Bette Midler eats up her turn as Mengers, heading to the L.A. stage
NEW YORK â Tea time at Sardiâs, and in rushed Bette Midler too busy to give her caricature on the far wall an admiring glance.
She had just finished taping an appearance on Katie Couricâs talk show and, like me, had plans to see Mike Nicholsâ starry production of âBetrayalâ later that evening. (Unlike me, her companion was Glenn Close.)
In short, it was a typical run, run, run New York day. For the moment, however, Midlerâs attention was focused on âa creature of Beverly Hills,â the late Hollywood super-agent Sue Mengers. Midler is reprising her Broadway solo turn in John Loganâs âIâll Eat You Last: A Chat With Sue Mengers,â which opens Dec. 5 at the Geffen Playhouse in a limited engagement ending Dec. 22.
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The show runs barely an hour and a half, and with tickets surpassing $400 with service fees, it costs more per minute than most 90210 psychiatrists. But the prospect of seeing the Divine Miss M on the Geffenâs homey stage impersonate the shark-swimming, joint-rolling, bon-mot-bombing rep of such heavyweights as Barbra Streisand, Ali MacGraw, Steve McQueen and Gene Hackman is an undeniably tantalizing one.
Looking soignĂ©e in an Upper East Side fashion, her recalcitrant hair sculpted up and back, her smart fall attire suggesting Bergdorf Goodmanâs idea of a swanky English professor, Midler exudes urban sophistication and good taste.
Yes, you read those last two words correctly: The salty all-around entertainer who got her start performing in a gay bathhouse and accepted her Golden Globe for âThe Roseâ by simulating oral sex on the statuette has gracefully matured into a civic-minded Manhattan matron, whose great charitable hobby is planting thousands of trees in New York City.
Rumored to be âdifficult,â she gave no trace of the diva in conversation. There was a modesty to her voice and a soulful melancholy to her manner, qualities that provided a stark contrast to the Bette Midler we know from the concert performances, the mermaid in a wheelchair whoopee-ing to âBoogie Woogie Bugle Boyâ and the reincarnated Sophie Tucker rummaging in the vault for dirty jokes.
While sipping peppermint tea, she clarified the gap between her theatrical persona and her private one: âWhat Iâve been doing onstage for the last 40 years is a presentation. Itâs a larger than life character who has dance numbers and songs and costume changes and thatâs not me. Thatâs something I made up. I mean please, Iâm not a mermaid.â
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Never one to mince words, Midler was quite forthcoming about the strain of performing eight shows a week on Broadway. So why is she coming to L.A. with this production?
âI had a great time doing it,â she said. âItâs a lively piece and itâs so inside Hollywood.â
Pausing a second to consider the matter further, she dropped her voice as if to level with me: âYou know, a lot of people who knew Sue well didnât make it in for the show. I think her spirit is not at rest yet. She didnât have a memorial and this weighed on people. I think once she shows up in L.A., her spirit can finally rest in peace.â
By the time Mengersâ career slowed down in the 1980s, she had reinvented herself as a pungent Hollywood hostess, holding court at her home where the famous mingled with the influential and gossip was the compulsory party game. (âLike I always say: If you canât say anything nice about someone, come sit by me,â Midlerâs character says in the play.) Youâd think that someone who worked this assiduously to maintain her gatekeeper status would have wanted âthe industryâ equivalent of a military send-off.
âPeople told me that she feared that the A-list wouldnât show up,â Midler explained. âI know that to be false. She had people who really adored her, and it didnât matter how mean she was, because she could be quite vicious.â
Set in Mengersâ Beverly Hills living room, the play takes place one crucial night in 1981 as the agent-queen awaits a phone call from Streisand, her best friend and biggest client whose lawyers have just terminated Mengersâ services. Enthroned on her couch and enwreathed in pot smoke, Blond Moxie in a Caftan recounts her rise as one of Hollywoodâs master deal-makers while contemplating her fate in a town that loves nothing more than the sight of blood in the water.
