Los Angeles and still shows up on records from time to time. Sharon Redd went on to record several dance hits on her own in the 1980s, including “Beat the Street” and “Can You Handle It?” Her work was compiled on the 1996 album
The Very Best of Sharon Redd
. Sadly, she died of cancer in 1993. Moogy Klingman, who wrote “Friends” and produced most of Bette’s
Songs for the New Depression
album, still lives in New York City, is a frequent performer in nightclubs, and has worked on musical projects with Robert Downey, Jr., and Michael Anthony Hall. Musical collaborator Marc Shaiman has become known in Hollywood as a talented songwriter and was nominated for an Oscar for the song “Blame Canada” from the
South Park
film. Bruce Vilanch, who has written jokes for so many stars,
became known as a frequent guest on the TV show
Hollywood Squares
in the twenty-first century.