Quips And Quotes 9

Quips And Quotes 9

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Bette Midler On Getting Revenge: “When I was young I caught my boyfriend in flagrante delicto. “I was in a Jaguar, like a tank, and he had his mother’s car. I rammed the end of his car with my Jaguar. I was so happy and he was really upset because he didn’t have any insurance. I had tons of insurance.” (Daily Record, Sept.25, 1996)


Bette Midler On Getting Revenge: “I think revenge is really good for the soul. If you are really wronged, I think revenge is biblical. We all know about turning the other cheek and all that, but I think it’s part of human nature to want to take revenge if you really have been wronged. And you don’t have to worry about it. People always say, `Ah, they had it coming to them.’ Everybody does that.” (Daily Record, Sept.25, 1996)

Bette Midler On Her First Wive’s Club Co-Stars: “We had a good time, I can tell you! Diane, Goldie and I turned 50 within the same month. There is something to be said for three women the same age, sticking together! It was like being back in high school again. It was hilarious. We really, really laughed because we have so much in common.” (Daily Record, Sept.25, 1996)

Bette Midler On Her Sassy, Brassy Image: “I just play angry women very well. I personally don’t have anything to be angry about, I’m really a very happy woman.” (Daily Record, Sept.25, 1996)

Bette Midler On Her Marriage To Martin von Haselberg: “My marriage is going along like a marriage. It’s a marriage. We’re not a revengeful couple. We’re actually rather civil to each other, we’re very decent. The star added: “It’s hard, it’s a lot of give and take. But he’s never done anything to me that would make me want to murder him. I’m not so sure he hasn’t wanted to murder me once or twice, but I’m still standing, so I think everything must be okay.” (Daily Record, Sept.25, 1996)

Bette Midler On Moving Back To New York: “I came back to New York after the earthquake. Tough town. I still have my shows, I still have lots of songs to sing. I think I’m going to do something with HBO. At least, I hope so.” (Daily Record, Sept.25, 1996)

Bette Midler On Doing Another Tour Post Experience The Divine: “I may or may not go on tour. I’d like to put something together that’s a little bit smaller so I can get to Europe. I haven’t been to Europe since 1979. It’s prohibitive to go there. The last time I worked I had 60 people and I can’t travel with 60 people. I wouldn’t make any money. I wouldn’t even break even. So, if I could get something a little smaller, I would love to go because I really do love to go to Europe. I love the people, I love everything, the food, the landscape.” (Daily Record, Sept.25, 1996)

Bette Midler On Marruage And Divorce: “You know what I think, too many people have unrealistic expectations about life and marriage is a tough road. If you think anything else then it’s a big mistake. I think the tough thing about divorce is the effect on the kids. It can be devastating. A lot never recover from it. I would never do that to a child,. I don’t see how people can.” (Daily Record, Sept.25, 1996)

Bette Midler On Movies: “I would have liked to have made a really great picture. The last picture that really told me something about the human condition as maybe `The Godfather’, ” she says. I also liked `The Birdcage’, it was sweet.” (Daily Record, Sept.25, 1996)

Bette Midler On Society: “There’s too much emphasis on youth and beauty today, she maintains. What else is there – there’s youth, beauty, drugs and sex. The truth is there’s the real world and the world the media project on to the real world, which is not the real world. But some people see that as the real world and because they’re not part of it, they feel they’re missing out. It’s an illusion but they’re sucked up into it. If you allow yourself to be manipulated by these images then you’ll be disappointed because it’s not possible to live that life.” (Daily Record, Sept.25, 1996)

Bette Midler On Hollywood’s Emphasis On Youth And Beauty: “The movies are guilty of this as well. That’s why I don’t go to many films anymore. I don’t like what the industry is selling. For the most part the Hollywood studio products have as much nutrition as cotton candy. They’re like a McDonald’s burger.” (Daily Record, Sept.25, 1996)

