Bette Midler's Three-Picture Deal With Disney

Which led to Melissa McCarthy's surprising career as a leading lady

Terrible journalism. Down and Out was released in 1986, as was Ruthless People. Jinxed was 2 years after The Rose. The writer is just letting Midler tell stories. Plus it was Touchstone not Disney.

TOUCHSTONE WAS DISNEY’S LABEL FOR R RATED PICTURES, YOU FUCKING DUMBASS.

Down and Out has its charms but those other movies she did for Touchstone are all crap.

Down and Out is shrill and unwatchable. The other three aren't great cinema, but they offer entertainment. Midler basically plays the same character in all of them, but she's fun.

Anyone who doesn't find "Ruthless People" funny has severe mental issues.

Outrageous Fortune is my favorite Bette movie from that era. Not great cinema or anything, but it sure is fun.

Late 80s Touchstone has a very dated, disposable sensibility given the amount of low and mid budget films they churned out (13 in 1990!) Pretty Woman was their only genuine hit that year.

Bette Midler singing to a cow in Big Business is indisputably hilarious.

To her credit, you have to think for a second before you remember her equally successful and well-known co-stars in those movies

Anyone reading this who hasn't seen RUTHLESS PEOPLE should check it out immediately. Last film directed by the team that did AIRPLANE and its their first non-spoof comedy. Same writer as MY COUSIN VINNY. One of those rare movies that is goofy funny but also got stellar reviews.

Even the premise is funny. Danny DeVito plays a crooked businessman who plans on murdering his horrible wife (Bette Midler) so he can be with his mistress. But when he goes home to kill her, he finds out she's been kidnapped and is being held for ransom.

Ruthless People is hysterical. Bette and Danny DeVito are laugh out loud funny.

"You know why I married her? Her father was very old and very sick. His doctors assured me he could go at any minute. But then he stabilized! He got better. He hung on for another FIFTEEN FUCKING YEARS! And I've had to put up with that corpulent little toad Barbara for all these years."

"Debbie can't come to the phone right now. My dick's in her mouth." Hangs up. "I love wrong numbers!" - Ruthless People

[quote]'I imagine myself to be a perennial 25-year-old type.

Does Bette not own a mirror? She looked middle-aged at 25. She looked middle-aged in middle age. Luckily for her, she now looks (mostly) middle-aged as a woman in her mid-70s.

Her daughter has the same dilemma, BTW.

Listen. Every man I have ever slept with, and we are WAY into double digits now, has always come back for more.

I like Bette's look now. She's had good work but doesn't pretend she's a young tootsie anymore. She comes across as a nice warm old Jewish broad, And she's wearing her hair silver more often which looks fabulous.

Wig, R16.

A good one, but a wig nonetheless.

"My husband worships the fucking ground I walk on! When he hears about this he is going to EXPLODE!"

**cut to Danny DeVito popping open a bottle of champagne**

"Bye bye Barbara!"

Ruthless People was the only time in her career that Bette Midler didn't care about being likable and just let her inner raging bitch loose.

She wasn't exactly likable in Outrageous Fortune.

Both Bette and Danny thought Ruthless People was going to bomb. They called each other after going to the premiere and said they both agreed that they thought it was a flop.

Has anyone ever watched Jinxed? Is it as bad as people say? Ken Wahl said kissing Bette was torture, and she said Ken was a racist, homophobe.

This thread makes me hard.

I love Bette's Touchstone films. They're fun, although Stella just tried too hard.

Ruthless People is definitely the best of her Touchstone films. What makes it so good is that everybody is funny in it and it's a great ensemble piece. Bill Pullman was hilarious (and sexy) in one of his early roles. Anita Morris was also great.

I love Outrageous Fortune because Midler and Long do make a great pair despite what may have happened off-screen.

Big Business has never been laugh-out-loud funny for me but it is enjoyable. I love Midler and Tomlin together.

Beaches is a bit too cloying but it's one of those films I love due to nostalgia.

Bette and Shelley didn't get along at all.

One of Bette's most memorable 80s moments

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

She still gets work?

I loved all of those films she did in the late 80's.

She needs to get Hocus Pocus 2 to the finish line. Fuck SJP. Just do it already. Bette's 75 years old - and although she looks great - anything could happen to her health wise.

She has enough money to not work another minute of her life

"'I imagine myself to be a perennial 25-year-old type."

You don't get Bette's humor, do you, r14?

"Promising sexual favors that is something you just do not do."

Oh, relax he's not kill us. How do you know? Because we're gonna raped and murdered in this building. Is that urine on the floor?"

Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Outrageous Fortune, Ruthless People and Big Business were all very entertaining and watchable.

Each had their significant charms, great casts and stand out comedic lines. I loved all four movies and they are Bette's best films.

Shelley: "We've been driving out here for miles and I haven't seen a single white person."

Bette: "There's one. Oops, they got him."

Wasn't the failure of "Big Business" Midler's second "Jinxed", in that it derailed her career for many years?

[italic]"YOU'VE FUCKED WITH THE WRONG PERSON! My husband does business with the Mafia! When they track you down, you, your entire family, everyone you ever KNEW will all get chainsaw enemas!"[/italic]

Big Business wasn't a failure. The film that tanked her career a second time was Stella, which is really awful and dated.

