Bette Midler

Bette Midler (born December 1, 1945) is an American singer, actress, comedian, and producer recognized for her versatile and raucous performances across music, film, theater, and television. Midler rose to prominence in the early 1970s with her bawdy nightclub act at venues like the Continental Baths in New York City, where she cultivated the stage persona "The Divine Miss M," blending show tunes, pop standards, and campy humor. Her self-titled debut album, The Divine Miss M (1972), launched a recording career that has sold over 30 million albums worldwide, featuring hits such as "The Rose" and "Wind Beneath My Wings." In film, she received Academy Award nominations for Best Actress in The Rose (1979) and Best Supporting Actress in For the Boys (1991), alongside starring roles in comedies like Outrageous Fortune (1987) and Beaches (1988), and family films including Hocus Pocus (1993). On Broadway, Midler earned Tony Awards for her one-woman show Clams on the Half Shell Revue (1975, special award) and leading role in the revival of Hello, Dolly! (2017). Her accolades include four Grammy Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards, culminating in the 2021 Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime achievement. Midler has also founded the New York Restoration Project, a nonprofit focused on urban greening, through which over one million trees have been planted.

Her parents were Jewish immigrants who had settled in Hawaii, where the family lived as one of the few Jewish households in a predominantly Asian and Samoan neighborhood on the outskirts of Honolulu, such as in Aiea on Oahu. The Midlers faced working-class financial hardships typical of post-World War II immigrant families in the islands, with her father employed in manual labor for the U.S. Navy and her mother contributing through sewing work.

Midler's early upbringing occurred in this modest, multicultural environment marked by economic constraints and cultural isolation as a white Jewish child amid local Polynesian and Asian communities, shaping a childhood she later described as challenging due to her family's minority status. Her parents held traditional views on labor and stability, with her father viewing pursuits like entertainment as impractical distractions from steady work.