Bette Midler On Hesitancy To Tell Sophie About Her Past: “I’ve really protected Sophie a lot. Maybe too much. We don’t watch TV and she doesn’t hear the news. I’ve never told her about the Baths or about gay people – I’ve never told her about anything. I have to decide how I’m going to say all of it. It could take me years. `And what part did you play mom?’ Well, it was like this …” (Daily Record, Sept.25, 1996)

Bette Midler On Diva Las Vegas:  “This show had me pretty winded, and I was surprised. I thought I had more stamina than that, but I had to build up to it. It really does take the vinegar out of you.” (Santa Ana Orange County Register January 12, 1997)

Bette Midler On Performing: “I’ve been performing so long, I just do what I feel like doing. I can’t second-guess the crowd, so I do what pleases me; if they find that eccentric or whatever, that’s their problem, not mine. For the most part, I do what amuses me and I think I’ve only been just outside the line of what is considered absolutely ‘acceptable.’ I mean, I’ve never pierced my navel, and my lips are all my own. I feel I’m pretty much mainstream now, in contrast to what else is out there. I think that’s a function of age. People try to push the envelope and see how far they can go, but when you get a little older, that suddenly becomes unimportant.” ((Santa Ana Orange County Register January 12, 1997)

Bette Midler On Making It In Show Business: “Trust your talent. You don’t have to make a whore of yourself to get ahead. You really don’t.” (2014)

Bette Midler On Cher: “Cher can go on forever–her career is larger than God so far,” (2015)

Bette Midler On Alice Cooper:  “Alice is so super keen. One of these days I’m gonna get him to twitch my knockers.” (1973)

Bette Midler On Lonliness: “I’ve been lonely most of my life. I think most people are lonely. What can you do about it? I sing about it. And it’s not over either ”“ it’s not over till you die”¦” (The Toronto Star, February 24, 1973)

Bette Midler On Growing Up In Hawaii: “Here I was, white, in this Samoan neighborhood, always different, terrified of physical violence, made to feel afraid, unattractive. But I used to wander the old red light district. The tacky part of town. And it looked very romantic and passionate to me, so alive. See even then I was always fascinated by the bad girls. It seemed like the bad girls always had the most fun.” (The Toronto Star, February 24, 1973)

Bette Midler On Seeing The “Theater Of The Ridiculousness”:  “I remember one girl came out as Waterfront Woman ”“ you know, from the Josef von Sternberg movies, all in shadows except the face? His women were so mysterious, always getting on boats or disappearing on docks into the fog. Oh I just fell in love with those images. I saw that show and I just went out shopping the next day. At the end of two weeks I was Waterfront Woman. I remember the first dress I bought ”“ it was red velvet floor length, cost me $5. But it didn’t fit so I had to hike it up in back with a brooch. Oh I just climbed into it right away.” (The Toronto Star, February 24, 1973)

On The Baths: “Oh, they loved me at the tubs, they really encouraged me,” she says fondly. “They allowed me to act out the whole dream, all those fantasies, all the people I wished I was”¦” (The Toronto Star, February 24, 1973)

On What Bette Midler Would Like Out Of Stardom: “I would like to be loved the way Charlie Chaplin was loved.” She looks up at the tinfoil portrait of the Little Tramp over her mantel, “I guess that’s what makes you perform. It’s like that constant search for all that affection and attention that you never had when you were young.” (The Toronto Star, February 24, 1973)

Bette Midler On Being Just A Fad:  “I’m not a freaky fad,” she says angrily. “What I do may be, but I’m not. If this doesn’t go, I’ll just find something else. I have stories to tell, characters I have to be. I’m not afraid. See, there was a time when I was so afraid cause I loved it so much”“the music, the characters, the clothes ”“ afraid that it wouldn’t turn out right. I was afraid, not that people would make fun of it, but that they just would not pay any attention ”“ which is worse. Cause, see, I made it up. I put everything into it. It’s my whole life”¦”  (The Toronto Star, February 24, 1973)

On What Bette Midler Wants To Accomplish: “I want to do it all. Everything.” She flings her arms wide at the TV camera in her best doomed grand dame voice, “I want to live fast, die hard, live hard, die young, leave a brilliant memory.” (The Toronto Star, February 24, 1973)

