The Divine Ms. Midler: Bette Noire
The Cheese-Bomb American Crapola Dream
Nancy Collins


From the moment Bette Midler burst onto the scene at New York's Continental Baths, a club for gay men, it was clear she was a charmer to be reckoned with. Swathed in thrift-store chic and armed with the brass and sass of a young Mae West, Midler quickly became the arbiter of hip for her gay audience. "I was able to take chances on that stage that I could never have taken anywhere else," she wrote in her autobiography, A View from a Broad. "Ironically, I was freed from fear by people who, at that time, were ruled by fear." 

That fearlessness became Midler's trademark as she emerged as one of the first-and few-distinctive personali­ties of the Seventies. Her album The Divine Miss M went gold; her concerts were sellouts, and her face graced the cover of Newsweek. By the end of 1972, she packed New York's Philharmonic Hall for her New Year's Eve gig and was a regular guest on The Tonight Show, where Johnny Carson's stamp of approval provided her crossover from camp curiosity to mainstream diva. 

In 1973, Midler picked up her first Grammy as Best New Artist of the Year (her second came in 1980 for Best Pop Vocal Performance-Female). In 1974, she suddenly dropped out for a year, claiming exhaustion, but when she returned, it was with a vengeance. First-day ticket sales - ­$200,000 - for her Clams on the Half Shell revue, broke all existing Broadway records, including her own, set for a 1973 date at the Palace. 

Following a European tour, Hollywood beckoned. The result was The Rose, for which Midler's screen-debut portray­al of a Joplin-esque rock singer won her her first Academy Award nomination. 

The last five years have been tough ones for Bette Midler. Starting in 1978, when she finally fired her longtime manager, Aaron Russo, through the death of her mother in 1979, and into 1980, when - despite rave reviews for The Rose - the best actress Oscar went to Sally Field, life has been a study in dashed expectations. 

Nevertheless, nothing prepared Midler for Jinxed, her prophetically entitled second feature, whose on-the-set chaos drove the star to a nervous breakdown. 

As a result, Midler checked in with a psychiatrist and, at thirty-six, admits she has finally grown up: "I was a kid for a long time. I always thought that no matter how bad things got, I could count on my charm to pull me out. When I found out that wasn't so, it was a real eye-opener." 

Midler has a loft in the Tribeca section of New York, but resides chiefly in Los Angeles in her Coldwater Canyon mansion, which has beamed ceilings, cut-glass windows, and a portrait of Mary Pickford over the fireplace. 

In private, these days, Bette Midler is, indeed, a changed woman. The wit, the energy, the iconoclasm still prevail but are now tempered by a reflective calm. Though still fragile - tears come easily, particularly when speaking of her mother­ - she is, nonetheless, a woman who has done battle with herself and won.  

What attracted you to jinxed'?
The money. And the fact that I hadn't worked after The Rose.

What happened with jinxed'?
Jinxed was the worst working experience of my life. It drove me to a nervous breakdown.

A real one?
Yeah, I just collapsed and ran to a shrink. I'd never been hurt that badly in my life.

What happened?
I wanted to make the best movie I could, but not everybody else involved felt that way. And they resented me because I did. For the last twelve years, my work has been solo work. When performers come to work with me, they come because they want to share my particular vision. They come with a certain respect and willingness to work. But this was not the case on this film.

You've insinuated that the director, Don Siegel; the producer, Herb Jaffe; and your costar, Ken Wahl, ganged up on you, that they were out to "stiff the studio." Did you mean that literally?
Literally and figuratively. But I don't want to call names; I kept my mouth shut for a year. 

That's more than Wahl did. He openly bad -mouthed you, including stating that, to get through love scenes with you, he had to think of his dog.
Ken was unbelievably hateful to me. All during the shooting he was sending out these male vibes and wanted everybody to know it. That's the kind of guy he is.  

The first time I met him, the first thing he said was, "I want you to know that I hate niggers and faggots." That was the first thing out of his mouth after hello. I had no idea why he said that, because we had neither of those in our picture. It wasn't as if I said to him, "We're going to introduce you to a lot of gay black people who are going to do your hair and dress you every morning." 