Loved her Touchstone years. Which would have continued successfully if she had done Sister Act. So dumb of her to walk away from that character, which was tailor made for her.

"Stella" was really not much crappier or sappier than "Beaches", but it didn't a megahit song to milk.

[...]

Beaches is bloated and drawn out and could have used snappier editing like these films

The inside joke was that Touchstone's execs probably saw Midler at the Continental Baths. They really took a chance on her because they knew what she could do. Katie Sagal, one of her Harlettes, totally stole Bette's walk from Down and out for Peggy Bundy.

[...]

IMDB trivia section says that production couldn't afford to shoot at the Plaza Hotel and built a set on the Disney lot.

They must be referring to the interior scenes since I actually saw Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin shooting the scene where they exit the Plaza Hotel my first time visiting New York with my parents.

Big dick vibes from her husband

R44 How he must suffer dealing with her.

I don't see any big dick vibes whatsoever R44?

ME?! What the fuck are YOU doing here??

*shrieking*

Hilarity ensues.

No love For The Boys?

James Caan said on Howard Stern that she was stupid. He sounds like a miserable prick.

Yes, thank you, R3. I’m 55 years old, I know the difference between Disney and Touchstone - which is the WHOLE FUCKING POINT.

[quote]Jinxed was 2 years after The Rose. The writer is just letting Midler tell stories.

I think she's just imprecise with her language or not remembering exactly. She did The Rose in 1979, then Jinxed three years later in 1982, and four years after that in 1986 she did Down & Out, which was indeed seven years after The Rose.

It seems a little nitpicky to get so upset at her saying "five years later" when it was really three.

R21, I saw Jinxed in its initial run - it didn’t get much of a release. I think it actually opened in 2nd run houses in my area (metro Detroit). It was supposed to be her follow up to The Rose. Frankly you would’ve expected more after an Oscar-nominated turn. But The Rose was really a closed shop production, produced by her longtime manager and then boyfriend, Aaron Russo, and more or less tailor made for her (concert scenes, drag show and even a bathhouse scene). The Rose “packaged” Bette Midler for Hollywood; even though there were overtures dating back to Mike Nichols’ bomb The Fortune (which eventually cast Stockard Channing), it’s not like the industry knew what to do with her and a bespoke production like The Rose didn’t allow for networking with other producers and creatives that might give some direction to a burgeoning film career. And thus, Jinxed.

The worst thing about Jinxed is it isn’t tailored to her talents, it’s reliant on a sexy, appealing star performance that Midler is incapable of giving. She is saddled with hair and costumes that don’t particularly flatter her and her romantic co-star, Ken Wahl, has no interest with her. Midler has a lot more chemistry with the boyfriend she leaves, Rip Torn. Of course. It is otherwise without distinction.

It should sit alongside Barbra’s All Night Long (which is at least a well made film, from the same period) and Cyndi Lauper’s Vibes as one of several ‘80s cinematic misadventures by great songstresses.

R51, but it’s what Midler did at the time - mythologising those years after she floundered in Hollywood when she had to make it on her own. It’s amazing it took her nearly a decade to start developing and producing projects for herself (mostly indulging her worst instincts with maudlin entertainments like most of Beaches - undeniably a hit - and For The Boys and Stella, that were most definitely bombs.

And pretty much what she said at the time was, I give up. The unique artistry that was apparent in her work throughout the ‘70s was just sort of shrugged off for mugging her way through coarse “high concept” mid-budget comedies. This shift was always prefaced with the profound hurt she felt in being “rejected” by Hollywood as a serious artiste (but nobody knows what projects would’ve been representative of that). This kind of goes back to her “perennial 25” comment - if you don’t know who you are in Hollywood (as in life), how is anybody else supposed to know? It was sort of a rejection of her core fan base so that she could grab a much larger share of the mass movie going audience. And so it went with her music from the passable Wings Beneath My Wings to the execrable From A Distance, the success of which was due to its adoption by supporters of President Bush (41) and the Gulf War. It was only once she returned to her roots with the girl group stuff and a triumphant return to B’way that she won back the affection of her original fans. But she had a real split in the ‘80s as she chartered a course forward in her career that largely left her fan base behind.

Did anyone see her short-lived sitcom?

I meant, did anyone HERE see here short-lived sitcom.

Mayim remembers...

[quote]It was only once she returned to her roots with the girl group stuff and a triumphant return to B’way that she won back the affection of her original fans.

Her original fans are dead.

I think Hocus Pocus was a Disney film too.

[...]

Well, her sitcom is no Call Me Kat, but they all can’t be that atrocious.

[...]

How did Swoosie Kurtz beat out Bette to play the mother on Call Me Kat?

Disney had a clever strategy back then of hiring on the cheap talented big name stars who had crashed and burned in one way or another. Richard Dreyfus was another one. Bette had the Jinxed disaster behind her and Dreyfus had had a very public cocaine addiction.

[...]

Robin Williams liked to joke that Walt Disney Studios recruited talent by standing outside the back door of the Betty Ford Clinic.

Re Sister Act, I can see Bette on the run and hiding out in a convent but how would the ending be rewritten? I can’t imagine her directing a gospel chorus and the Oh Happy Day scene was the best part of the film.

[...]