Bette Midler On The Andrews Sisters: “Those girls were so together they could raise their eyebrows in unison,” (The National Observer, March 3, 1973)

Bette Midler On The Seventies: “The Seventies is a time for re-evaluation. Everybody is coming out of the fabulous Sixties and they’re just exhausted. Most people are sad and they don’t know why.” (The National Observer, March 3, 1973)

Bette Midler On Her Antitdote For Sadness Circa The Seventies: “I tend to go for funky music. I haven’t done Jo Stafford yet, but I will someday. I love Patti Page and her `Old Cape Cod,’ but I only do it when I’m in the Cape Cod area.” (The National Observer, March 3, 1973)

Bette Midler On Her Antitdote For Sadness Circa The Seventies:  “I love Teresa Brewer. Actually, ‘Wheel of Fortune’ was instrumental in setting me in my path. I attended The Ridiculous Theatrical Company once in the late 1960s and there was this girl in the cast. They had all these fanciful names and hers was Blackeyed Susan. She was kind of a running-gag character. In one part she was a hooker on the docks, and she came out and recited this endless Robert Service poem that made no sense at all. Then in this 1930s number she came out wrapped in toilet paper with dollar bills taped to her. She was the Statue of Liberty and she sang ‘Wheel of Fortune’.”  (The National Observer, March 3, 1973)

Bette Midler On Growing Up In Honolulu: “I grew up in Honolulu. My father came there before the war and then after it was over he had three kids so he didn’t leave. They’re weeeeird, my parents. Thirty years in Hawaii and it’s like they’re still in New Jersey. In grammar school, I was the only white kid in my class. I was always getting unexcused absences for the Jewish holidays. It used to freak me out. I was afraid of people. In a pinch, I could be aggressive with people but I always worried what they thought of me. It was hard. But thennnn ”¦. she makes a mockdramatic flourish with the garlic knife,”. I came into my glory in high school. I bullosssomed. I blossomed into a D-cup and there were finally white kids in my school. I was even popular. It was a real surprise because before that I had always been left out. In high school I became a person. That was when I began to realize I wasn’t as bad as I thought. Those were happy times, which is why I like the early ’60s music so much-especially the girl groups, like the Shan-Gri-Las. Oh, they were tuffff, huhnee, weren’t they?” (Modern Hi-Fi & Stereo Guide, June 1973)

Bette Midler On Being Brought Up Self Sufficient: “I was never taught that little girls should be soft and passive. It was only later, when I grew up, that I found out they were supposed to be, and by then I knew it was all bullshit anyway. See, my father always wanted a boy, and instead he got three daughters and a retarded son. So it sorta freaked him out and he decided to make his girls as self-sufficient and independent as boys. We were taught survival early. I mean, they never gave us a dime. Whatever money we ever had, we always worked for.” (Modern Hi-Fi & Stereo Guide, June 1973)

Bette Midler On Being Brought Up Self Sufficient: “That’s why coming to New York was so easy for me. I felt I understood New York before I even came. I did a year of college at the University of Hawaii, but it wasn’t going fast enough. I had a bit part in the movie Hawaii, and I saved $3,000 from it. I am reeeeealy Jewish about money. With those $3,000 I came to New York to be in the theater.” (Modern Hi-Fi & Stereo Guide, June 1973)

Bette Midler On Her First New York Home: “There was a hole in my bed and I was always falling through it at night. And the bathroom was down the hall. And I mean really down the hall. You had to get dressed, go out the door, turn right, turn left, turn right again. It was your basic freak scene, that hotel. Winos in the hall ”¦whores in the next room ”¦junkies outside. The dyke bar was downstairs and the gay bar was down the street.” Bette bites into a carrot to punctuate her ecstacy: “I loved it! My dear it was my great adventure. So exciting! No, seriously, I got used to it. It became just another trip down life’s merry road.” (Modern Hi-Fi & Stereo Guide, June 1973)

