Chad Jones
Alameda Times
Friday, February 06, 2004 – BETTE Midler has made nearly two dozen movies, but it all comes down to two: “The Rose” and “Beaches.”
Although 1979’s “The Rose” wasn’t exactly Midler’s screen debut — she was an extra in “Hawaii,” filmed in her native state, and played the Virgin Mary in a cheapie flick called “The Thorn” — the movie marked her first starring role. Playing a Janis Joplin-like rock singer named Mary Rose Foster, Midler ignited the screen and got a best actress Academy Award nomination for her efforts. The movie also spawned a hugely successful title song and helped Midler evolve from recording and concert star into a full-fledged actress-singer-showperson.
Midler’s follow-up to “The Rose” was the appropriately titled “Jinxed!” and marked the first of many lows in a checkered film career.
For every dive there is a comeback, and Midler’s came courtesy of Disney. For about five years in the mid-’80s, Midler starred in a bundle of successful films’ for Disney’s Touchstone Pictures. People started to take notice of Midler again in “Down and Out in Beverly Hills,” then reveled in her trademark outrageousness in “Ruthless People,” “Outrageous Fortune” and “Big Business.”
She hit it big again in 1988 with “Beaches,” an old-fashioned musical weepie that launched yet another huge song, “Wind Beneath My Wings.”
After a misstep with the contrived tearjerker “Stella,” Midler and her All Girl production company produced “For the Boys,” an ambitious musical drama co-starring James Caan. Once again, Midler’s singing was the highlight of the film.
A five-year lull rebounded in 1996 with the divorce comedy “The First Wives Club,” and there ends Midler’s cinematic success story. The less said about “That Old Feeling,” “Drowning Mona” (aka “Ruthless People” redux) and “Isn’t She Great” the better.
But all is not lost. With Midler, there’s always a triumphant comeback. That may happen in June with the release of “The Stepford Wives,” a comic take on the zombification of suburban housewives, in which Midler co-stars with Nicole Kidman, Faith Hill and Matthew Broderick.
There’s also a hot rumor that Midler is set to make “In the Pink,” a cosmetics comedy co-starring Tim Allen, Cher and — get this — Britney Spears. Sounds
hilarious already.
— Chad Jones