R66, listen to her version of Delta Dawn from her 1973 studio album, The Divine Miss M. She used to really have a powerful, soulful voice.

Outrageous Fortunes and Big Business are two of my favorite comfort movies - nothing deep, just mindless entertainment.

Outrageous Fortune is a really fun movie.

"You know what I think? I think you haven't been laid in about a year."

^ Outrageous Fortune and Big Business are perfect comfort food-movies.

Johnny Carson's last guest on his last show

I remember, One for my baby.

Johnny and Bette fucked, at least once, early on in her career.

R72 You have to include the interview, so sweet.

Bette, like Barbra, never really wanted to be known as a comedienne. They both wanted to be serious, dramatic actresses first and foremost.

Bette didn't get the point of Sister Act much in the same way that Barbra has never really gotten the point of What's Up Doc? She was also offered the Kathy Bates role in Misery, though she felt the violence was grotesque and wanted nothing to do with it. She made Stella instead. Because of the success of Beaches, she thought audiences wanted old fashioned weepy tearjerker women's pictures. She was wrong.

For the Boys was her pet project, the one movie that she thought would finally give her the respect and adulation that she deserved. When it tanked, she was devastated and very bitter.

She still carries a grudge that Hollywood never fully recognized her talents.

I love For The Boys. Apart from the make-up, costumes, James Cann and the cheap sentiment.

[...]

[quote] Re Sister Act, I can see Bette on the run and hiding out in a convent but how would the ending be rewritten? I can’t imagine her directing a gospel chorus and the Oh Happy Day scene was the best part of the film.

Bette has always paid tribute to singers of the past and girl groups in her act. Since the two big numbers in the first movie are versions of "My Guy" and "I Will Follow Him", I can see Bette quite in her element with pastiche versions of those songs.

Barbra Streisand has the classic voice and I like a lot of her songs but I still would choose to see Bette in concert if I had to choose between the two

[...]

For The Boys is one of those movies that could have been really good. It veers too far into mawkishness and ends up having a pretty weak emotional impact.

R81 The point is that neither really had a vested interest in doing comedy. Streisand hated doing The Main Event and What's Up Doc? Bette has never had much love for her Disney comedies. She thought Big Business was shit and it was going to tank. The only comedy she's given much love to is Hocus Pocus, because it allowed her to create a completely different character.

Both would much rather be remembered for their mawkish fare than for their funny works.

Ruthless People, not Big Business.

[...]

Bette’s 1976 “Live At Last” show, also known later in the decade on HBO as The Bette Midler Show.

Watch it just for the opening number, at least. She was all about the comedy. But she always expressed so much empathy - from vulgarity to the Fried Egg/Hello In There monologue. There really wasn’t anyone else like her or anyone else doing what she did then. (Though I never cared much for the one joke Vicky Edie stuff.)

She charted with Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy and In The Mood (with great production on the studio versions). At the time it was said her studio recordings didn’t capture her live persona which made it sound like they were less than - but they’re not. Her early studio recordings are very accomplished, daring and unique. I was too young to know at the time but I wonder if people from older generations appreciated her act, covering The Andrew Sisters and Glenn Miller. Did she have cross-generational appeal then? I don’t think she sold many records between New York and LA.

And this CBS Special from 1977 is pretty incredible - the duet with Dustin Hoffman playing piano is really sexy (IMO). They are both super hot Jews here. :)

Another thought about her cross-generational appeal back then: she did guest and sing on one of Bing Crosby’s specials. They duet together. And her special was on CBS - which has always skewed older.

Bette's Intimate Portrait narrated by former drill team and pom-pom squad member, lip-filling Jezebel Barbara Hershey

[quote]Streisand proved in her early career that she could do comedy. Disney recognized this and offered her Freaky Friday but turned it down.

In what universe could Barbra Streisand and Jodie Foster have been believable as mother and daughter?

[...]

R76 Midler auditioned for Misery. You can probably even find her horrific screen test online somewhere. I've seen it many times. If she claims she wanted nothing to do with it she must be trying to save her face from the abomination of a screen test. She as AWFUL. Laughably AWFUL. I think the character wanted nothing to do with her.

[...]

Art or Bust is also fun.

Kathy Bates was perfect as Annie Wilkes, thank god she got the role

[...]

She still keeps coming up with zingers on twitter even after Trump, Don Jr and their minions call her old, fat and washed up (like some of the DataLoungers on this thread) every day all day

It's funny that Barbara Hershey got so much shit for inflating her lips when the common standard of beauty is to resemble an actual blow-up doll

[...]

R98 jealous that your failed stand-up career went nowhere but here

I love how much Midler hates Dump on Twitter.

[...]

"#GwynethPaltrow says she drank every night during the pandemic, made pasta, ate bread & was "off the rails." In my day, "the rails" were what helped actresses skip the bread & pasta, y'know?"

r97 that would be not even noteworthy today. Back then it was a brand new thing and people thought it was weird. Today, we're so used to seeing obvious plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures we don't even really notice anymore.

R101

R102 Love her.

I did a Google image search for Jinxed and it looks as though the entire movie takes place inside an Airstream.

