Rock and Roll Women: BETTE MIDLER
Roy Hollingworth

Special thanks to Ronni Jensen for sharing this article


My passion for Bette Midler began quite a while ago.

It began, I remember on a clammy New York evening. A sweaty audience in the open-air Wollman Rink, Central Park, fidgeted, swigging Coke and Shaeffer beer. Then SHE appeared, all breasts and lips and movement. High on a stage, hands on hips that bumped like nobody had ever bumped before. Eyes began to goggle.

She sang feminine songs, and fetching songs, and although the sound-system was frayed and a mite tattered…she was just a woman, and as the legend now reads…divine.

So it seemed a bit strange, in the back of a cold London cab, inching its was forward to the Churchill Hotel. It seemed strange because since I'd last seen her…she had become a "star". No longer the prize possession of naughty New York City - God bless that wicked place.

I'd put a suit on and resorted to Marlboro ciggies again. Suits and Marlboro's were a New York habit.

Somehow I wanted it to be New York. For some reason Bette didn't figure being here.

"Room 623 and ask for Miss Russo and don't bring a photographer." So spoke Warner Bros. Oh, oh, the whole star bit.

Immediate flashes went through my brain: Bette lounging like a silken snake across a 10ft long settee, covered in scents and furry things, smoking St. Moritz with the help of a long, black cigarette holder. The flashes continued as the elevator silently rose past the fourth floor.

"Should I have brought flowers? Would I have to sit on the floor?"  Album reviews, and previous interviews ran through my mind. This whole 'Divine Miss M' thing." Room 623, I knocked once.

Dear Annie Ivil of Warner Bros. opened the door and I was ushered in. A large suite to be sure - but certainly not gross. Without making it look obvious my eyes searched the room for her.

She wasn't there. There were only three people in the room, and she wasn't there. Possibly munching caviar on the toilet I thought, maybe she's sleeping, and "vants to be left alone."

And then the shock. "This is Bette," said Annie, introducing me to the figure on the settee. Jeez, I thought it was a bloke. "Oh, hi there, pleased to meet you," I fumbled for words. Was this a joke?

It was a large nose, and a heavily and lumpily sculptured Jewish face that met with my gaze. It was her.

She ripped a smallish scarf off her head, to display a head full of steel curlers. Her sweater was baggy, but glancing for a second time, I knew something was moving inside there. She wore jeans, and well, that was it.

"Oh, I'm so dry," she said. I couldn't think of an answer to that one. I didn't really know what she meant. She walked over to the fridge, and produced a bottle of Perrier water, poured a whole big glass, and chugged it down.

She fell on to the settee again, and smiled.

I was given a bottle of beer - but I felt stifled. "Well, ask her what her measurements are. How would that one go?" I thought.

She was doing something with her nails - looking at them I think. She'd turn around and smile, but looked dull, and ugly in her curlers.

"What are your measurements?" - It slipped out like a belch after a gassy meal. I didn't know I'd done it until I'd done it - if you see what I mean.

Silence.

Annie Ivil, who was flitting about the room stopped - looked at me, and looked at Bette…Who looked at Annie, and then looked at me.

Like magic her whole appearance changed. The face, which, as I said before, looked ugly, suddenly, remodeled itself. Muscles began to work; her eyes opened wide, and her lips spread, and she crossed her legs, and lounged back, hands behind her head.

"What…my boy? What?"

"Uhmmm, your measurements. What are your measurements?"

"I'm embarrassed," said Annie Ivil. "I'm not going to look."

Bette was curling, and snaking into another pose. Now she was not embarrassed. I was, she knew that.

"I'm 40…(long pause)…22…(longer pause)…36."

She didn't say anything else, but preened herself like a peacock, as much as to say. "Howz that boysie, yer satisfied?"

I was.

"But I'm only 2ft 5in high," she continued, and burst into laughter.

Atmosphere broken.

She'd been to see George Melly the night before, somewhere in the Surrey country. She'd ended up on stage with him. "He was just lovely. I'd like to see him wear earrings. Oh he's so bizarre."

And what are you, Bette?

"Well…(long pause, she mimes a school girls modest look of shyness and embarrassment)…Well, I just sing my brains out and shake my tits." 

I know.

"You've seen me?" 

Yes, New York.

"Oh thank God somebody over here has seen me. You know everyone who's come to interview me has expected to see this divine woman of intense beauty. "Here I am, Baby, sitting in my curlers and jeans and this is me, Baby." 

When she said the word me, she thrust her breasts forward, and even the baggy sweater gave way to that pair of loaded 40s.

I remained unmoved (liar)… calm (liar)…and coolly reached for a cigarette (liar). I fumbled for the pack, she knew I was fumbling - she reached them first, and offered me them.

"As I said, this is me and that divine lady up on stage is me too, Baby."

Which one is the real you? (I slipped into the New York habit of emphasizing certain words).

"I like them both a whole lot, and I miss each of them when I'm without the other."

We talked about the New York concert. A lot had happened since then.

"It's all very strange," she said, guzzling more Perrier water and curling into a pose, this time messy. "There are so many options now. So many things being offered to me. But I still remain the same old Bette. I just want to be me. I don't want to fall into that old showbiz trap of believing my critics. How could I, my dear?  Just look at me."