And, after that comment, he turned to an Aubrey Beards­ley that was hanging on the wall and said, "What the fuck is that?" Now, I had not decorated these rooms. But I felt compelled to tell him, "That's an Aubrey Beardsley." And I told him about Beardsley and Oscar Wilde. To which he replied, "Well, I don't know nothin' about that fuckin' shit, and I don't want to know nothin' about it. I'm a baseball player." By that time, of course, I knew what particular terrain I had stumbled onto. 

Whose idea was it to have him as your costar? It's a very odd pairing.
To tell you the truth, I suggested him. But after I read with him, I felt it wouldn't work. Mr. Siegel felt the same way, but Steven Bach [former head of United Artists, fired because of Heaven's Gate] wanted him, so we were gracious about it. However, Mr. Siegel immediately told Ken that he had not been our choice, which right away set the guy's teeth on edge. He never recovered from that particular blow to his pride.  

Originally, I felt Ken Wahl had what we used to call animal magnetism, even though he's a little on the chubby side. And I still feel he photographs beautifully and that there is a place for him in show business, somewhere - although, hopefully, not in my pictures. 

Siegel ended up referring to you as "quite an unpleasant young lady."
Listen, I started out with enormous respect for Mr. Siegel.

You had director approval, so why did you pick Siegel?
In retrospect, I don't have a bloody clue. I liked Jinxed because of its dialogue - nice and slangy. I didn't know whether it was a comedy or a thriller, but I thought a good director could find the proper tone for it.  

Siegel had directed The Killers and all those Clint Eastwood movies, which were kind of somber, so I thought, with Siegel being good at that and me being good at comedy, we'd have a nice marriage. Many, many, many people told me I was crazy, and this is one time in my career I should have listened. I just had never encountered Mr. Siegel's school of directing - the adversary school of directing - where everybody chooses up sides and it's a fight to the death. 

Surely you knew this kind of thing goes on in Hollywood.
I never knew it got so ugly. I never knew it got down to such mudslinging. It was an enormously painful experience, but it was pain about something as trivial as a movie. A movie is, basically, a piece of fluff and entertainment. 

How did you know you were beginning to have a nervous breakdown?
Every day, every morning toward the end, I felt I was holding on for dear life. I would wake up with heart palpitations. And sometimes, in the middle of the night, I would wake up, not screaming but not being able to breathe. I would just wakeup with a shudder and have to pound my back or chest to catch my breath.

On the set, it was as though a wall had come between them and me. I kept thinking, if I can just get through one more day, one more day of having to face them and their awful hatred - or if it wasn't hatred, indifference. Every day I walked between those walls feeling completely alienated and alone and worthless. 

Now, I feel very, very proud of myself for having come through it. I feel much bigger,  stronger and more grown up. 

Are you still seeing a therapist?
Oh, yeah. 

What’s the most important thing you've gotten out of therapy?
That it works. I had always looked down my nose at it. I felt it was right for troubled people but not for me. I've discovered that it does - and can - work for people even with problems as silly as mine are. 

What are your problems?
My problems are that my feelings were hurt. And I had never experienced that to such a degree. I had my feelings hurt a lot as a kid and had built up a lot of armor and defenses, which was not a big fucking deal in terms of the overall picture. But I learned that, too. If you're caught up in your trouble, and your trouble is as picayune as my trouble is, then you're just an ass hole. And I'm not gonna be that. Don't Be an Asshole  - that is my credo. 

Why are you calling the new album 'No Frills'?
Because that's exactly what it is. It's music with no strings and no horns. It's bare-bones music, as unpretentious as it can be. Just stark. But I'm enjoying this album more than any other I've ever made. I haven't stopped laughing since I started making this record, because the people I'm working with are fabulous, funny, silly, silly people. Danny Goldberg is execu­tive producer. Chuck Plotkin is producing, Toby Scott is the engineer, and Brock Walsh is the musical director. I've never been silly about my records. They've always been Sturm und Drang time. Pulling your guts out and flagellating yourself. But not this time.  

