Lethbridge Herald
January 12, 1980
HOLLYWOOD – If there is anything that’s for certain in this life, besides death, taxes and the rising cost of gasoline, it is that Bette Midler will get an Academy Award nomination for her leading role in The Rose.
So far, there is only one other female performance in 79 that comes close to hers – Sally Field in Norma Rae. And it appears totally positive that both of these gifted ladies will get nominations.
Midler’s is the more surprising of the two. We all knew Sally Field could act – we had seen plenty of evidence of that before. But all we knew about Bette Midler was that she was a great, although outrageous singer.
In The Rose, however, she is superb. If you see it, you will be knocked out by the power of her performance.
You may not like the character she plays – a tortured, self-serving rock singer, supposedly modeled somewhat after the late Janis Joplin – but you will feel her pain as though it were inside you.
The brilliant director of the film. Mark Rydell, calls her a genius, nothing less.
“Yes, a genius,” Rydell says. “Somebody like her comes along once in a decade, maybe less.”
Rydell says that Alan Bales, who co-stars in the movie with her. “had his mouth open the whole time.”