Bette Midler On Clams: “Here we are just minutes away from the opening. God only knows what’s to become of us. I mean; I never imagined it would turn into this epic of death ”¦ the most mind-boggling, stupendous production ever conceived and built around one poor small five-foot-one-and-a-half-inch Jewish girl from Honolulu. All of a sudden I’m a whole industry. People run, they fetch, they carry, they nail, they paint, they sew. I had always dressed my girls from stock and now here we are with real costumes . . . they’re pinning here and tucking here and pushing tits up to the neck and showing calves. Do you know what this is? It’s a celebration of the sexual rites of a New Yorker.” (Emporia Gazette, April 12, 1975)