Bette Midler On Her Try Outs For Fiddler: “First they said I was too Jewish, then they said I’m not Jewish enough. This went on for eight months, finally, I got the role. But the whole experience represented my introduction to the true Broadway system. From then on, it was a series of rude awakenings. What I had thought it was gonna be like ”“ legitimate theater ”“ turned out to be nothing of the sort. I mean, the superficiality, the trappings were the same, but the bone and marrow . . . it was cheap, dirty, full of politicking. At the end of my second year with the show, I knew I had to get out.”  (Modern Hi-Fi & Stereo Guide, June 1973)

Bette Midler On When She Knew She’d Be A Singer:  “I was going out with a guy who really loved music. He used to play things for me, things I had never heard before. He turned me on to “Unforgetable,” one of Aretha Franklin’s earliest albums ”“ a sort of tribute to Dinah Washington. When I listened to it, she was talking right to me. That’s the essence of art, yunno ”“ when someone can communicate like that. It affects you. You may forget the details, but you don’t forget the essence. Anyway, I was over at Ben’s house one night listening to that album and I was ripped ”“ rippedripped! Really stoned. I started singing at the top of my lungs. Finally, at the end of the evening, I said, ”˜I’m going to be a singer.’  (Modern Hi-Fi & Stereo Guide, June 1973)

Bette Midler On What She Needed To Become A Singer: “I had a girlfriend, Marta Heflin. She was in ”˜Fiddler’ with me but she wanted to be a nightclub singer. After the show every night she would go down to all the showcases in town and try out her material. I went with her a couple of times to see what it was all about. One night, at Hilly’s on Ninth St. . . . good old Hilly’s . . . I got up and sang. I sang “God Bless The Child.” Something happened to me when I was singing that song. It was really weird. It was a physical thing, and a very emotional thing, too. It was just what I needed to help me decide on becoming a singer. So I started doing the showcases. I was singing ballads and torch songs, ’cause that’s what I had the greatest affinity for. Then I got into my black music passion.”  (Modern Hi-Fi & Stereo Guide, June 1973)

Bette Midler On Her Helen Morgan Phase: “I saw this picture of Helen Morgan on the cover of one of her albums. She looked so ”¦ so lost. She wore a long velvet gown and held a glass in one hand. The image was terrifically romantic. It appealed to me. So I went out and bought a black velvet gown with beaded sleeves from a junk store around the corner. Ten dollars, and it’s still the most beautiful thing in my closet. I really got into the costume thing ”“ the whole image. It was like being bitten by a fever. I just couldn’t stay away from it. After ”˜Fiddler’ every night, I’d put on my face, do my hair, put on my costumes and take the subway down to Hilly’s or The Apartment or the Improv and then I’d be up on stage. Oh, was I weeeeird, honey! A silk scarf in one hand, a glass of booze in the other. I was getting into all my heavyweight fantasies. I mean, dahling, me and Miss Marleeena Dietrich!” She crinkles her nose in glee. “I loved it.” (Modern Hi-Fi & Stereo Guide, June 1973)

Bette Midler On Her Face: “I have a strange face,” she says, matter of-factly, “and no one ever let me forget it most of my life. It’s painful, I guess. I mean, it really used to hurt, but it does build your character. You’re not as lazy as you might be if you were beautiful. Who was it that said ”˜Beauty is only skin deep’? The Temptations. Well, really, who would want it any deeper, yunno? Unless you’re a cannibal”¦!”  (Modern Hi-Fi & Stereo Guide, June 1973)

Bette Midler On Her Early Years In New York City: “I was very anxious to get to the city (New York). I didn’t notice that there was anything wrong with it. The first month that I was here was when they had the blackout. I thought it was fabulous.  And, right after that, in January, the subway went on strike. And I was living down here and I had to go up to 119th Street to get to work every day. I was working at Columbia University ”“ typing. So it was like this incredible hassle. But I just thought it was a lark.  The first four years I was here (in New York) I thought the city was just unbelievable, but now I’m getting a little tired. It’s hard on an older person. I mean if you’re not 19 you might as well forget it.”  (Zoo World, October 25, 1973)

