Ben Vereen
Ben Vereen is an American actor and singer who has appeared in numerous Broadway theatre shows. Vereen graduated from Manhattan's High School of Performing Arts. Vereen was born Benjamin Augustus Middleton on October 10, 1946, in Florida. While still an infant and his family relocated to the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, he was adopted by James Vereen, a paint-factory worker, his wife, who worked as a maid and theatre wardrobe mistress. He discovered he was adopted when he applied for a passport to join Sammy Davis, Jr. on a tour of "Golden Boy" to London when he was 25. He was raised Pentecostal. During his pre-teen years, he exhibited an innate talent for drama and dance and performed in local variety shows. At the age of 14, Vereen enrolled at the High School of Performing Arts, where he studied under world-renowned choreographers Martha Graham, George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins. Upon his graduation, he struggled to find suitable stage work and was forced to take odd jobs to supplement his income.
He was 18 years old when he made his New York stage bow off-off Broadway in The Prodigal Son at the Greenwich Mews Theater. By the following year, he was in Las Vegas, performing in Bob Fosse's production of Sweet Charity, a show with which he toured in 1967–68, he returned to New York City to play Claude in Hair in the Broadway production, before joining the national touring company. The following year, he was cast opposite Davis in the film adaptation of Sweet Charity. After developing a rapport with Davis, Vereen was cast as his understudy in the upcoming production of Golden Boy, which toured England and ended the run at the Palladium Theatre in London's West End. Vereen was nominated for a Tony Award for Jesus Christ Superstar in 1972 and won a Tony for his appearance in Pippin in 1973. Vereen appeared in the Broadway musical Wicked as the Wizard of Oz in 2005. Vereen has performed in one-man shows and lectures on black history and inspirational topics. Vereen has starred in numerous television programs, is well known for the role of'Chicken' George Moore in Alex Haley's landmark TV miniseries Roots, for which he received an Emmy nomination in 1977.
Vereen's four-week summer variety series, Ben Vereen... Comin' At Ya, aired on NBC in August 1975 and featured regulars Lola Falana, Avery Schreiber and Liz Torres. In 1978, on a Boston Pops TV special, Vereen performed a tribute to Bert Williams, complete with period makeup and attire, reprising Williams' high-kick dance steps, to vaudeville standards such as "Waitin' for the Robert E. Lee". In 1981, Vereen performed at Ronald Reagan's first inauguration; the performance generated controversy. Before the finale, ABC cut the live performance, generating confusion and anger from viewers at home, he was cast opposite Jeff Goldblum in Brown Shoe. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Vereen worked on television with projects ranging from the sitcom Webster to the drama Silk Stalkings. In 1985, Vereen starred in the Faerie Tale Theatre series as Puss in Boots alongside Gregory Hines, he appeared on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air episode, “Papa’s Got a Brand New Excuse", in which he played Will Smith's biological father, Lou Smith.
He made several appearances on the 1980s sitcom Webster as the title character's biological uncle. He appeared as Mayor Ben on the children's program Zoobilee Zoo and as Itsy Bitsy Spider in Mother Goose Rock'n' Rhyme. In 1993 he appeared in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Interface" as the father of Roots co-star LeVar Burton's character Geordi La Forge. In Roots, Vereen had played "Chicken George", the grandson of Burton's character Kunta Kinte, he appeared on the television series The Nanny episode "Pishke Business". In 2010, he appeared on the television series How I Met Your Mother episodes "Cleaning House" and "False Positive" as Sam Gibbs, the long lost father of James Gibbs, Barney Stinson's brother, he returned in 2014 for another two episodes. Sweet Charity Gas-s-s-s Funny Lady All That Jazz This Boxer Wears a Shirt Cycling Through China Sabine The Zoo Gang Buy & Cell Once Upon a Forest Why Do Fools Fall in Love I'll Take You There The Painting Idlewild And Then Came Love Tapioca Accidental Friendship Mama, I Want to Sing!
Broadway: The Next Generation Khumba Mkhulu the Elder Zebra Time Out of Mind Dixon Top Five Ben Vereen... Comin' at Ya Louis Armstrong - Chicago Style The Muppet Show Roots The Carol Burnett Show The Sentry Collection Presents Ben Vereen: His Roots Tenspeed and Brown Shoe Pippin: His Life and Times The Love Boat SCTV 1984 The Charmkins The Jesse Owens Story Ellis Island Webster A. D; the Magic of David Copperfield VIII: Walking Through the Great Wall of China Lost in London roots Faerie Tale Theatre Puss in Boots Zoobilee Zoo You Write the Songs Jenny's Song J. J. Starbuck Rockin' Through the Decades The Kid Who Loved Christmas Mother Goose Rock'n' Rhyme Booker: "The Life and Death of Chick Sterling" Silk Stalkings Intruders Star Trek: The Nex
Miriam Makeba
Zenzile Miriam Makeba, nicknamed Mama Africa, was a South African singer, actress, United Nations goodwill ambassador, civil rights activist. Associated with musical genres including Afropop and world music, she was an advocate against apartheid and white-minority government in South Africa. Born in Johannesburg to Swazi and Xhosa parents, Makeba was forced to find employment as a child after the death of her father, she had a brief and abusive first marriage at the age of 17, gave birth to her only child in 1950, survived breast cancer. Her vocal talent had been recognized when she was a child, she began singing professionally in the 1950s, with the Cuban Brothers, the Manhattan Brothers, an all-woman group, the Skylarks, performing a mixture of jazz, traditional African melodies, Western popular music. In 1959, Makeba had a brief role in the anti-apartheid film Come Back, which brought her international attention, led to her performing in Venice and New York City. In London, she met the American singer Harry Belafonte, who became a colleague.