Maybe that's because you've lightened up.
That's exactly what happened.

Is 'No Frills' all rock & roll?
Pretty rock & roll. There were a couple of songs I thought ere too outrageous to put on the record. 

Hard to think what kind of song would be too outrageous for Bette Midler.
There's a certain tone you have to hit with radio and business people to get your record played. And that tone is not necessarily what I do. So I've had to make lots of records that are watered-down versions of me. Live at Last is about the closest to what I'm known for. 

For a long time, I couldn't get on the radio. I got taken off because I slugged a program director who programmed 300 or 400 stations in the United States. 

Why did you hit him?
He insulted me. 

What did he say?
It was at a New Year's Eve party, and I had been drinking, really knocking them back. The whole night had gone badly. 

First of all, I was desolate because at my New Year's Eve show, I had done nothing. At a New Year's Eve show, you have to do something. You have to have balloons or confetti – you have to have a surprise. And we had one. We were going to have joints. The marijuana laws had just been changed, and as our New Year's Eve surprise, we were going to have a joint taped under each seat, so that at midnight we could yell "Happy New Year" and tell everybody to look under his seat. 

Well, somebody leaked the plan to the press, and the cops said, "No, that's not going to be your surprise." So at the last minute, we couldn't do it. Oh, I was desperate. So you know what I did? I flashed them. Sitting right there, in the hand of King Kong, I flashed 'em. When in doubt, go for the jugs. But after I did it, I was freaked out because it was so cheap and low. By the time I got to this party, I was feeling pretty down. 

At the party, I had another surprise. My label had put out a single about which I knew nothing. My manager, Aaron Russo, didn't tell me they were gonna release it; nobody did. This program director came up to me, waving this record I knew nothing about, and said, "I just heard your new single and I don't like it. It's not very good." I just walked off and started dancing, but the more I thought about it, the angrier I got, until, finally, I walked up to him and said, "Look, you don't like it, you don't play it." And I grabbed the record, broke it over my knee, threw it in the fireplace, walked right over to him and just cracked him across the face. And then I walked out. 

Where was your manager during all this?
Aaron was back at the hotel, on the floor. He'd taken a bunch of pills, trying to pass out and scare me because I had a date with someone else that night. He was in love with me and didn't want me to be with anybody else. So he was always making it difficult for me to have a love life, even though we were no longer personally involved.

Anyway, when I got back to the hotel, I ran up to his room and banged on the door. “Aaron, Aaron, open up," I said. And from the inside, from this cavern, I heard, "AAAAhhhhhhh... AAAAAhhhhhhh." He wouldn't let me in, so I had to run downstairs and get the concierge. I mean, my dear, this was drama. When we opened the door, there Aaron was, all 200 pounds of him, in his bathrobe, flat on the floor, with just me and this piss-ant concierge to drag him onto the bed. Lord, what a night that was. 

From 1972 to 1978, Russo really ran your career.
He made an environment where I could do my work without strain and tension. He never interfered with the creative part of my life. He interfered with my personal life, my love life. Professionally, though, I was very sheltered. He kept me away from business and from knowing what people really are, particularly in the movie business. I mean, who knew there were such egos on the loose? 

I thought, "Oh, I'll be a movie star, and the studios will take care of me, and I'll get all these great properties." Well, the truth is, there're no great properties out there, so you wind up like I am now, developing your own things, buying your own books and properties, putting your own money behind them and then going to the studio, saying, "This is what I'd like to do." And what I'd like to do now is a real comedy where I get to faint and do pratfalls, fake swoons and major mugging, because that always was my best thing.   

So you're managing your own career
Pretty much. With some help. I have an agent. I have a wonderful lawyer named Gerry Edelstein, a writing partner named Jerry Blatt who's been with me for ten years and a great assistant named Bonnie Bruckheimer. We're pretty much a team, a little machine. But, see, the main thing I had to learn was the business. I didn't know anything about how things ran. Aaron taught me I could do it myself once I learned how it worked.

Would you say Aaron was your mentor?
No. My mentor was a man named Ben Gillespie. Ben was a dancer I met when I was doing Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway. He opened up the world for me.