What Bette Midler, The Rock Goddess, Wants To Be: “What I want is to be a bisexual fantasy. I want to be the most loved, the most desired woman on this earth.”  (Zoo World, October 25, 1973)

The Secret To The Success Of The Divine? “The Divine Miss M is terrifically entertaining. I’m like an old movie people go to just to be entertained, just to be happy. They love it because they can forget their troubles. It’s something people can just enjoy. Bette Midler is much more real.” (Zoo World, October 25, 1973)

Bette Midler On Falling In Love With The Theater:  “I just fell in love with the theatre when I was 16. And I thought that if I had to have a career in the theatre the way to do it was to get a job on the Now York stage. I mean they don’t have much theatre in Chicago or Cleveland. See, I figured it was the only place to go so I came. I learned enough about the scene when I was in that show (Fiddler) to know it would be very difficult to make a life in the theatre, especially the way the theatre is these days.” (Zoo World, October 25, 1973)

Bette Midler On Being A Pop Star: “The stature of the pop star used to fascinate me. I just couldn’t figure out how these people got themselves into that position”¦“I used to listen to the radio a lot, but always AM. Before rock and roll it was mostly white music. I didn’t get into rhythm and blues until later on in rock and roll, like the early ”˜60’s. I loved the groups and I loved straight ahead rock and roll ”“ The Coasters and the DelVikings and the Skyliners. I wasn’t a collector. I was an observer. I’ve always been an observer.  ”˜That’s really my thing. I watch things, then I twist it around to get another view, then give It back to them and make them see it in another way that they never saw before ”˜cos they were so busy taking it seriously. I can’t take any of it seriously. You work as hard as you can, but no matter how brilliant you think it is, there is always going to be someone that’s going to look at it cockeyed and turn it around for you. That’s what I get from the theatre of the ridiculous ”“ the sardonic side of it. What good is it if you can’t giggle at it, ”˜cos in the long run that’s all it is.”  (Zoo World, October 25, 1973)

Bette Midler On Show Business: “I don’t trust this business ”“ any area of it. You can’t trust it because it changes. It’s a constant state of flux and you can be here today and gone tomorrow, I don’t want to get so hung up in it that when the block finally comes crashing down I can’t pick myself up and go on to something else ”“ in some other area of show business. ”˜I can always go back to theatre, because I can. I think I’m going to, too.”  (Zoo World, October 25, 1973)

Bette Midler On Karen Carpenter and Helen Reddy: “I can’t believe I’m on the same stage where Karen Carpenter got her drums banged” and “Ms. Reddy, huh? She should be singing ”˜I Am Woman.’ Who could tell? “  (Zoo World, October 25, 1973)

Bette Midler On What Kind Of Men She Goes Out With On Saturday Nights: “I don’t go out on Saturday nights, I’ve always been working.” (Zoo World, October 25, 1973)

Bette Midler On Her Success: “I’m taking my vitamins, I’m getting ten hours of sleep, and I’m trying not to take it all too seriously. But if the show’s not perfect, I disintegrate.” (Newsweek, 1973)

Bette Midler On Stardom: “I was dying to make it big. You know why? Because I wanted to be somebody else. I didn’t know who. Edith Piaf perhaps, I don’t know. Well, it was so much bull ”¦ The more of stardom I see, the sillier it gets.” (Newsweek, 1973)

Bette Midler To Johnny Carson About Only One Parent Coming To See Her Homecoming Show: “NO, one parent was there. My mother came, but my father, oh, he just said, “Oh, I just can’t.” He’s read some things about me, you know, and he’s very conservative. He likes Lawrence Welk. He doesn’t like too much cleavage. In fact, every time I went over there to dinner, he made me safety-pin my dress together ”¦ O God, my mother got a charge, though. She kept screaming, “Faaaabulous, faaaabulous” . . . I used to have a lot of trouble when I was living there, you know. ”˜Cause I was a Jewish girl growing up in a Samoan neighborhood . . . I left . . . and, you know, the old story about “I’11 show them” . . . I really felt that way and I had a lot of anger built up in me from those years…” (Newsweek, 1973)

