L.A. Magazine
Best Bette: Miss M is Back as Sue Mengers
By Elina Shatkin
December 3, 2013
If anyone was ever born to play Sue Mengers, it was Bette Midler. Mengers, who died in 2011, was a zaftig, five-foot-two spitfire who came from the Bronx with a suitcase of movie star dreams and instead became Hollywood’s most powerful agent. She never repped Midler, but during her heyday in the 1970s, Mengers worked for just about everyone else, including Barbra Streisand, Cher, Robert Redford, and Faye Dunaway. Her chutzpah was legendary. So were her dinner parties (rumor has it that Woody Allen’s sneezing-in-the-cocaine schtick happened at one of her shindigs). Slipping into Mengers’s muumuu and spectacles, Midler portrays the superagent in I’ll Eat You Last, a solo performance at the Geffen Playhouse (December 3-22). After earning raves in New York, the show marks Midler’s first foray onto the L.A. stage in 16 years. As Mengers she dishes gossip while waiting for a call from the sort of velvet-voiced celeb you wouldn’t want to cross.
Bette Midler portrayed the legendary Hollywood superagent Sue Mengers (1932–2011) in the one-woman play I’ll Eat You Last: A Chat with Sue Mengers, written by John Logan and directed by Joe Mantello. The production marked Midler’s return to Broadway after a 30-year hiatus, opening on April 24, 2013, at the Booth Theatre. It later transferred to the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles for a limited run starting in December 2013.
Critics universally praised Midler’s embodiment of Mengers, noting her impeccable timing, vocal range, and ability to blend ferocity with vulnerability. Charles McNulty of the Los Angeles Times called it a “perfect role,” where Midler “inhabits” Mengers with “drop-dead delivery.” Ben Brantley of The New York Times described her as cradling the audience “in the palm of her hand from first joke to last toke.” The show recouped its $2.4 million investment and drew celebrity attendees like Dustin Hoffman and Bruce Willis.
