Free Bette Midler by Mark Bego Page B

was Bette’s first time out, so she didn’t know what to do. I said, ‘Bette, how could you let me leave?’ But she was scared” ( 38 ).
    After that, Barry was always looking out for his opportunity to make his own mark in the music business. He wanted to write and to produce his own material, and he was going to find a way to market himself. “It was a case of two strong egos clashing,” he recalls ( 38 ). And so, in the fall of 1971, Bette began recording her debut album with Joel Dorn at the helm.
    In February of 1972 Bette returned to the Continental Baths for what she thought would be her final engagement there. Rex Reed joked in the
Sunday New York Daily News
that Bette at the Baths had given “more farewell appearances . . . than soprano Kirsten Flagstad ever made at the old Metropolitan Opera House” ( 33 ).
    “Gawd, I don’t know how long I’ve been there. It seems like forever,” commented Bette during that run at the Continental. “But they are loyal. Loy-a-al! I played more glamorous places than a steam bath. I had a two-week booking at the Downstairs at the Upstairs, and the guy who owned the joint was in love with me. What he really loved was my fans. They came in droves and practically stood on tables cheering. My two-week gig turned into ten weeks. Listen, you think the Baths is the pits? Next week I’m playing Raleigh, North Carolina, in a place called the Frog and the Nightgown. Who do you think lives there?” ( 33 ).
    After having her as a guest on
The Tonight Show
on several different occasions, Johnny Carson asked Bette to be his opening act during his upcoming engagement at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas. The Divine Miss M, in the town where even the sunshine is artificial? Naturally, she accepted.
    As she explained it, “He asked me to open his show in Vegas for him and I was pleased to do it for him because he had been very good to me. Really good. The more consistent I became, the more he warmed up to me. I like working for him. He’s a professional with an astonishing kind of professionalism. He’s ‘up’ every night. He gives the same-caliber performance every night” ( 25 ).
    So, in April of 1972, Bette opened for Johnny at the Sahara Hotel in the Congo Room, which she kept referring to as the “Congoleum” Room. According to her, “Vegas was amazing. You have to see it once before you die. It’s culture shock. Not my style. Everyone wears wigs. It’s a heavy wig town. I got real good reviews, but I had lots of trouble dealing with the audience. I have to have love from an audience. When I feel warmth, then I’m warm. They just didn’t know what to make of me. They didn’t understand why they had left the gambling tables. Las Vegas—puh-leeze! Honey, I hated it, but it was an experience, you know” ( 25 ). In her put-downs, she snidely referred to Las Vegas as “Lost Wages.”
    In May of 1972 she played the Bitter End on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, and she returned to Chicago for a third engagement at Mr. Kelly’s. Her next gig in New York City was the big enchilada: Carnegie Hall. “Another first,” she said in anticipation of the date. “The first time anyone has ever played the revered Halls of Carnegie without having made it big on records. From the steam baths, straight to Carnegie Hall. Can you dig it?” ( 33 ).
    This really had to be special. Miss M had to pull out all the stops thistime. At this point she was commanding $1,500 a night in clubs across the country, but she had to pay the band as well. Nevertheless, she felt that she needed to scrape together enough money for her own background singers. She had once announced on
The Tonight Show
that she always dreamed of having backup girls, and she wanted to call her act “Bette & the Bang-Bangs.” Instead, she hired three girls and dubbed them the Harlettes.
    As she explained the selection process: “I called up my friends who sing and I had them all down and we sang together. I wanted to