Was he also a lover?
Yes, for a good three years. And, oh, I was crazy for him. He really opened up my eyes. He taught me about music and dance and drama and poetry and light and color and sound and movement. He was an artist with great vision of what the stage could provide. He taught me a grandeur I had never known before. He inspired me not to be afraid and to understand what the past had to offer me. I never lost the lessons he taught me.

What happened to the relationship?
Well, with all that wonderfulness, there was the other side. Once the despair and the destruction overwhelm the creative thing, then I always move on, because basically, I am a loner. And I always will be.

I like art and I like work. And the whole thrust of my life has been toward those two things, with romance and family and friends and all other human contact simply tributaries of what is the great stream of my life: my work. I still don't know what it is I'm going to wind up saying, but I feel I have to say it. Whatever this river is that I'm on, I just have to follow it to my particular sea.

What was it about Aaron that attracted you?
Aaron was very forceful. And at that point in time, I just wanted to be looked after. I still want to be looked after, but now I know the pitfalls. Aaron, for instance, made me do The Rose. He said, "You gotta make a movie, and this is the movie you're gonna make."

There're a couple of versions of your personal relationship with Aaron. You've said you were lovers, but only for six months and only at the beginning. He, meanwhile, maintains you were lovers throughout most of the time he managed you.
What do you think he's going to say? That I schtupped him once and threw him out because he wasn't good enough? That wasn't the way it was, of course, but he has his pride.

Aaron loved me, hated me, fought for me and tried to destroy me. He brought me to the heights and he put me in the pits. But it evened out completely. And at the moment our relationship was at it's most even, I chose to leave.

Why?
Because I couldn't take it anymore. I felt that what he was doing for me professionally wasn't worth what he was doing for me personally. I couldn't sleep. I was in a state of anxiety all the time because I never knew what he was going to pull on me next. It was either, "I'm dying of leukemia" or, "I'm carrying guns because they're out to get me. You're all that's left." It was a lot of mind control. I was going to say mind fucking, but I don't think it's an attractive term for a lovely lady to use. And, always, of course, there was drama - much, much drama.

Eventually, I outgrew my need for drama. At a certain point, when you're thirty-two or so, you just no longer require the raving. You start enjoying pleasant days where there is no drama, where instead you have a little food and some pleasant conversation about wine and books.

Do you ever talk to Aaron?
Never. Never.

Have you seen him at all since you left?
Only once, when I was, of course, at my worst, my lowest ebb. Aaron always had a real nose for knowing when I was feeling terrible about myself and my life. We were filming Divine Madness, which was the first thing I did without him. It was an enormous thing to do alone and I made some mistakes.

'Divine Madness' was not a big success. Why?
It was all my fault. I made all the mistakes. The concert picture is a scary form. I felt it should have been peddled as a spectacle rather than as a concert, because there I was, making a spectacle of myself. In France, it was sold that way and did very, very well.

Speaking of concerts, you'll be out on the road next month in a new show: No Frills. What can we expect?
I'm still trying to figure that out. I know there's a certain thing everyone wants to see me do, but it's time for me to move on. I love having singers and I love telling stories. So I'll probably do that along with making jokes, playing characters and music, of course.

Will the Divine Miss M be along for the ride? Or is she dead?
Never. Never. The best parts about her are still thriving: her outrageousness, her truthfulness, her flamboyance, and her devil-may-care attitude. She'll be part of the new act.

But, then, saying Miss M was a character was basically an excuse for that kind of behavior. I didn't want to have to live the life that went along with Miss M, because, if you do, it will kill you.

Take Belushi. I believe John was basically playing a character. He was tricked, and he tricked himself. He wasn't that kind of man at all, yet he forced himself to live that lifestyle because he felt it was expected of him. And then he died of it. His character killed him.

If you let your character define your personality instead of keeping your true self separate, your character will get you.

Who is Bette Midler's true self?
My true self is a very mild-mannered, gentle person who likes books, certain kinds of music, art and dance, and who, at this point, just wants a little peace in her life. I'm not saying peace and quiet. I'm saying to be at peace, contented.