R80 Same. Bette has a sense of humor about herself, and can still sing. At one time in my life, I wanted very badly to see Streisand just once, to mark it off the list. But the ticket prices weren't remotely justified (they never have been), and even by the "Timeless" era, her voice had already started to go. And I absolutely detest "Barbra Streisand: The Concert".

Thankfully, I have the t.v. specials box set, which I absolutely love. If I could go back and watch Barbra's "Live In Central Park" live & in person, that's the one I'd like to see. But now?

Fuhgeddaboudit.

A lot of older Datalounge posters loathe Bette Midler because of some perceived offence about what she said when asked whether she supported gay marriage on Larry King Live. Somehow the message got totally misconstrued and then became fake news.

Here's what she actually said about gay marriage on Larry King where she said yes she did support gay marriage and gay legal rights.

[quote]And I absolutely detest "Barbra Streisand: The Concert".

Why?

Piano player at R72 is Marc Shaiman, creator of The Sweeney Sisters. Also, their piano player on SNL

I think Bruce Vilanch just dresses up as her and tweets every so often, in the right lighting he can really look like her and no one notices.

I never cared for "Down and Out In Beverly Hills", but I loved her next three films, "Ruthless People" "Outrageous Fortune" and "Big Business". Everything about Ruthless is perfect, the chemistry between Midler and Long is great in Fortune, and Midler steals every scene in Business. (I was surprised that she upstaged Tomlin, but there was just no contest).

It's hard to believe that a film with Bette Midler and Woody Allen could be entirely unfunny, but "Scenes From A Mall" is just awful.

What was the movie where Bette looked in the mirror and said "I look like a blood clot"?

Big Business had the blood clot line.

R11 what other bizarre, not based in reality things do you think?

This is from memory - "Is this how we dress for the office? You look like a blood clot" from Big Business R112.

[...]

Drugs-n-Dick with Jack

Coke-fueled three way

R116 Well Jan married George Glass so Na-Na-Na-Na-Na. Na!

R116

R116

Bette, at the height of her pop cultural relevance, on Arsenio. She absolutely beguiled the crowd.

Also, Jinxed is such a great camp film. It’s better in retrospect. I think it’s streaming for free on PlutoTV, otherwise DVD on eBay. I’ve seen it probably 20+ times, it’s a great lazy weekday afternoon movie.

I was seven years old when Big Business came out and I became obsessed with Bette Midler after that point. I thought Sadie Sheldon was the epitome of high fashion and glamour. I also thought Melanie Griffith was fancy in Working Girl...I'm from New Jersey in the 80's so I didn't know any better.

Are you a male or a female R123?

R123 I didn’t know shit from shinola but I knew Melanie was trash from a young age. Siggy was the aspiration.

I love sanctuary threads like this, because the DL OGs come out to play and the rift-raft stays out.

So, did she lord it over everybody in Hollywood talking about her exclusive big three picture deal, rubbing it into the open wounds of those just struggling to get by picture by picture?

Love me some Better Middle.

I love her too R128.

Have we mentioned For the Boys in this thread? It bombed but I loved it. It has a fantastic soundtrack too and is probably my most played Midler album.

Ruthless People has been a favorite of mine since I saw it on ABC (edited) in the late 80s. After that, I got to know the R-rated original on VHS very well. I haven’t seen it since the early 90s, however. Have been holding out hope for a blu ray but Disney is awful about releasing catalog titles. Fortunately you can rent or buy the high definition stream of it online, through Amazon, et al.

[quote] [R11] what other bizarre, not based in reality things do you think?

I’m not R11, but what the fuck is your problem? Are you joyless?

I'm also not R11 and that's what I thought too R131.

What the fuck is wrong with you R114? You're a cunt. Midler would have made rags of you.

R132 STFU

[bold]MY HUSBAND DOES BUSINESS WITH THE MAFIA R133![/bold]

Go fuck yourself. You were way out of line to R11. End of story.

R134 You're so flooded with enema juice you post nonsense like this

[R21], forget what others say about Jinxed. It's worth the time to watch it. It was right after Divine Madness, so there's that manic/kooky/spontaneous slightly mad aura about her in some scenes. And Ken Wahl is a piece of shit for behaving so unprofessionally and unlike a gentleman into the bargain. The trash he talked about Bette really hurt her. What kind of cruel aisle did he drop his soul into? Where's Ken Wahl now? Fuck him...

[quote]MY HUSBAND DOES BUSINESS WITH THE MAFIA!

That line always cracked me up. She delivered it perfectly.

I have blocked the idiotic Ruthless People hater. What a loser.

I also love threads like this one. Classic DL. And the film threads here are great.

Inspired by this thread, I watched Big Business tonight and it was much funnier than I remember. Bette really dominates but the supporting cast is very good, especially Fred Ward. He's just so likable in this and sexy as hell in those jeans. I love the subplot of Sadie's businessmen looking after him and Chuck being infatuated with Ward's character. I also like that they didn't go for the obvious homophobic jokes. I love the scene when Ward starts doing push-ups shirtless.

I thought Edward Herrmann and Daniel Gerroll made a cute couple in Big Business.

R139 Fred Ward...now he deserves a thread with his easy sensuality.

r141 right? I find Fred Ward so fucking sexy.

Edward Herrmann was always ... surprisingly handsome. In a Fred Gwynne kind of way.

