Bette Midler (8 page)

A couple of months passed, and Bud Friedman from the Improvisation showed up at the Africa Room one night to see a girl named Roz Harris. At the time he was considering managing Harris, and who should be on stage that same evening but Bette Midler? Through all of her work in the clubs, she had really polished her singing style on all of her favorite numbers. When she sang “Am I Blue?” that night, Friedman remembers being knocked out by her performance. Bud invited her to return to the Improvisation, and this time around he was quite taken by her singing and her stage presence; he signed her to a one-year management contract.

One of Bette’s strengths has always been her ability to see or hear
something that she likes in someone else’s act and to adapt it for use in her own performances. All of her songs were taken from old recordings she’d heard, recordings she would then reinterpret. One night at the Improvisation, Bette used a funny line that she had heard a comedian at the club use. The female comedian went screaming through the club while Bette was onstage, accusing Midler of ripping off her material. Although Bette never did that again, she began to feel that she wanted to develop her own comic patter to use between songs. This marked the beginning of an important evolution in Bette’s act.

Another trademark of her stage act came from her use of vintage clothing that visually emulated the mood of the songs she was singing. The whole idea of wearing the old velvet gowns came from a Helen Morgan album cover that she had seen. Bette decided that she needed something extra to complete her own chanteuse image. In addition to the red velvet gown, which by now was falling apart, she found a long beaded black velvet gown, for which she paid ten dollars at a secondhand clothing store.

The dresses were more than clothes, more than costumes; they visually represented her complete transformation into her concept of a torch-singing diva. The velvet dresses helped Bette feel like something more than an aspiring actress who occasionally sang. Wearing them, she was beginning to step outside of herself onstage and become a distinctive character of her own creation.

Only the “sexual revolution” climate of the 1970s could have given birth to an establishment like the Continental Baths. Never before—or, for that matter, since—has an emporium been so open about being a public meeting place for on-premises all-male sexual activities. By 1970 the changing sexual mores encouraged individuals to pursue whatever sexual expression they chose. The Continental Baths could not have existed before that time because of the moral attitude toward homosexual activity. It clearly could not continue to exist after the early 1980s because of the advent of AIDS. The bathhouse was indeed as unique as the era that gave birth to it.

It was neither morality nor health concerns that ultimately finished off the Continental Baths. As America’s attitude toward homosexuality became more liberal, the bathhouse as a place for sexual encounters became less and less necessary. By the middle of the 1970s the Continental Baths closed, changed hands, and became the short-lived heterosexual swinging singles sex-on-the-premises club called Plato’s Retreat.

For the brief couple of years that the Continental Baths did exist, it was, by all reports, something unique. Located in the basement of Manhattan’s Ansonia Hotel, at West Seventy-Fourth Street and Broadway, the baths’ proprietor, Steve Ostrow, set out to make it the ultimate gay bathhouse—complete with snack bar, dance floor, video screens, steam room, swimming pool, private “massage” rooms, and finally, the added attraction: live entertainment.

“The Continental Baths was a huge loft-like space, with tons of white tiles everywhere,” explains one of the regular customers. “You would walk in, and to the left there was a huge Olympic-size pool and platforms where you could sit. The feeling was one of huge space, and there was music playing. Everyone wore white towels” (
32
).

“To the right they would have a small private seating area, where people would come in and see the shows, and that’s where Bette Midler performed. The steam rooms were off to the right. There was an upstairs . . . and you could see patrons going upstairs, and there were rooms where you could do whatever you wanted to do. But the atmosphere downstairs was one of a loft space. It was not someplace where you would say, ‘Let’s stop off for a drink.’ You had to be into the whole baths scene” (
32
).

Ostrow initiated his live musical entertainment policy by booking a folk-singing duo to perform. They were a husband-and-wife team, Lowell and Rosalie Mark. The Marks’ contract called for them to perform one show a week, and their engagement lasted for three months. However, Ostrow wanted something a bit more “special” than the duo’s pleasant little musical set.

Bette’s progression to the Baths was a simple case of being at the right place at exactly the right time. Between her theatrical performances and her showcase club engagements, Midler was simultaneously taking singing and acting lessons. One of her teachers was Bob Ellston, who taught at the Herbert Berghof Studio. Ellston knew Steve Ostrow and suggested that Ostrow catch Bette’s act at the Improvisation. Ostrow did, liked her singing, and, according to Bette, “There was a teacher here [Herbert Berghof Studio] named Bob Ellston, and he called me up one day and said, ‘Listen, I know this guy that owns this homosexual bath, and he needs someone to sing’ ” (
3
).

Ostrow offered her $50 to do two shows each weekend—one show each Friday and Saturday night at 1:00 a.m.
Salvation
had closed on April 19, 1970, and Bette was looking for a regular-paying gig, so she jumped at the opportunity. Even at $50 a weekend it was an improvement, especially since she was singing for free at the Improvisation.

Bette Midler’s first engagement at the Continental Baths began in July of 1970. She was booked for an eight-week run, which was extended off and on over the next couple of years. At first, her personal confidence level was low, and her initial reception at the Baths was lukewarm. Slowly and tentatively, she tried out her wings onstage,
and once she began, she just kept on growing. Over the next twenty-eight months, she made the Continental Baths famous, and her appearances there shaped and molded her into the “Bette Midler” who was a star.

As she later recalled, “My career took off when I sang at the Continental Baths in New York. Those ‘tubs’ became the showplace of the nation!” (
8
).

For her debut at the bathhouse, Bette engaged the services of a piano player named Billy Cunningham, whom she had met at the Improvisation. Together, they faced the towel-clad crowd at the Continental Baths that first night, not knowing quite what to expect. That first night’s show at 1:00
a.m
.
could hardly be called a roaring success. She opened her set with the lamenting ballad “Am I Blue?” and continued the show in a very bluesy, “down” sort of a vein. The reception from the twenty to thirty people who comprised that first audience was very polite. Before the show, Bette had felt very nervous and insecure about the whole event—her songs, her singing, the baths, everything.