I've never been contented. I always used to be dissatisfied. Nothing was ever right, ever good enough. I couldn't sit still, couldn't stand being bored. Now, I live to be bored. I love to just sit and think. Maybe I'm having an early senility, but I don't want to be banged and hammered at anymore.

You said a couple of years ago, "I have no idea who I am. I'm good at shows. But I'm not so good at reality." Have you gotten better at reality since then?
I used to feel guilt about working all the time and about the fact that working was all I was really interested in. I felt it wasn't the thing to do, that my life wasn't the American way. The American way, I thought, was to have a job and then party, play, get laid every night of the week and be popular. I don't feel that way anymore.

In other words, you've discovered that your work is really a serious career after all?
Exactly. When you hit thirty-five and you're still going at it, then you realize how serious you really are. Did you know, for instance, that Martha Graham didn't even find her niche until she was forty, that she didn't change her style until then? And that she had her biggest success in 1944, when she was fifty? And Lucille Ball. Lucille Ball was not "I Love Lucy" until she was forty-two years old. .

Your career has followed no traditional blueprint. For instance, in 1972, just when you were practically a regular on Johnny Carson and had filled up Philharmonic Hall for your first big concert, you suddenly took off a whole year to rest and eat. And then, after breaking records with Clams on the Half Shell, you took two more years to find 'The Rose,' turning down, in the interim, a slew of movies, including 'The Fortune,' which, considering how it turned out, was a very smart move.
Well, I would have loved to work with Nicholson, but when I met Mike Nichols [director of The Fortune], I ended up insulting him because I had just been molested in the steam room.

Yours or his?
The Beverly Wilshire's. I was staying there, and at that time, the masseur was the kind of guy who, if you wanted, would jump on your bones. I did not want, but I guess he thought I needed to have my bones jumped on, because this guy came on to me and wouldn't let go. He threw me into the shower and started soaping me up. I was very frightened because I'd never had that happen to me before. I was terrified he was going to whip it out and whip it on me any minute. And I couldn't get away. The guy kept me there past my hour, making me twenty minutes late for my meeting with Nichols.

By the time I got back to the suite, I was a nervous wreck. I sat down and didn't know where I was or who this guy was. I looked at Nichols, and all I thought was, who is he? I wanted to talk about his work, but I couldn't remember any of it. I couldn't even remember his name. He ended up storming out of our meeting, absolutely furious. He told everybody what a cooz I was and how I had no business in the business. But I still think he's a fabulous director.

Who's around these days that you think is hip?
I thought Anwar Sadat was really hip. I was so upset when they offed him, because I was mad for him. And those guys who made My Dinner with Andre - Wally Shawn and Andre Gregory and Louis Malle - all wonderful. I felt so much better after I saw that movie.

But to tell you the truth, I don't think people give a shit today about who's hip and who's not. They're too concerned with the basics, the economy and nuclear war. When you're under the threat of nuclear annihilation, you really cannot worry about who the hippest guy on the planet is. The hippest guy is going to be the guy who gets them to finally stop making those bombs.

Is it true you once had an affair with Bob Dylan?
Well, he absolutely charmed the pants off me. 

Literally?
No, but close. I tried. Actually, I tried to charm the pants off him. And everyone will be disappointed to learn I was unsuccessful. But I got close.

How close?
Oh, you know ...a couple of fast feels in the front seat of his Cadillac. He used to drive this hysterically long, red Cadillac convertible, and he couldn't drive worth a pea. He's not a big guy, and he always drove with the seat all the way back, refusing to pull it up to the steering wheel. He was just fabulous.

What kind of man falls in love with Bette Midler?
He's got a lot of self-confidence, a great sense of humor, likes to have a good time and likes ideas.

Intelligent?
That's major.- but not intelligence of a sneering kind. It has to have some benevolence attached to it. I consider myself intelligent, but I'm no Madame Curie, so I like someone I can learn from. I love a pupil-teacher relationship.