I can't find Bette's classic 1982 "Best Song" Oscars monologue on YouTube. It was so gloriously bitchy ("Endless Love, from the ENDLESS movie "Endless Love") they should have made her Oscar host from that point on.

R144 Oh fuck, that was great, apart from the breast shrugs.

Remember Barbara's The Mirror Has Two Faces? Barbara's a great singer but Bette is way more fun and hilarious.

She needs another picture deal. Wtf? Barbara too. Are there no writer's writing for older women anymore?

Hollywood what the duck!? Old people have lives too and not everything needs sex. Put them back in the movies! Not everyone wants to see some 20 year trying to figure themselves out. These women know who they are. Cast them!

Write for them. Cast them! Cast them!!!

Her appearing in the "We Are the World" video is really what started her resurgence.

[...]

Bette used to say that she never understood why she even got invited to be in the We Are The World chorus. She'd also joke that she was initially next to Bruce Springsteen but he was moved closer to the popular singers and she was left standing next to Latoya Jackson.

"Latoya was wearing a headband. I felt naked."

R148 I know, it was a joke

Ok, but you all forgot about woopie Goldberg coming out against Disney. She said publicity on a talk show after her 3 deal with them and wore a hat on a tv interview that said “niggerteer “(mouskateer,”that’s how upset she was with Disney. They screw all they’re talent that makes millions for them. And her bo total was blockbusters for them.. unless your a newbie, your agent will tell you straight up,to not sign.

How did Whoopie make millions for them ? Sister Act was a hit, not a blockbuster and the sequel bombed

Look up her bo totals.

R153 I just did, still not seeing it. Being a voice in the Lion King doesn't count.

At least it wasn't Janet Jackson R149.

ABC owns Disney so they have been paying Whoopi millions for decades

R156 Or, Disney owns ABC

Is that owns owns?

[...]

R124, I'm quite male...and gay.

[...]

[...]

R91, that's not a real screen test (for Misery). That's a "what if" video done by a drag queen.

[...]

Whoopi made 12.5m for SAII and was the highest paid actress in the world. Someone tell Jada that.

[quote]r144 I can't find Bette's classic 1982 "Best Song" Oscars monologue on YouTube.

Here it is. (You're welcome.)

Has Bette ever posed nude?

[...]

Yes, R167. Her swarms of lusty heterosexual male fans demanded it!

The running joke for a long time was that Annie Leibovitz got everyone one naked when she photographed them, and though she’s wearing a black shift here, there are most likely some from this shoot in Leibovitz archive. The problem here was they had trouble dethorning all the roses, so Bette probably wanted some protection from them.

She may have had a three picture deal, but she got no terms of endearment.

Thank you, thank you, r166! I couldn't find it because Bette isn't mentioned in the title of the clip.

Her refreshing, irreverent appearance was cited by everybody in the reviews of the ceremony, and several critics expressed the desire that she be called back to host - she would have made the best Oscars host ever.

She would have made a great host maybe pre-Touchstone but after those years and she became an Adult Contemporary Queen, I think she became less fiery. But that night in 1982, she was on fire.

[...]

Her adult contemporary queen phase was vomitous, but it made her a fortune. That whole adult contemporary wave in the late 80s/early 90s was some of the most putrid shit ever recorded. Michael Bolton, Gloria Estefan, Chicago (they used to be great until David Foster), Jon Secada, Taylor Dayne, Rod Stewart, etc. God, it was awful.

[...]

Barbra Streisand's sweet spot is the coy comely ingenue with a lead actor crazy about her.

Bette's big personality would dominate the set and get the guy because she has big tits and a better shot at getting laid.

r176 it was seriously one of the worst genres in popular music history. I heard Rod Stewart's "The Motown Song" in Walgreens the other day and it was torture.

[...]

R178 - Someone needs to start a thread on Rod Stewart's career.

Was listening to NPR today and the guest was Welshman Tom Jones talking about his life and career.

Believe it or not is was very interesting.

I always found it hard to believe that Sister Act was written for her and she turned it down. 1) Because Whoopie made that role here and 2) how dumb could Bette be to turn it down??

*Made that role HERS

stupid autocorrect

I was single-digits young when I saw Big Business in the theaters. It played at the dollar theater and I saw it several times. I thought it was so funny and fascinating and Bette Midler was the greatest actress who ever lived to be able to pull off two such totally different characters! Made me wish I had a secret long lost twin. I saw it again as an adult and of course it was execrable, but those are some fond childhood memories.

I don’t remember was Big Business marketed as a kids movie? What was it rated?

It was rated PG.

"Bette, like Barbra, never really wanted to be known as a comedienne. They both wanted to be serious, dramatic actresses first and foremost."

Judging by her pet projects, such as "Beaches," "Stella" and "For the Boys," I think you're right. But why then did she record a comedy album ("Mud Will Be Flung Tonight") in 1985 if she didn't want to be known as a comedienne? It was definitely an odd choice for someone who desperately wanted to be taken seriously as an artiste.

r186 that album was before her Disney contract. Her career was at a low ebb for several years before Disney gave her a big comeback.

She enjoys comedy and always has, I don't think she really shied away from it as much as she wanted to do a lot more of other things.

She did a lot of drugs back in the day, I think. I still remember how fucking weird and out of tune that performance of "From A Distance" at the Grammys was.