Bette Midler On Her Parents: “Both my parents are very strong. There’s nothing wishy-washy about them. My father was a painter for the Navy and we lived in a real funky house, just like the one in that play “The Effect of Gamma Rays.” My father had machinery ”“ all over the place ”“ he had 27 lawn mowers ”“ and my mother always had a stack of sewing up to the ceiling. She named me after Bette Davis, which she thought was pronounced “Bet.” I did too until I got to New York.” (Newsweek, 1973)

Bette Midler On Growing Up: “They were very strict. I got to go to the movies only if they were musicals, because my mother didn’t want me to see “those things.” I never swore until I was 17. If you said “darn” in our house, you got beaten within an inch of your life. I never had boyfriends until high school, and then I found myself mainly with military kids because a lot of them were nice and smart.” (Newsweek, 1973)

Bette Midler On High School: “But I never really fit in-even though I was elected senior-class president. I won that by default: you should have seen the other candidate! The truth is that I was just about the only white in an all-Oriental school and most of those kids never said two words to me. So I got buried in studying. I was always the best in English. I had to be the best, because it was all I had.” (Newsweek, 1973)

Bette Midler On Being Glad Her Dad Didn’t Come To The Show: “I was glad my father didn’t come to see me perform. I would have been afraid to be dirty or gross, afraid that he would walk out or start yelling at me. He’s a good, old-fashioned man. He doesn’t want anyone to think that anyone from his family is cheap. I don’t know why I love to parody all that cheap music and stuff. It’s so dumb. But I have so much fun doing it. And I’m not choosy about particular styles of music. As long as a song’s got a solid tune with good musical changes and words I’1I try it. Basically I think theatrically. I choose a song if I can picture myself singing it, or if I have an idea of what its story or character is about.” (Newsweek, 1973)

Bette Midler On A Vision She Had While Playing Red Rocks In Denver: “I had a real trauma on this tour in Denver. We were playing out in the middle of God-made country in the Red Rocks Amphitheatre, and I felt so helpless against the elements that I thought I had to do this big show-bit thing, you know, shake my tits and be divine. Well it got to the point where I was giving the people only what they expected of The Divine Miss M ”“ but nothing of myself. During the break I sat there and figured it out, and for the next set I took off my make-up, put on my pants and shirt and tried to harmonize with Red Rocks just by being little old me. Miss M is a show-much larger than life. Bette Midler is just a person with a few things to say and a few songs to sing. From now on, I’m going to be Bette Midler.” (Newsweek, 1973)

Bette Midler On Her Wispy Dreams Of Stardom: “I used to want to be Bette Davis in one of those great ’30s movies where everyone’s wearing furs and drinking Martinis. I used to believe that. But now that it’s beginning to happen, I really don’t think a lot about the theater or movie offers or about the money. I have a small four-room apartment in the Village in New York with a little garden, and I still ride the subway all the time. Marriage? I’m not going to get married. Who’s going to marry me?” (Newsweek, 1973)

Bette Midler On Husband Martin After 12 Years Of Marriage:  “We’re committed to it. We’re in it for the long haul. You don’t really get to know a person till you’ve been with them a long time and we don’t really know each other yet. Even though it’s been 12 years, each day is a revelation.” (Alton Telegraph, 1997)

Bette Midler On Her Marriage:  “It’s a struggle. It hasn’t been easy. We’ve had a lot of rough patches, but the main thing is that we didn’t give up. We didn’t say, ’This is too hard. I don’t need this.’ You do need it, you have to keep going.” (Alton Telegraph, 1997)

Bette Midler On Using Clout On A Movie Set:  “When you do that it ruins the picture. You got a salty director? Forget about it. All hell breaks loose.” (Alton Telegraph, 1997)