"I have to be realistic when it comes down to fame. I have to look beyond that. I have to look to what's really important, and that's just getting up on stage, and singing my damned head off, and shaking these damned things." She shook them just a little - they took a while to shiver to a halt.

"I just want to sing to people. I don't want any crap surrounding that simple fact.

"I regard every gig as a party - and I'm the hostess. I have to keep people happy, keep them moving, keep them entertained."

But a lot of people say that they'll never be taken in by fame. And yet…most of them fall to the wicked disease it throws up - I aimed that one at her.

"Look, if the crap started growing around me. If it all became too big, then I would just go back to my little circle of clubs and friends, and be very happy to go back. I have a lot of friends. And I love them."

Bette has been singing for about four years now and has meddled with theatre since she was 15. She was brought up on what she calls "The Great Women" - Sarah Bernhardt and Loretta Taylor.

"Now they were just fabulous. Then they were women. I wanted to grow and live in their lives and I wanted to live a life like they did. But I was forced out of that dream and into another... i.e. what's happening to me now."

Do you feel anybody lives like "The Great Women" did?  I mean, could they happen now?

"I don't know. Maybe, but not in the real way…" She stopped talking and made for a chair in the center of the room. For a while she sat quite normally and then started posing, one hand on hip, the other behind her head. Her chin up, a proud look upon her now delicious looking face. "And then…there was Greta Garbo. Oh, Greta Garbo."

Who did she like in the contemporary field? Did she like Ray Davies, did she like Legs Larry Smith?

"Legs Larry, oh, Legs Larry, oh I love him. I'd love to do something with him. I saw him at a party in New York.  I saw him, and just wanted to go up to him, and be near him. And Ray Davies, I love him, too.

"I love 'Lola,' and 'All Day And All Of The Night,' I really want to sing those songs."

She started singing "Lola," slowly, emphasizing each word, pushing her hair up from behind (the curlers had now gone and this bouncing redhead had come to life).

She went to the toilet and when she returned the questions didn't flow quite so easily.

Um, what do you do in your spare time?

"I get high and listen to music."

The talk drifted towards New York. "I arrived seven years ago - that was just when Mayor Lindsay took office. I've watched the police force out of control. I've watched the police force and fire brigade and everything fall out of Lindsay's control. I've watched it become a mind-bending place - but would never desert it.

"I look upon New York as my mission in life. To leave that city would be abandoning my mission. I'd resent myself if I walked out on the place.  I pick up rubbish in the park, I don't drop crap on the sidewalks. I tell people to try and stop it all falling to pieces. That's what I do. That's my mission.  There's music happening there - New York music - and I regard myself as being part of that. There's always hope. I believe there will be a cultural revival in New York. I have to be optimistic - we all do.  
I'm not going to sell my apartment there. Where did you live in New York?"

Um, Sutton Place (a flash area).

"Oh, you…Oh! Hey, they didn't tell me you were the big paper. Oh my gosh. Oh, now what can I say!"

She began to fuss... and in a beautifully funny way.

As you like Davies, Legs Larry and Melly, can you see revival of more music-hall/Hollywood/showbizzy style to contemporary entertainment?

"Oh yes, but I don't know if I'm really in the same field as those people."

I feel you are. You don't do concerts - you do shows.

"Is there a difference?" she asked.

Yes. A show is…er…a show. A concert is just walking on stage and well, taking it from there.

"Oh, I see. Yes, I do shows. I mean that's me. Sure I'm into theatre my dear. Theatre is so fabulous. I believe people love it."

Her fascination for Legs Larry continued. "I want to see him, oh I want to see him."

An hour had passed and now she was Bette Midler. She was posing and pouting and having a load of fun with herself. Now she was in a constant movie scene. Each word she uttered was accompanied by a flutter of the eyelids, a wave of the hand, a quick shudder of her breasts and a tossing of the head.

"So, sure we're aiming back into showbiz with rock. But let's always remember something important - your music has gotta be as good as that show.

"Sure, I know just everybody is dressing up on stage now. But you've got to do it right, Darling.

"If you're gonna put fabulous clothes on, Darling, then you've gotta do something fabulous inside those clothes. Dig?

"Tina Turner does it. She does everything. I came out of her concert feeling wasted. Now that's how you should leave a concert. You should limp out and feel wasted."

The Stones?

We talked of the incredible Madison Square Garden concert of last year. She'd been there.

"I got outta my seat and I stood in the aisle and I saw just what that Mick Jagger was doing. I saw just what he was doing. You know what I mean - he was doing 'it' - right there on stage."

Doing what?

"It, my Darling. Oh, the nerve. I stood there and I shouted 'please…Oh please.'

"Oh, how I wanted him."

More Perrier water flowed. She opened the fridge for another bottle. The fridge was stacked high with Perrier water. She shimmied back to her seat and tossed her hair back.

"I'm a very opinionated young lady. I have my opinions about things. And mine are the only correct ones. Dig?"

She walked into the bathroom.

"Gonna get this little lady fixed up for tonight. Gonna make me divine."

She began to laugh.

"How could I ever change?  I'm me. As I said before - as soon as I see me being changed, then I'm going away from it all. All I want is people."

Hype? You must be damned well joking. Bette Midler is Bette Midler. A star, my Darlings.