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FULL DISCLOSURE: I came of age in the 90's and always thought of Bette Midier as that middle-of-the-road star of Beaches who sang the movie's treacly theme song, "Wind Beneath My Wings." Sure, she had her brassy broad routine, but this pseudo-outrageous, semi-tough-talkin' persona seemed tailormade for Middle America. So imagine my surprise when, a couple of years ago while writing a master's thesis on Glitter Rock, I found nestled in the discussions of Lou Reed and Alice Cooper a reference to Bette Midier. What could this mean? Digging a little further, I soon came across this contemporary quote from Lester Bangs (Creem, August, 1973) that places her squarely-though not "squarely"-in the midst of the Glitter scene:
Despite lingering questions about her ability to cope with stardom-and choose material-she is definitely the Queen of the Glitter Hop. Squares compare her to Garland and Streisand, and hip folk love her for her Shangri-Las, Crystals, and Chiffons remakes. The gay crowd (hip and square) love her because she came out of the Baths, because she shares their affection for camp and kitsch, and because, above all else, they found her first. She proved that every time you thought they were singing about love, they were actually singing about sex.
A STAH IS BORN
Bette Midier was born on December 1, 1945, in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Fred and Ruth Midier. Fred had ended up in Hawaii during World War II when he was in the Navy. Her first years were spent on a Navy compound, but the family moved to rural Aiea around 1952. While living in Aiea, the family was one of the few white, and definitely the only Jewish, family in the area, which was populated mostly by Hawaiians, Samoans, Chinese, Japanese, and Filipinos. It was growing up in this environment that Bette got her first taste of being an outsider.
Fred Midier had very specific middle-class values that he expected his household to abide by. His wife was expected to stay home and care for the house and the children, while his daughter was expected to be polite and chaste until growing up to marry a nice Jewish boy and make a family. But Bette had different ideas, as she later reported:
When I got...