Bette Midler On Directors:  “When we produce pictures, to get a director to come on board is very hard. These guys want to do their own thing. They don’t want to do your thing. So they’re not going to come and work for you.” (Alton Telegraph, 1997)

Bette Midler On Disappointment At Age 51: “When I was very young and (disappointment) happened to me for the first time, I got quite sick from it. But then I toughened up. It’s just part of the job. You have to get over it and get on with it.” (New York Daily News, 1997)

Bette Midler On That Old Feeling: “Leslie Dixon wrote this for me. We both wanted to do something big and broad, and I’m thrilled with it. I love those kinds of characters, the fight scenes are great, the love scenes are great, and there’s a little bit of music in it and all this romance. It seems like the right thing at the right time, and I’m really proud of it.” (New York Daily News, 1997)

Bette Midler On That Old Feeling: “But you never know if it’s going to be a hit. I thought `For the Boys’ (her decade-spanning musical epic about USO performers) was gonna be a hit, and it was not. `First Wives Club’: big hit! But as a whole, we had no idea if it was going to work. I thought it was funny, but I didn’t think it was going to do $100 million.”  (New York Daily News, 1997)

On Movies In General At Age 51:  “I don’t want to make a movie that doesn’t make people laugh.  I’m not really interested (in drama) anymore. It’s too hard, a lot of the stories are very soap opera-esque. There’s a lot of schmaltz out there, sentiment that’s – sorry – bullshit.  And I think that comedies are actually truer. They’re more helpful, more enlightening. It’s better to laugh than it is to cry, and at this stage of my life that’s what I want to do.” (New York Daily News, 1997)

Bette Midler On The First Wive’s Club: “There are a lot of angry women out there, and they saw themselves in this comedy. It struck a note of recognition in their lives, in a humorous way. But I think it was more than that. It was also the fact that we were three women whose careers people had been following for years, who had all hit kind of rough patches, but had now finally gotten themselves a decent vehicle. Three phoenixes rising from the ashes; I think people were rooting for us and that had something to do with it, too.” (New York Daily News, 1997)

Bette Midler On Her Life’s Dream:  “I don’t really mean to sound pompous, but I always did think that this is what my career would turn out to be. And it could have turned out much worse, so I’m grateful for the way it’s gone. But this is what I imagined for myself. When people ask me, `What’ll I do?’ I say, `Dream your dream. Put it in your head, and go step by step.’ That’s what I did and it happened well for me.” (New York Daily News, 1997)

Bette Midler At The Palace: “These girls are FILTHY! Simply filthy. They come here directly from Disneyland, where they were a ride.” (The Palace, 1973)

Bette Midler At Beverley Hills Press Club: “How old is this woman, anyway?’ Well, honey, I look a good deal better than Creedence Clearwater Revival. A good deal better.” (1997)

Bette Midler On That Old Feeling: “That Old Feeling” fulfills my desire to do something broad. I like characters who are way over the top. She doesn’t hold anything back. And it’s nice to be back in high heels, too. This woman Wears some nice threads. It’s the type movie I think is right for me to do right now.” (Brownsville Herald, April 14, 1997)

Bette Midler On The First Wive’s Club: “Yes. Yes. I’ll admit it. It was a big hit. I’ve had the depths and then I’ve had ”˜First Wives Club.’ I knew it was a natural.” (Brownsville Herald, April 14, 1997)

Bette Midler On The First Wive’s Club: “There are a lot of angry women around, and they were rooting for us. I’ve been saying for years, ”˜What are we, girls, but waitresses at the banquet of life? I mean, I knew this picture couldn’t flop. And the three girls really got along well. Diane (Diane Keaton) is so low-key. I mean she hasn’t even SEEN movies that she was in. I’d look at the videos, and I’d say ”˜It’s OK, girls. But let’s do it again.’” (Brownsville Herald, April 14, 1997)

Bette Midler On Her Work: “I’ve got bills to pay and a family to feed, after all, and making movies is nothing to touring “ (Brownsville Herald, April 14, 1997)