Bette Midler (44 page)

In a separate public service announcement, Midler is seen on camera delivering the message: “Listen to me: DO NOT—I repeat—DO NOT ever throw a bottle or can out of your car window onto the highway. If you do, I will follow your car. I will come to your house and I will tell you to your face: ‘Take it back! Recycle it!’ And, believe me, I can get very nasty” (
142
).

Looking stunningly fabulous on the cover of the December 1991 issue of
Vanity Fair
magazine, Miss M began the publicity campaign that would launch her upcoming movie,
For the Boys
. One of the things that the
Vanity Fair
piece brought to light was all of Midler’s charitable efforts, especially centering on the AIDS epidemic.

When the AIDS crisis occurred in the early 1980s, Bette Midler was one of the first Hollywood celebrities to lend unflagging support toward raising money for AIDS-related charities. It had been going on for a decade now. The diva said at the time, “The last ten years I have worked on behalf of people with AIDS because I couldn’t stand idly by, twiddling my thumbs, pissing and moaning while people I loved shriveled up and died. I began my career in 1965, and I am not lying, I do not exaggerate one minute, when I tell you that nearly everyone who I started out with is dead. . . . I never thought that at such a relatively
young age I would be on such intimate terms with death. My whole adult life I have had gay friends, I’ve had gay collaborators, I’ve had gay mentors. And if I live to be a thousand, I could never repay the debt I owe to them. They gave me my vision and they gave me my career” (
40
).

Among the most significant members of Bette’s entourage whom she lost to AIDS was her longtime collaborator and comedy writer Jerry Blatt. On the inside of her 1990 album
Some People’s Lives
, Bette wrote her “dedication” in the liner notes: “For Jerry Blatt.”

Speaking of Jerry Blatt, Moogy Klingman recalls, “He was a great guy. He was like her best friend. He was a gay bodybuilder type. He was a great guy. I wrote a bunch of songs with him. He was devoted to her” (
36
).

During this same era, Bette found herself on the threshold of a new era of self-confidence. She had a clear-cut picture of who she was and who her stage persona—the Divine Miss M—was. Regarding her alter ego, Midler explained in 1991: “It used to be confusing. They wanted me to be that. It was like Rita Hayworth—all those guys thought they married [the movie character] Gilda. I didn’t want to live like that. I didn’t want to put filler in my hair and wear platform shoes my whole life . . . but she [Miss M] wasn’t in any agony, psychotic, or . . . well, a little bit, not too much” (
40
).

When it was suggested that before her association with Disney, her movie career was in the toilet, Midler in her own defense quipped, “It wasn’t in the toilet. Oh, maybe I was headed for the bathroom door” (
27
).

Using a Disney character reference, she claimed that she very often felt like the confused puppet Pinocchio. “Sometimes I’m sorry I got swept up in it,” she said about her film career. “Remember when Pinocchio goes to Stromboli, and Stromboli convinces him to be an actor? And Pinocchio performs a little bit, and Stromboli puts him in a cage? Well, that’s a lot like what’s it’s like. You want to do this, and you’re completely fascinated by the dream. And you get there. And suddenly you’re in a cage” (
27
).

According to her, she had absorbed a lot of knowledge about the movie business in the last decade of films. “I’ve learned how to make deals. I’ve learned how to negotiate and that some things are more important than others. In order to get what you want, you have to choose what’s important. You have to find the point past which you
would never go. I’ve learned how to take responsibility for what comes on my watch. You know the old expression, ‘It happened on your watch’? Well, you have to take responsibility. And, I’ve learned where to buy my bras” (
27
).

Although she was clearly making all of her own decisions in her film career, Bette during this era passed on two very important films. She was offered the starring role in the Stephen King film
Misery
(1990). She claimed that she felt it wasn’t right for her. Instead, Kathy Bates took the role of the ultimate crazed fan and won an Academy Award for it. Had she chosen to do the role, it could have been the Demented Miss M who was “hobbling” James Caan, who played the stranded author in the film.

Another film she declined starring in was a vehicle that was developed at Disney just for her:
Sister Act
(1992). It was the comic story of a Las Vegas lounge singer who takes refuge in a convent, when she finds herself being chased by “the mob.” Instead, Whoopi Goldberg starred in the movie. The film was such a huge box-office hit that it was followed two years later by
Sister Act 2
. Bette had other ideas.

The Pee Wee Herman scandal was one of the biggest headline-grabbing stories of this era. When the popular children’s talkshow host was caught masturbating in an adult theater in Florida, it ruined his TV career. According to Bette Midler at the time, “You know, I wanted so much to do a movie with Pee-Wee Herman. I really ought to. That would be so jive. . . . My character is so broad and so over the top, and his character in its way is over the top, too. His character is quite sly in that he sort of knows what’s going on, but he never participates, and I wanted to do a
My Little Chickadee
-type of thing while he falls in love with me in an innocent way and I kind of use him in a nefarious way. Personally, I happen to like Pee-Wee. He’s such a sweet guy. He’s a big gardener. Big big big. Nobody who is a gardener can be all bad. . . . I don’t know what the hell he was doing in that theater. I swear to God! But what’s the big deal? That’s what those theaters are
for
. You’d think that people had never been to one. How can you be so hypocritical as to have one [adult theater] in your community and then pretend you don’t know what’s going on in them? It’s so stupid! Maybe he should have brought a raincoat—who knows? It’s just so jive” (
40
).

Of all the films Bette had done up to this time, she had the highest hopes for her own production of
For the Boys
. Ever since she first sang the Andrews Sisters’ “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” it had been a foregone conclusion that one day she would star in a 1940s-era film. Doing such a musical picture had been an idea Bette and her All Girls Productions had been attempting to get off the ground for years.