[quote]Judging by her pet projects, such as "Beaches," "Stella" and "For the Boys," I think you're right. But why then did she record a comedy album ("Mud Will Be Flung Tonight") in 1985 if she didn't want to be known as a comedienne?

Because she was in a career lull from about 1981-1986 and she took the advice of her husband who urged her to do comedy. People forget she went through a rough patch post The Rose and Pre Down and Out in Beverly Hills . Despite her public comments, she must have been elated to have been invited to do We Are the World, because she hadn't had a hit in about five years. And I remember people at the time being surprised that she was among the group invited to sing on it.

There's a Vanity Fair article around the time of Big Business in which Bette gripes about the state of career, and fears that she will typecast as a lightweight comedic actress.

That Old Feeling flopping was what killed her leading movie career. She was hot off of First Wives and the expectations were high. I remember seeing it and being so disappointed, it started well then goes nowhere. She got one last shot later with Isn’t She Great, one of the biggest bombs of all time.

Her music career died when she went from a hot streak with WBMW and FAD then waited 5 years until 1995 to release a studio album again, Bette of Roses, which went platinum but was only for hardcore fans. She picks bizarre material on her own and needs to be intensely directed, although her recent girl group cover album is great except the odd choice of TLC Waterfalls. Her entire career is very uneven, but interesting. Sad that no one with nuanced personality and wit becomes famous now, just loudmouths who can’t piece a sentence together. No more true entertainers just sex dolls & PC extroverts.

[quote] Sad that no one with nuanced personality and wit becomes famous now, just loudmouths who can’t piece a sentence together. No more true entertainers just sex dolls & PC extroverts.

That is such a spot-on accurate statement. You are absolutely correct.

Watch out girls, Miss R2 — the world’s leading authority on all things Midler — is stating her boundaries!

[quote] She has enough money to not work another minute of her life

Wow she has an entire sixty minutes’ worth of money?

And the Most Predictable Basic Post Award goes to... R193

I can't believe that Bette has actually won a Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance. While a good entertainer who did a bit of everything she has never been a particularly good singer. I wonder how Babs felt when she lost to Bette that year.

Babs was nominated for Woman In Love and Bette won for The Rose.

Not just Barbra, but Donna, Olivia and Irene also.

Probably every woman I know would have an "Ew...gross!" reaction to being in a men's bathhouse even one time for one minute. One of her backup singers said in Bette's Intimate Portrait, "It was so weird!"

Bette has supported gay men since the beginning without referring to them as her "gays"

R197 But did she call us “her fags” or “her bitches?”

R198 who gives a shit? She is a protected icon

Apparently Bette did a few days of filming on PHIL SPECTOR with Al Pacino and dropped out. Helen Mirren parachuted into the project with barely any preparation.

Agreed R199. Who gives a fuck.

R198 is YASSSSS KWEEN adjacent

Why did Bette get a three picture deal for her ugly daughter?

I liked her in “Then She Found Me” directed by and starring Helen Hunt. I usually detest Helen Hunt but I thought it was an enjoyable little movie.

Bette's known to be an awful person to work with. The stories from the shoots of First Wives Club and Stepford Wives paint very unflattering portraits of Midler. I am surprised her acting career lasted as long as it did, considering her reputation. She's not exactly a great actress either, so it's puzzling why anyone would want to hire her.

I did find her funny in an appearance on the Rosie show though. Rosie was going on about how she was Bette's biggest fan and how she had always wanted Bette to be her guest on that show which was the 200th or 500th or whatever. Bette, without missing a beat, replied, "What's the matter? Did Barbra say no?"

No R197, she didn't. But she did go on the Larry King show - post-AIDS crisis - and say that gay men not only didn't desire the security and benefits of marriage, didn't want to raise families (when gay couples had been building families for decades), she also implied that we were capable of it and only wanted to sleep around and do drugs.

It demonstrated how much she'd held herself away from the gay community and objectified us to our detriment.

But it was also a subtle calculation on her part of now wanting to alienate the "From A Distance" crowd whom she perceived as her bread and butter. It was about her longevity. Not offering meaningful support back to the people who'd supported her from the start. If it wasn't for her gay fans, her career would've ended on a bus & truck tour of Diddler On The Roof.

I'll never understand why she just didn't offer her unwavering support for the right of people to marry. That's on her.

I believer she's come back from that moment since then but, holy fucking christ on a bicycle eating a cracker, who would've ever thought BETTE MIDLER of all people would desert gay people? Barbra never did it, Judy never did. Liza never has. Bette Midler does not exist in the echelon.

^^ ...that we were INCAPABLE of it...

She's no LIZ TAYLOR!

Or even Shazza Stone, for that matter!

[quote]No [R197], she didn't. But she did go on the Larry King show - post-AIDS crisis - and say that gay men not only didn't desire the security and benefits of marriage, didn't want to raise families (when gay couples had been building families for decades), she also implied that we were capable of it and only wanted to sleep around and do drugs.

Stop lying R206. She said nothing of the sort. This is exactly what she said:

I've seen that clips MANY times, R210. And I have not mischaracterised it AT ALL. If you still want to believe that mummy loves you, that's fine. But she is not offering support there and she is shutting down even the possibility that same sex marriage should be acknowledged. She's talking about gay men as if she's only ever known them from the bathhouse in the early '70s.

