16 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE November 5, 1999

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Bette Midler is the Divine Miss Millenium

by Kaizaad Kotwal

To speak about the divinity of Bette Midler can lead to either gushing incoherently because words fail to describe her brilliance, or it can lead to slipping into cliches because everything about her absolute fabulousness has already been said. Hence, like all legends, the only way to get at the essence of her genius is to go back to the basics and witness her in the flesh. Midler fans across the generations are getting to do just that as she sashays across America in her "Divine Miss Millennium Tour."

The 32 city tour kicked off on October 8 in Boston at the Fleet Center and will culminate on New Year's eve at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. Another diva extraordinaire, Barbra Streisand, will also be flexing her vocal pipes at that New Year's eve event, fulfilling every gay man's pop diva wet dream.

What makes Midler divine is not just her unique and versatile voice, but that she is an entertainer in the true sense that few, if any, can emulate today. Midler puts on a show that goes unrivaled with her acting, her dancing, her sense of grandeur and her ability to go from the big and the bawdy to the intimate and immutably beautiful.

On the most recent tour, Midler will perform numbers from her stunning repertoire that promise to make this tour one to remember well into the next millennium. Midler will be touring with her famed Harlettes (Carol Hatchett, Melanie Taylor and Rhae Ann Theriault). She will perform numbers from her latest release, Bathhouse Betty, including "Song of Bernadette," "Ukelele Lady," and "I'm Beautiful," as well as her everlasting standards "Do You Wanna Dance," "The Rose," "From A Distance," and "Wind Beneath My Wings."

The show will be laced with Midler's hallmark comedy which can cause the bawdiest to blush and the most reserved to burst out in boisterous laughter.

Midler last toured in 1993 ("Experience the Divine") which broke all sorts of boxoffice records. Her 1997 television special

Bette Midler

based on her live appearance at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas Bette Midler: Diva Las Vegas") received 10 Emmy nominations and won the star a statuette of her

own.

Midler's early work environments varied from cabarets to bathhouses. Born and raised in Honolulu, Midler was determined at an early age to go on the stage. Within months of moving to New York City she took over the role of Tzeitel, one of Tevye's daughter,

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on Broadway in Fiddler on the Roof.

She began to do singing engagements in some of the city's cabarets and then began a historic and record-breaking run at Manhattan's erstwhile Continental Baths. Accompanied by Barry Manilow in torch songs and '40s favorites, Midler caused a sensation and celebrities like Johnny Carson began to frequent the bathhouse to catch Midler's magic.

It is her experience at the bathhouse that

caused her to title her latest album Bathhouse Betty, paying homage to the people who gave her her start and catapulted her career amongst the orbits of the greatest and most dazzling of

stars.

Midler burst into the American consciousness with her brash and bawdy performance as a self-destructive rock singer in the movie The Rose (1979) for which she won an Academy Award nomination and two Golden Globe Awards (for best actress and best newcomer). For a while she became Disney's most bankable actress with four riotous turns in Ruthless People, Down and Out In Beverly Hills, Big Business, and Outrageous Fortune.

Midler's Midas touch has also influenced her humanitarian work. During the 1990s she has committed herself to AIDS causes, the Literacy Partners helping illiterate adults read and write, and towards preserving the environment. In 1997 she was one of 25 women honored by the United Nation's Environmental Program for their work in protecting and preserving the environment.

Last year, entertainment columnist Liz Smith wrote, "I stand amazed and in awe of Bette. Talk about a woman who can do everything. But her greatest talent is the ability to use her voice to convey any emotion, to make you laugh out loud, and weep with remembered pleasure and pain. Nobody, but nobody sings anything at all like Better Midler.”

With New Year's eve still over a month away, start off the millennial partying with the incomparable Midler as she brings her unique brand of divinity to Columbus and Cleveland. Midler will appear at the Schottenstein Center in Columbus on November 9 and at the Gund Arena in Cleveland on November 21. Other Midwestern stops include Pittsburgh, Chicago and Detroit.

For many, moving into the new millennium could only be sanctified by a blessing from the pope. The rest of us will be overly content to spend our pre-millennium days basking in the incredible divinity of the inimitable Miss M.

Kaizaad Kotwal is a Chronicle contributing writer in Columbus.

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