As she sang her all-ballad set, she quickly realized that the most terrifying thing that could possibly happen was that no one was going to pay any attention to her. After all, she would have be pretty damn entertaining to ever hope to compete with the “steamy” goings-on in those private “massage” rooms. In essence, she had to be
better than sex
to make anyone even notice her torch song act that night.

After the show, her friends—Bill Hennessey, Billy Cunningham, and Ben Gillespie—encouraged her to become wilder on stage. They wanted her to let out that side of her they saw when she acted silly and did impersonations of other actresses. When she did that, she was funny and flamboyant and campy. That side of her would get much more attention onstage at the Continental Baths than her serious Helen Morgan side. Bette thought back to all of those woman who played their singing and their routines strictly for laughs: Charlotte Greenwood kicking her legs up over her head and laughing wildly, Martha Raye making goofy facial expressions midsong, Joan Davis gawking and looking stunned during her double takes, and that crazy Black-Eyed Susan swathed in toilet paper while belting out “Wheel of Fortune.”

Bette was afraid of falling flat on her face and afraid of not being taken seriously as a singer. She had to invent another personality to house her wild side. She had to come up with a
character who wasn’t afraid to be brazen, tacky, bawdy, and completely off-the-wall. This character became known as the Divine Miss M, the ultimate over-the-top fearless diva.

Bette later analyzed the birth of Miss M: “At the Continental Baths I was playing to people who are always on the outside looking in. To create the semblance of someone like that can be wonderful. And so, I created the character of the Divine Miss M. She’s just a fantasy, but she’s useful at showing people what that outsider’s perspective is” (
4
).

“I was dying to make it big,” she later admitted. “You know why? Because I wanted to be somebody else. I didn’t know who. . . . Edith Piaf perhaps” (
4
).

Her transformation started out slowly, and once begun, it all just seemed to mushroom. First her attitude changed, then her material, and then her recognition from the audience at the Continental Baths. She began to say outrageous things on stage—about herself, the bathhouse, the audience—and to relate her own crazy experiences.

Her appearance started to change as well. Turbans, halter tops, and 1940s gowns she had found at thrift shops were among her favorite clothing choices on stage. At some point during this era, her hair color went from brown to bright red. Her new flame-colored mane made her seem even bigger-than-life than she already was.

Bette and Ben continued their exploration into the music of the bygone eras, and Bill wrote her some gag lines to use onstage. It wasn’t long before Bette began adding rock & roll and pop tunes to set off her slower blues numbers. Steve Ostrow was quite vocal about pointing out that her act had too many depressing “dirges” in it. Soon, songs like “Honky Tonk Woman,” “Lady Madonna,” and “Sha-Boom Sha-Boom” loosened her up on stage and gave her show more balance.

After the end of her first eight-week engagement at the Continental Baths, her run was extended for another eight weeks. The only change was that the Friday night shows were eliminated. Considering that the same men came to the baths week after week, she ended up playing to many repeat customers. With once-a-week performances she was able to learn new songs, try out different material, and eliminate weak numbers.

“Whose idea was it to play this dump?” she would sarcastically quip onstage (
4
). “Oh! Oh! You’re all mad. M-aa-d I say! Gawd, it’s steamier than usual tonight. Wait till Marlo Thomas and her sister Terry play this room. Way-i-t!” (
33
).

Before long, she developed a wildly campy sense of onstage humor
that became as important as her singing. Trashy, silly girl-group songs from the fifties and the sixties became a staple of her act even before she had a background group to sing with. “Remember the bouffant BMT subway hairdo of the 1950s?” she would shout to her audience. “Remember AM radio? Oh, my dears, AM. That’s where it was all at. You didn’t have to think, just listen. What fabulous trash! Remember girl groups? The Shirelles, Gladys Knight & the Pips? Okay. I’ll be the leader and you be the Dixie Cups” (
33
). With that, she would swing into “Chapel of Love.”

Something wonderful was beginning to happen on the tiny makeshift stage at the Continental Baths. That shy, insecure, homely little girl from Hawaii, with big dreams, was transforming herself into someone who was attractive because of the genuine “fun” image that she was creating before her unconventional, liberated audience. The sheer outrageousness of the whole atmosphere encouraged her to be much freer and more controversial than any other crowd would allow.

She referred to the Continental Baths as “the tubs” and described its ambiance as “the pits.” Her frizzy mass of henna-red hair she accredited to her gay hairdresser, whom she claimed had created her coiffure with an eggbeater. She pranced around the stage in platform shoes, with a towel wrapped turban-like around her head, pretending she was Carmen Miranda on speed. Bette Midler was discovering herself, and her audience was discovering her ability to make them laugh at her crazy behavior and eclectic choice of songs. Just as she had done years before in grammar school, Bette was learning to bury her feelings of insecurity and unattractiveness in the laughter of others.

As she explained her amazing metamorphosis: “I was an ugly, fat, little Jewish girl who had problems, I was miserable. I kept trying to be like everyone else, but on me nothing worked. One day I just decided to be myself. So I became this freak who sings in the tubs” (
33
).

It wasn’t long before the word-of-mouth reviews on Bette spread through the gay community in New York City. It wasn’t long before men who would never have dreamed of venturing to the baths were showing up at the Continental just to see this short Jewish red-headed singer everyone was talking about. With justification, one of the happiest people in town was Steve Ostrow, who was packing people into his bathhouse on Saturday nights. “It was just something I felt, something live happening on that stage,” he later said of the magic little lady who referred to herself as the Divine Miss M (
4
).