Ultimately, this was to be the first film that she
didn’t
do for Disney Studios in seven years. It wasn’t for lack of trying. “We asked them,” Bette explains. “We brought it to them. It was one of the things we had to offer them when we first came, and it was not their kind of picture. They didn’t want to spend that much money, take that much risk. I’ve always understood how they feel about their product, so it really didn’t bother me. It remains to be seen if the public likes it or not, but they’ve gotten that it’s good. Jeffrey [Katzenberg] was thrilled. I belong to them in a certain sense. If this is a hit, it just enhances me for them” (
40
).

For the Boys
was to be something of a reunion for Bette, as it put her back together with director Mark Rydell, who had also directed her in
The Rose
. Since they had last worked together, Rydell had directed screen legends Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn in 1981’s
On Golden Pond
. Both veteran actors won Academy Awards for their work in that film.

According to Rydell, “Bette was a more ragged human being during
The Rose
. It served
The Rose
, that kind of emotional skinlessness. She had a kind of hysterical talent during that period. She’s not that way anymore. She’s learned to function with ease. In
The Rose
I directed a child, now she’s a grown-up woman. In the last twenty years I don’t know of a deeper, more profound talent than Bette Midler. It’s like Katherine Hepburn. Katherine Hepburn is oddly not dissimilar. Their equipment is Ferrari. You’re not dealing with a Ford. You’re dealing with a Formula One engine” (
40
).

As the film was about to open in theaters, even the soundtrack of
For the Boys
was highly publicized. The December 6, 1991, issue Tucson’s
Arizona Daily Star
carried a feature about the film’s supervising music editor, Curt Sobel. According to him, doing the sound editing on the film posed several challenges. “We could expand or compress words and whole sentences. Ordinarily, you record all music ahead of time, the actor practices lip-synching, and then has playback running through earphones and monitors, and they try to match” (
143
).

He explained, “The whole film, outside of two songs that Bette sings,
is all playback.” The songs “Come Rain or Come Shine” and “In My Life” were the songs which were filmed and performed live. “In that last song,” says Sabel, the final lyric was computer enhanced: “. . . the very last line, where she doesn’t quite sing the last note, is a playback line done months earlier” (
143
).

Sobel says that Midler “was wonderful, very demanding, very opinionated. She knows what she likes and dislikes, and has no hesitation in letting you know” (
143
).

One of the most fascinating aspects of the
For the Boys
soundtrack is that Bette’s first musical number in the film, “Billy-a-Dick,” is actually a rare and never-before-recorded song by Hoagy Carmichael and Paul Francis Webster. Finding a genuine 1940s-era Hoagy Carmichael tune, and giving it its debut in this film, was the kind of painstaking attention to detail that distinguishes
For the Boys
as a carefully crafted picture.

One of the most crucial aspects of producing this film was deciding on the right choice of a leading man. Finally, it was decided that James Caan was the prefect actor to bring to life the role of philandering comedian Eddie Sparks. Although he is better known for his tough-guy roles, in films like
Rollerball
and
The Godfather
, Caan was also used to dealing with divas. After all, he did co-star with Barbra Streisand in
Funny Lady
in the 1970s, playing Billie Rose to her Fanny Brice. Bette and James had nearly co-starred together in
Misery
—had she not turned that film down.

Said Caan of Midler, after working with her on
For the Boys:
“Bette is the hardest worker I’ve ever dealt with” (
40
).

The film
For the Boys
tells the story of two USO performers, through their career, which spans fifty years and three different wars: World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. Like
Beaches
, it was an All Girls picture, produced by Bette Midler, Bonnie Bruckheimer, and Margaret South.

The premise of the film is that veteran song and comedy stars Dixie Leonard and Eddie Sparks are being honored with a presidential medal on a huge television special, and a production assistant is being dispatched to try and coerce Leonard out of the Hollywood apartment she has been holed up in for years, to appear on the program.

When the production assistant arrives at Dixie’s memorabilia-filled apartment, we find Bette in a ton of aging makeup, playing an eighty-year-old. Bette looks something like the comedian Sophie Tucker did in the 1960s, and her character of Dixie Leonard also has the same salty tongue of foul-mouthed “Soph.”

While trying to convince the aged singer to participate in the show, the production assistant, Jeff Brooks (Arne Gross), has to sit and listen to Dixie’s reflections about the past. It is through those reflections that the action of
For the Boys
unfolds, in a series of flashbacks.

In the first flashback Dixie Leonard is seen in a recording session, recording the song “Billy-a-Dick,” with her girlfriends Myra (Pattie D’Arcy) and Colleen (Melissa Manchester) singing harmony vocals. This is one of the film’s biggest treats, seeing and hearing Bette with Melissa—her very first Harlette.

When Eddie Sparks’s female singer drops out of the show midtour, Dixie is invited to England as her replacement. It would be her job not only to sing on the show for the American troops, but to banter jokes with Eddie Sparks onstage.

While in makeup and waiting in the wings for her first appearance with Eddie, she rips her gown. So, instead of missing her cue, she bounds onstage dressed in an officer’s jacket, high-heels, and no skirt or pants. This causes quite a stir. Then she sells an up-tempo song to the troops—the catchy boogie-woogie number “Stuff Like That There.” When the lights suddenly go out, she carries on like a seasoned trooper, singing Johnny Mercer’s “P.S. I Love You.”

Although Dixie’s sexually suggestive repartee on stage offends Eddie and almost gets her fired, when he sees how adept she is with a song, he begins to mellow. After a backstage battle and a nightclub reconciliation, an act is born.

The Eddie Sparks and Dixie Leonard duo is such a hit as a wartime act that it blossoms in the next decade, not only in front of the troops in Korea, but on 1950s television as well. Some of the liveliest scenes take place in the TV show sequences.