Basically, I want somebody who makes me laugh. I want to giggle my way into oblivion. I want my partner to be on the same wavelength; I couldn't sleep with someone who wasn't funny.

You're involved with a man now.
Yes, but I promised him I wouldn't talk about him. I've never talked about my lovers. I'm very cautious about that. I try to be private,

But you're living with this man, right?
He lives in my house. Yes, we live together. 

What does he do?
His name is Benoit, and he's a public-relations man, an excellent public-relations man. He was born and bred in Paris, where I met him about seven years ago. I've known him off and on since 1974.

Is Benoit at all involved in your career?
Not even one little bit. No. He gets involved with my diet. He loves food and wine, so it's a real nourishing kind of thing.

Historically, your relationships seem to run about three years.
I'd say that's a long one. 

Where do you meet men?
It's really, really hard. And I know I'm not the only woman out there saying this. It's very difficult. Sometimes you meet nice men when you work, but it's not often. And I can't go to bars. So you depend on the kindness of fate to put someone in your path.

And you're basically monogamous?
I would say so, yeah. I try to be civil and elegant and fair. I do my best not to have my relationships deteriorate into ugliness.

Do you want to get married?
I really don't want to get married. It's not of prime importance to me. It never enters my consciousness.

Yet, you always have a fairly intense relationship going on.
Well, I think I - and my work - express what many, many women of my generation are going through.

Which is?
Which is, "What the fuck is going on?" We've had our eyes opened, we're seeing life, we're interested in ourselves, and we want to experience all of it-on the one hand. On the other, we still have the tug of home, hearth and children. We're constantly being pulled and never satisfied. The Cinderella Complex is no lie.

So you're a victim of the Cinderella Complex, too? 
More than ever.

Sounds like you're thinking about marriage more than you care to admit - that, perhaps, a art of you does want the traditional husband-and-children routine.
It's very hard to abandon that. It's millions of years of conditioning we're talking about. How do you get rid of it when you're constantly being bombarded in novels and books and magazines? How do you ignore it? It's always in the corner of your mind, always tugging at you. But I'll tell you one thing, if I were a wife, I'd be a terrific one.

Why?
Because I really have a sense of what being a wife means. 

What's that?
It means being an artist on your own planet. You get to have your own home, your own stage where you get to use your visual and color senses. And, of course, you're real, real supportive. If I were a wife, I'd be like Sara Murphy [Gerald Murphy's wife, Living Well Is the Best Revenge]. She's my idea of a great wife.

But you have all that without being a wife. You have a great house in Los Angeles that you decorated beautifully, and you have a loft in New York.
Yes, I do. But as a wife, you do it for somebody, not just yourself.

But you live with a man. Can't you do it for him?
No, oh, no. We don't have that kind of relationship. 

What kind of relationship do you have?
I don't want to talk about it. I promised I wouldn't. 

So why not become a wife once? You might like it.
Because I have other things that interest me more, like color, light, movement, dance, music and song.

Do you want to have children?
I don't know that I can. I'm thirty-six. 

That's nothing. Yoko Ono was forty-two.
I haven't given up the idea. I think I might like to have a baby, yeah. That is, if my ovaries haven't dried up.

Incidentally, if you did get married - being a lady of means - would you want to sign some kind of prenuptial agreement?
I think it would be the smart thing to do, don't you? 

You are quite rich now. What does money mean to you?
It means a good deal. I was always ashamed to admit it, because it's jive. Money is basically jive. But what you can do with it is not jive. Does it give me satisfaction? Yes, because everything in this country is geared to money and how much you make and what you can spend it on. I was never caught up in that. I was caught up in the fact that I was an important enough artist to have people pay top dollar to see me.

Is it true you don't like being called the Queen of Camp?
Honey, I don't care what they call me, as long as they don't quit talking about me. I've been called all kinds of things. Someone in the Midwest once described my show as "an evening with Bette Midler and her unappetizing mammaries." I thought that was funny.

Speaking of which, you've flashed audiences a couple of times during concerts. In retrospect, do you regret doing that?
No. No one was sorry except the guy who wrote about my unappetizing mammaries.