Don't kid yourself.

Has anyone seen the Gloria Steinem biopic with Bette as Bella Abzug? I still need to see that and Coastal Elites. Bette and Judith Light were the best parts of the second season of The Politician. It would be great to see Bette in one of Murphy's less chaotic shows - the tone of The Politician was all over the place.

She's been attached to a movie of The Tale of the Allergist's Wife for years, and a new movie with Diane Keaton and Goldie Hawn.

For The Boys must be one of the last big budget old fashioned vanity movies. Overall I love it, but it grinds to a halt in the modern scenes with the creepy old age makeup and Arye Gross.

Honestly, do we GAF? why? are we talking about her? please stop

You're unhinged R211. You're as unhinged as Janbot's relentless hatred of Madonna which seems to be based on some deeply personal perceived slight. Same thing here. Get a grip.

[quote]Barbra never did it,

That's not entirely true. Barbra did get called out by Vanity Fair around the time of Prince of Tides because people were wondering why she hadn't been on the front line of the AIDS crisis like Bette, Madonna, Liza and other entertainers.

Bette did the first big AIDS beneift back in 1985 and had been doing them regularly since. Aside from donating a portion of proceeds from Somewhere to AIDS causes, Barbra was absent from gay causes during that period. And people did take notice. It wasn't until 1992 that she did a public AIDS benefit. It was rumored that her son coming out had a lot to do with Streisand becoming more vigilant

Donna Summer didn't do much for AIDS until very late in the game.

R216 her son is allegedly POZ and she still doesn’t do that much

Then She Found *Photoshop*

R214 take your own advice

[quote]Why did Bette get a three picture deal for her ugly daughter?

Nepotism girls are all the rage now, don't you know.

Midler's daughter Sophie is a strange one. She's 34 and despite her degrees from Yale and Yale Drama she has a really slim resume.

Also, this: [quote]By birth, she is a member of the Haselberg German noble family and, by marriage, a member of the aristocratic Guinness family.

She got married last year. Perhaps she's no longer ambitious.

Sophie shows up in the new HALSTON series on Netfilx. One episode. She looks so much like Bette for a second she was supposed to be playing her.

Sophie co-hosts a podcast called Having a Night - it's a very fun laidback show about throwing dinner parties. She rarely talks about Bette on it but does talk about how she prepared the food for the wedding with her.

This thread Will. Not. Die!

How on earth did Bette marry a German? She has never hidden her Jewishness and was born in 1945, so she would have been part of the generation of post war Jews who understandably had a fear of Germans and even hated them.

Same thought, R226.

I have one Jewish friend who will not set foot in Germany (even though his work has called for it) or support a German-related good or service. His entire family feels the same. He doesn't even particularly like German-Americans, who are one of the oldest and largest immigrant groups in this country.

Regarding the "infamous" Larry King interview. Thanks to the clip at r210, it shows that she fully supports gay people and their civil rights issues. All she did was point out (being Captain Obvious) there is a difference between civil rights issues and religious issues. She said that she, as a Jew (who made the deliberate choice to not get married in a Church herself), supports gay marriage (my feeling is who is it really gonna hurt?), but she understands that others are not so liberal when it comes to religious issues.

Midler's five best performances ranked:

The Rose Outrageous Fortune Big Business Divine Madness Ruthless People

Midler's five best performances ranked:

The First Wives Club

Big Business

Jinxed

Ruthless People

For The Boys

R8 Pretty Woman wasn't Touchstone's only big hit of 1990, the big budget Dick Tracy made over $100 million as well, like PW, and was among the top 10 films of the year at the box office

It also received 7 Oscar nominations and won 3 of them

God, I hate Pretty Woman. It was cringe-inducing.

Funny how Dick Tracy is totally forgotten now.

I love Dick...Tracy.

Dick Tracy did okay but it was not a film that became a huge pop culture moment like Batman the year prior. It looked cute, had the Madonna connection, and got lots of press, but it should have been bigger. Warren Beatty was probably too old by this point to play Tracy. I watched it again recently and it's well made but it's rather bloodless. He needed more energy.

Pretty Woman and Ghost dominated 1990.

Yes, Warren Beatty was already old and tired by then. It needed a younger actor.

R233 is the passive-aggressive cunt who tags-a-long and makes slight little dig comments to negate anything opinionated I post. Get aggressive cancer and die.

r237 that comment wasn't directed at you, I just mentioned that Dick Tracy is totally forgotten now. It was THE big-budget tentpole movie of that year and it faded fast. Just an observation.

Since this thread has also become Madonna-fixated, her legendary "I'm Breathless" album was released thirty-one years ago today on May 22, 1990

"I married a German. Every night I dress up as Poland and he invades me" - Bette"

When she does the Lucy-Harpo Marx routine with her real twin in Big Business is a fantastic bit.

I'll never understand why WB released GREMLINS 2 the same day as Dick Tracy....Really ate away at a huge segment of the moviegoing market (teens and kids) while limiting the adult audience. Such a classic film and it hurt both.

She obviously did something right if she kept her voice longer than Julie Andrews.

I worked with her a few times. She is rather a c-u-next-Tuesday.

