Mister D: Bette did cover some (Brecht, Weill) early in her career such as “Pirate Jenny” and “Surabaya Johnny”
Gettysburg Times
Bette Midler
MARCH 14-15, 1987
(NATO ShoWest ’87 – February 10, 1987)
LOS ANGELES (AP) – For her next role, “Cabaret.” And “Threepenny Opera.” And “Mother Courage.” And it may be a perfect match. Bette Midler, who started out as a singer in gay bathhouses and became the comic star of movies about the rich
and the frustrated, is moving back to the decadent, cynical and brave old world of pre-World War II Berlin.
Miss Midler has agreed to take on the role of Lotte Lenya in a new movie about the German actress who was married to Kurt Weill and was at the center of the composer’s collaboration with playwright Bertolt Brecht.
Miss Midler agreed to do the movie for Disney’s Touchstone Films. The movie will be based on the book “Lenya” published by Little, Brown & Co., and co-produced by Craig Zadan’s Storyline Productions and Tri-Star Pictures.
Brecht, Weill and Lenya produced caustic, bittersweet musicals, including the classic “Threepenny Opera.” The Nazis disapproved of their work and they fled.
In this country, Miss Lenya appeared in a long Broadway run of “Cabaret,” and at age 73 starred in Brecht’s “Mother Courage.”
The film is projected for release in late 1988 or early 1989.