Would you ever do a nude scene for a film?
No, I'll never do a nude scene in pictures, never, ever. They couldn't pay me enough. Because I don't want people judging my parts. I would never give the public a chance to judge me in that personal fashion, to say, "Well, I wouldn't exactly throw my wife out of bed over her." Let them judge my face but not my parts.

You don't look anything like the Bette Midler of film and concert. Your hair is short and brown, you wear glasses, you're tiny. People probably don't recognize you. Is this intentional? 
I can blend into any crowd and do. I'm not recognizable because I'm constantly changing. I change my hairstyle, the color of my hair, my body, my clothes. The biggest misconception is my height. Everybody thinks I'm six feet one. They're always saying, "You're so short" or, "You're not what I expected" or, better yet, "Where is she?" That's always a good one.

'She" meaning Bette Midler - the Divine Miss M?
Right. Take the other day. My car - I drive a Honda - got stalled in traffic, and I couldn't get anybody to give me a push. I guess it was because I didn't have any Bette Midler gear on.

But I insist upon dealing with the real world, because I have to get out there and get the vibes. Otherwise, the work isn't worth it. Basically, all I really am is a reflection of other people. I take a little from you, a snatch from that person, something else from somebody else and, suddenly, I'm a suit. And I shine that suit on the audience as a reflection of what I've picked up from them. So the idea always must be to get out there and get that input, because that's what art is. Or, at least, that's what my art is.

But you're a celebrity, so the information you're getting is not as firsthand as during the early days in New York.
I know. I must seem like I'm terribly isolated and, indeed, I am and don't want to be. It's insane to get your contact and information from shadows instead of human exchange. I guess I've done it to myself, and sometimes I wake up shrieking, "What have you done? You've trapped yourself!" It's a totally Catch-22 situation. Even though I do stand in line at Pink's [an extremely popular LA. hot-dog stand] just like everybody else, it's hard to get stimulation and information from the guy behind the counter. So, in one way, I have trapped myself.

My dream - this cheese-bomb, American crapola dream that I got snagged by - has beaten me down . . . because, eventually, the very fiber of what I am will shrivel up and blow away without that information and input.

When you decide to get back into character, how long does it take to get Bette Midler together?
About three weeks.

How do you do it?
I call everybody I know, I stop eating, I go back to exercise class, I cut my hair, I do my nails and I dye my eyelashes. You'd be amazed how much that helps. Then I knock myself back into my Bette Midler suit and there I am. Sometimes, I don't entirely get it back, but I fake it.

You've described yourself as a "vicious drunk." Do you still drink?
No. Not at all. My body couldn't take it anymore, couldn't take the hangovers. When I get a hangover, that pit opens up and I might as well just kill myself right then and there. There's no reason to go on. I'm utterly worthless - that's how it affects me.

Did you drink a lot?
At certain periods in my life, yeah. 

Would you say you were an alcoholic?
No, I just didn't have a tolerance for it. I'm an extremely cheap drunk and a vocal one. I didn't get enough out of it. It was too high a price to pay.

What's the most ridiculous thing you ever did when you were smashed?
I bit someone's glasses once. Fortunately, they were plastic, but I bit a hole in them. And I've bitten people. That's pretty low.

Did you ever perform drunk?
In the early days, I used to smoke dope and drink stingers before I worked. I had a lot of fun, but I used to lose my voice all the time. At least I think I lost my voice. I was so stoned, I was never sure.

Not long ago I was in New York and ended up face down in a puddle in front of the Holland Tunnel. I was with some friends - we were on a bender - and we were walking home from a restaurant. Anyway, they just had to pick me up and carry me home, because I don't remember a thing. So, now, I don't drink at all because I find it extremely destructive.

How about drugs?
Same thing. Basically, I'm not interested. 

Have you done cocaine?
I'm not gonna tell you that. I would say no, I've never tried coke. I don't want people to know my drug habits. I don't think it's anybody's business but mine. Now, if I had a great one to tell you, if I had a great drug tale to spin, I would. But all I really have are a lot of good booze stories, no great drug stories.

Without vices, then?
I'm working my way toward divinity.