[quote]Midler's five best performances ranked:

Beaches is #1

No love for Gypsy? I thought she did a good job putting her own twist on Mama Rose.

No, no love for GYPSY, R246. Love or hate Bette, her version is widely regarded as a failure.

I love that Midler cycle of the late 80's. I still quote lines from Big Business at least once a week.

I always felt like she didn't accept her limitations as an actor. She's great at certain things - hammy comedy with lots of mugging, overt abrasiveness and vulgarity, and dry condescension. She has such an over-the-top persona, and she's just not very believable in roles that are softer and more vulnerable. Ruthless People capitalized on Bette's strengths the best of all her films I think, and I thought she was great in Big Business - especially in the Sadie Shelton role. She was cringey in Stella and in For The Boys (as much as I try to like her in the latter). She was passable in The Rose and Beaches because she was essentially playing a version of herself, but there was no great acting there. I think her best work is Mud Will Be Flung Tonight and some of her stage shows, and I enjoy her albums.

She used to have the reputation of being a cunt to work with, but I think she's mellowed. Everyone I know from the NY company of Hello Dolly has said nothing but nice things about her. Even Lily Tomlin speaks fondly of her now.

R248 I think Jinxed! was some of her best acting. Honestly, she managed to restrain herself in some scenes in that movie.

[quote]How did Whoopie make millions for them ? Sister Act was a hit, not a blockbuster and the sequel bombed

SISTER ACT was very much a blockbuster. It was the #6 movie of 1992. She also made Quigley's annual list of Top Ten Movie Stars (#6), the second time she made the list (the first was in '86 at #8). She also remains the only black woman to have made the list at all.

[quote]Whoopi made 12.5m for SAII and was the highest paid actress in the world. Someone tell Jada that.

Exactly. When Whoopi signed on to do the sequel, she became the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. (Two years later, Demi Moore took the crown.)

[quote]I always found it hard to believe that Sister Act was written for her and she turned it down. 1) Because Whoopie made that role here and 2) how dumb could Bette be to turn it down??

She said her fans didn't want to see her in a wimple. Her big loss.

You can tell the role was written for a white woman because there are moments that should have been rewritten specifically for Whoopi, like at the end when the thugs are searching for Deloris in Reno. All they had to do was ask, "Have you seen the black nun?"

Bette is so obviously Jewish, Sister Act wouldn't have worked with her.

You don't get that that would be part of the humor, r251?

Oy vey, Maria!

The jokes just write themselves.

R251 that was the point. A Jewish woman hiding in a Catholic nunnery.

Y’all complaining that she Jewish and yet it starred a Jewish woman?!?

R255 Whoopi had claimed that she had some Jewish heritage. Her only evidence was her mother's word. But recent research revealed that her ancestry is sub-Saharan African and she had no ancestors named Goldberg.

She went from LaToya Jackson having a more prominent position in USA for Africa to having multiple hit movies.

Bette had one of the luckiest comebacks in showbiz history

It’s just as well Bette didn’t do Sister Act. Maggie Smith would have chewed her up and spat her out.

She would have been great in the role though R258.

Whoopi's real name was Caryn Johnson. Nothing Jewish about that. Or even Catholic.

The Sister Act script went through a million rewrites and script doctors - whatever Bette signed on to probably had very little resemblance to what ended up on the screen with Whoopi.

[italic]Sister Act 2[/italic] was one of the first movies to talk about cultural appropriation (not in so many words) when one of the Black students asks a white rapper classmates why whites have taken so many genres from Blacks.

R262 it should go in the YASSSS KWEEEN Museum next to a circuit fan.

Pretty sure the Sister Act screenplay written for Bette would have made her Jewish identity part of the joke.

Her other movies at Touchstone didn't.

Was she playing a Catholic nun in those other movies. R263, or a criminal disguised as one?

Do you often miss the point?

The way the movie ended up, Deloris Van Cartier already went to Catholic school in the 1960s.

Bette on Rosie

Bette is such a bullshit artist.

Compared to many of her contemporaries Bette seems more articulate. Not necessarily in the sense of appearing well-read or erudite, but in having a way with words.

It’s from hanging out with all those old queens for decades, she’s an honorary elder gay!

[Quote] Compared to many of her contemporaries Bette seems more articulate. Not necessarily in the sense of appearing well-read or erudite, but in having a way with words.

She's apparently a prolific reader and very well-read. I remember in an interview about Big Business, they mentioned that between shots, Bette would be in her trailer reading Dostoevsky.

I keep thinking this thread is a line to a parody version of a song called the “Twelves Days of Bette Midler.”

r272 that sounds like the kind of thing a PR person would spread. Also if it took her until 40 to find Dostoevsky....

I once heard Midler name-drop Flaubert in an interview (something about artists living as bourgeois) and it had my eyes rolling. I want to blame the performance-artist husband.

[quote] r274- that sounds like the kind of thing a PR person would spread.

It was actually Lily Tomlin who said it about Bette in an interview.

Bette and Barbara Walters

What the fuck is the point of this thread.

OP just copies and pastes from a newspaper.

Fuck Bette Midler. Fuck her Three Picture Deal.

But not fuck Disney.

I love Disney.

R278 thread envy

She could make a great documentary now about her life she's so funny commenting on everything