Bette started out playing gay dives, I think. Cher? Who knows? Maybe it’s an easy look for transvestites to pull off.
that there is funny!
Born in Hawaii, she became a victim early on, as a.Jew living among Asians.
She began singing in the Continental Baths, a gay bathhouse in the Ansonia Hotel, NYC, in the summer of 1970. During this time, she became close to her piano accompanist, Barry Manilow, who produced her first album in 1972, The Divine Miss M.
It was during her time at the Continental Baths that she built up a core following. In the late 1990s, during the release of her album Bathhouse Betty, Midler commented on her time performing there, “Despite the way things turned out [with the AIDS crisis], I’m still proud of those days. I feel like I was at the forefront of the gay liberation movement, and I hope I did my part to help it move forward. So, I kind of wear the label of ‘Bathhouse Betty’ with pride.”