Why I Love Bette Midler and Her Divinely Mad Concert Film Divine Madness

For as long as I can remember, there has never been a performer that makes me feel more alive than The Divine Miss M. I can’t pin down exactly when my obsession with Bette Midler began, as neither of my parents are necessarily partial to her, but she’s just always been a part of me. Look, we’re cosmically linked and I simply refuse to believe otherwise. I can, however, start to trace it back to her six-picture deal with Touchstone Pictures (a film production and distribution label owned by Walt Disney Studios that was explicitly launched to release more mature titles). Her first two films under this agreement were the 1986 comedies Down and Out in Beverly Hills and Ruthless People, followed subsequently by Outrageous Fortune (1987), Beaches (1988), Stella (1990), and the only one I will not be watching again unless all other movies cease to exist in some future dystopic timeline, Scenes From a Mall (1991).

That brings us to me and my young, still-developing mind because all six, plus Big Business (1988), played on a regular loop throughout the 1990s and into the early 2000s (a.k.a. my most formative years) on Disney’s Family Channel as part of their Nightly Pix programming. Every weeknight at 9:00 PM after I had finished my homework, I sat myself down, forever a night owl, with a savoury snack (probably a sleeve of saltines) to watch whatever age-inappropriate movie was on. Neither parental supervision nor screen limits existed then, at least not for me. And more times than I can count, I watched a film starring the brassy, the brazen, the buxom Bette Midler. It was, and always will be, true love.

Before she became a bonafide movie star, Midler was a flamboyant singer who had no trouble amassing devoted followers with a little help from her pianist, Barry Manilow. In the early 1970s, she got her start performing in New York City’s gay bathhouses, exploding onto the scene with crass humour, tight outfits, and colourful characters. Between her campy, over the top shows and outspoken support of the LGBTQ+ community, she has remained an important queer icon to this day. After winning a Grammy award in 1973 for her debut album The Divine Miss M and her regular appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Midler soon broke into the mainstream. Then came her first film role in 1979’s The Rose, playing an ill-fated musician inspired by Janis Joplin, for which she received a well-deserved Best Actress Oscar nomination.

Hot off the massive success of The Rose, Midler released her electric concert film, Divine Madness (1980). Directed by Michael Ritchie, it consists of footage from four separate concerts cut together to look like one show. It begins mid-song, with Midler still backstage and the camera on her back-up girls, also known as The Harlettes (Jocelyn Brown, Ula Hedwig, and Diva Gray). As they sing “Big Noise from Winnetka,” Midler is carried out on an oversized dinner plate, dressed as a chicken. She soon proclaims, “make no mistake, eggs will be laid tonight!” Now, if she were psychic, she perhaps would’ve added, “and in 30 years, Lady Gaga will roll through the Grammy Awards inside of one.” Bette really invented it all.

Over time, the uninitiated have come to know Bette Midler for her saccharine ballads like “From a Distance” and “Wind Beneath My Wings,” but in Divine Madness, her raw, rockstar energy is on full display. She is at the height of her powers with more talent in her pinky finger than the rest of us have in our entire bodies. As she does her signature shuffle, pacing back and forth across the stage, you get exhausted just watching her. Every time she finishes a song, you cannot believe she has it in her to sing another.

Her second song is “Paradise,” written by Harry Nillson and made semi-popular by 1960’s girl groups The Ronettes and The Supremes, which Midler has always drawn from, having grown up idolizing them. It starts familiar, soft and sweet and wistful, to a round of applause from the audience. Then, about halfway through, it transforms into something unexpected and raucous, something so rock and roll, and arguably New Wave, inspired by bands like Blondie and The Clash and Taking Heads. But that’s what she does. By blending the classic with the cutting edge, the low-brow with the high-brow, she subverts expectations at every turn.

And while you’re still recovering from the whiplash of it all, she flawlessly transitions into a devastating cover of Tom Waits’ “Shiver Me Timbers.” She goes from hard to soft and manic to restrained in the blink of an eye. The control and mastery on display is heart stopping. Later in the show, she desperately wails “Stay With Me” like nobody has ever desperately wailed before or since. And it wouldn’t be a Bette Midler show without her frenetic versions of “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” and “Chapel of Love,” neither of which ever get old or less joyful, no matter how many times you hear them.

I also particularly enjoy her takes on Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Bob Seger, and The Rolling Stones. She breathes new life into several classic rock songs by injecting them with empathy, passion, and vulnerability. She does them all more than justice, and of course, it’s in heels and backwards, too.

In between singing her heart out – truly never sounding better – she effortlessly banters with the crowd. And with writing help from her long-time collaborator (and for those that remember, a regular Hollywood Squares participant!), Bruce Vilanch, she performs as her infamous characters, Delores Delago and Sophie Tucker. The former is a talentless mermaid and the “toast of Chicago” with an unfortunate drive to perform; the latter is inspired by the real-life Vaudeville star who sang risqué, comedic songs in the first half of the 20th century. Midler’s crowd-pleasing interpretation of her is an old woman telling dirty jokes about her boyfriend Ernie and best friend Clementine.

A woman so talented has every right to take herself too seriously, but she never does. Instead, she’s humble and charming, poking fun at herself throughout. She strikes a perfect balance between self-deprecating and confident. Thanks to the internet and our many streaming services, there seems to be a renewed appreciation for incredible women and their cultural contributions like Cher, Barbra Streisand, Kate Bush, and Stevie Nicks, to name just a few I’ve noticed in recent years. And I say, let’s celebrate them all! There are dozens more! But let’s make sure to include the incomparable Bette Midler. After all, she’s one of the original broads – hilariously bawdy, boldly irreverent, and fearlessly herself.

Find the next playtimes for Divine Madness (1980) on Hollywood Suite.