Bette Midler

Bette Midler is an American actress, comedian, singer, and author born on December 1, 1945, in Honolulu, Hawaii. Across a career spanning six decades, she has achieved major success in music, film, television, and theater. She has earned numerous accolades, including four Golden Globe Awards, three Grammy Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, and a Kennedy Center Honor, along with nominations for two Academy Awards and a British Academy Film Award.

Midler was raised in Aiea, Hawaii, in a Jewish family. Her mother was a seamstress and housewife, and her father worked as a painter at a U.S. Navy base. She attended Radford High School and later majored in drama at the University of Hawaii at Manoa before dropping out after three semesters. She began her professional acting career as an extra in the 1966 film Hawaii, using her earnings from the production to move to New York City in 1965.

In New York, Midler studied theater at HB Studio under Uta Hagen and appeared in off-off-Broadway plays. She joined the Broadway cast of Fiddler on the Roof in 1966, performing in the ensemble before portraying Tzeitel from 1967 to 1970. In 1970, she began singing at the Continental Baths in New York accompanied by pianist Barry Manilow, establishing a core following. She released her debut album, The Divine Miss M, in 1972, which reached the Billboard Top 10, sold over a million copies, and earned her the Grammy Award for Best New Artist. Her early hit songs included "Do You Want to Dance?" and "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy."

Midler made her starring film debut in the 1979 musical drama The Rose, playing a rock star modeled after Janis Joplin. Her performance won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical and earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. The film's soundtrack featured her hit single "The Rose," which won a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. In the 1980s, she signed a multi-picture deal with Walt Disney Studios and starred in a series of successful comedies, including Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), Ruthless People (1986), Outrageous Fortune (1987), and Big Business (1988). She also starred in and produced Beaches (1988), which featured her chart-topping single "Wind Beneath My Wings," winning the Grammy Award for Record of the Year.

Her acting career continued with roles in For the Boys (1991), which earned her a second Golden Globe and a second Academy Award nomination, and television projects such as Gypsy (1993), for which she won another Golden Globe. In 1993, she starred as Winifred Sanderson in the fantasy comedy Hocus Pocus. Her later film projects include The First Wives Club (1996), The Stepford Wives (2004), Parental Guidance (2012), The Addams Family (2019) and its 2021 sequel, and Hocus Pocus 2 (2022).

In addition to her film and recording career, Midler held a concert residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas titled Bette Midler: The Showgirl Must Go On from 2008 to 2010. In 2017, she took on her first leading role in a Broadway musical, starring in the revival of Hello, Dolly!, for which she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. Over her musical career, Midler has released 14 studio albums as a solo artist and sold over 30 million records worldwide.