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Midler has many points of identification with Mengers. Wisecracking, professionally tough, loyally married Jewish women (Midlerâs marriage to performance artist Martin von Haselberg is going on 29 years), they achieved what they achieved largely through force of personality. Survivors both of difficult childhoods (Mengers and her family fled Nazi Germany), they didnât need to be told to hold on when the Hollywood roller coaster was doing another of its upside-down loops.
Always trying to stay one step ahead of the game, Midler relocated to New York a few years after her streak at the box office hit a massive speed bump with the 1990 film âStella. (âI had a couple of stiffs, and it was suddenly like, oops.â) Self-critical by nature, she tends to see the glass half-empty when it comes to her career, though sheâs proved to be remarkably adaptive.
In a television interview with Oprah Winfrey last year, Midler sounded downbeat about her opportunities. âNo, no, no, Iâm a happy, happy star,â she insisted. âI was probably between shows.â
Being a woman of a certain age (68) certainly doesnât make it any easier. But she acknowledged that she has long had regrets about the road not taken.
âI thought I would have a different career,â she said. âI had a different picture. I thought I was going to be a dramatic actor. In the back of my mind, it was something I didnât want to admit to myself, because I was on another path. And if I was going to remain on that path, I couldnât really get off it and start something new.â
In 1980, Midler received an Oscar nomination for her performance in âThe Rose,â a role that allowed her to fuse her musical and dramatic gifts with her flair for the outrageous. But this turned out to be the exception rather than the rule.
PHOTOS: Bette Midlerâs divine match onstage
For a while she was comedy gold. Between 1986 and 1987, she appeared in âDown and Out in Beverly Hills,â âRuthless Peopleâ and âOutrageous Fortune,â a hilarious string that banked much audience goodwill â something sheâd need to draw upon once the pathos of her movies turned to bathos (âFor the Boysâ) and the shtick to schlock (âHocus Pocusâ).
In recent years, Las Vegas has provided a sanctuary for the Midler brand. Her Broadway return last season kindled the hope that she would look to the stage for more challenging material. Although she didnât receive a Tony nomination for her critically lauded performance in âIâll Eat You Last,â Midler proved her Broadway box office mettle. Producers would love to put her in âMameâ or âHello, Dolly!â
She knows that sheâs perfect for these musicals, but she has reservations. âThese shows are great big bears,â she said. âItâs a lot of new people, and Iâm not good anymore at remembering who is who. So I would be nervous about that and I would also be nervous about the social media part of it. I donât like to put myself in harmâs way.â
Directed by Broadway veteran Joe Mantello, Loganâs play may not have the depth of his Tony-winning drama âRed,â but it was a perfect vehicle for Midler. More important, it was just the right size. âI donât know about a show of 30 people and choreographers shrieking,â she said.
Was she at all anxious about the ramifications of playing such a divisive Hollywood figure? More to the point, was she worried about what her friend Streisand might think?
PHOTOS: Hollywood stars on stage
âBarbra called and said, âYou know I hear that youâre doing this and I want to make sure that my side of the story is told. I said, âBarbra, I think itâs a love letter to you.ââ
(Will Streisand show up at the Geffen? If so, Logan might get a sequel).
Midler said that she really only got to know Mengers toward the end of her life. âI came very late to the party,â she said. âI met her in the â70s at somebodyâs house, but thatâs all I knew. I think she stayed away from me because I had a very notorious manager, and I donât think I was someone she was all that interested in. But then I got to know her after I was living in New York and would return to L.A. A girlfriend of mine, Carole Bayer Sager, brought me over there and we hit it off and I fell in love with her.â
âMordantâ is the word Midler uses to describe Mengersâ personality. âIt was just gallows humor,â she added approvingly.
âSue was someone who came to town and milked it for all it was worth. For a woman in those days to make her way like she did â thatâs tough. She did it not just through chutzpah but through real wit and talent and an eye for how the game was played.â
Sounds familiar. Does Midler have any desire to set her own story down on paper?
âI didnât have enough sex,â she joked. âWell, I didnât have enough celebrity sex. And I think thatâs important when youâre writing a memoir.â
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