She moved to New York City, where she became popular, recorded her first solo album in 1960. Her attempt to return to South Africa that year for her mother's funeral was prevented by the country's government. Makeba's career flourished in the United States, she released several albums and songs, her most popular being "Pata Pata". Along with Belafonte she received a Grammy Award for her 1965 album An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba, she testified against the South African government at the United Nations and became involved in the civil rights movement. She married Stokely Carmichael, a leader of the Black Panther Party, in 1968; as a result, she lost support among white Americans and faced hostility from the US government, leading her and Carmichael to move to Guinea. She continued to perform in African countries, including at several independence celebrations, she began to perform music more explicitly critical of apartheid. After apartheid was dismantled in 1990, Makeba returned to South Africa.
She continued recording and performing, including a 1991 album with Nina Simone and Dizzy Gillespie, appeared in the 1992 film Sarafina!. She was named a UN goodwill ambassador in 1999, campaigned for humanitarian causes, she died of a heart attack during a 2008 concert in Italy. Makeba was among the first African musicians to receive worldwide recognition, she brought African music to a Western audience, popularized the world music and Afropop genres. She made popular several songs critical of apartheid, became a symbol of opposition to the system after her right to return was revoked. Upon her death, former South African President Nelson Mandela said that "her music inspired a powerful sense of hope in all of us." Zenzile Miriam Makeba was born on 4 March 1932 in the black township near Johannesburg. Her Swazi mother, Christina Makeba, was a sangoma, or traditional healer, a domestic worker, her Xhosa father, Caswell Makeba, was a teacher. Makeba said that before she was conceived, her mother had been warned that any future pregnancy could be fatal.
Neither Miriam nor her mother seemed to survive after a difficult labour and delivery. Miriam's grandmother, who attended the birth muttered "uzenzile", a Xhosa word that means "you brought this on yourself", to Miriam's mother during her recovery, which inspired her to give her daughter the name "Zenzile"; when Makeba was eighteen days old, her mother was arrested and sentenced to a six-month prison term for selling umqombothi, a homemade beer brewed from malt and cornmeal. The family could not afford the small fine required to avoid a jail term, Miriam spent the first six months of her life in jail; as a child, Makeba sang in the choir of the Kilnerton Training Institute in Pretoria, an all-black Methodist primary school that she attended for eight years. Her talent for singing earned her praise at school. Makeba was baptised a Protestant, sang in church choirs, in English, Xhosa and Zulu; the family moved to the Transvaal. After her father's death, she was forced to find employment, she described herself as a shy person at the time.
Her mother worked for white families in Johannesburg, had to live away from her six children. Makeba lived for a large number of cousins in Pretoria. Makeba was influenced by her family's musical tastes, her father played the piano, his musical inclination was a factor in Makeba's family accepting what was seen as a risque choice of career. In 1949, Makeba married James Kubay, a policeman in training, with whom she had her only child, Bongi Makeba, in 1950. Makeba was diagnosed with breast cancer, her husband, said to have beaten her, left her shortly afterwards, after a two-year marriage. A decade she overcame cervical cancer via a hysterectomy. Makeba began her professional musical career with the Cuban Brothers, a South African all-male close harmony group, with whom she sang covers of popular American songs. Soon afterwards, at the age of 21, she joined a jazz group, the Manhattan Brothers, who sang a mixture of South African songs and pieces from popular African-American groups. Makeba was the only wo
Timbales
Timbales or pailas are shallow single-headed drums with metal casing. They are shallower than single-headed tom-toms, tuned much higher for their size; the player uses a variety of stick strokes, rim shots, rolls to produce a wide range of percussive expression during solos and at transitional sections of music, plays the shells of the drum or auxiliary percussion such as a cowbell or cymbal to keep time in other parts of the song. The shells are referred to as cáscara, the name of a rhythmic pattern common in salsa music, played on the shells of the timbales; the shells are made of metal, but some manufacturers offer shells of maple and other woods. The term timbal or timbales has been used in Cuba for two quite different types of drum. Timbales is the Spanish word for timpani, an instrument, imported into Cuba in the 19th century and used by wind orchestras known as orquestas típicas; these were the same general type of drum used in military bands slung either side of a horse, in classical orchestras.
These were, are, played with mallets. The timpani were replaced by pailas criollas, which were designed to be used by street bands. Pailas are always hit with straight batons. Hits are made on the metal sides. In a modern band the timbalero may have a trap set to switch to for certain numbers. Since the term timbales is used to refer to both timpani and pailas criollas, it is ambiguous when referring to bands playing the danzón in the 1900–1930 period. In French, timbales is the word for timpani, thus the French refer to Cuban timbales as timbales latines. In Brazil, the term timbal refers to an unrelated drum. Timbalitos or pailitas are small timbales with diameters of 6″, 8″, or 10″; the timbalitos are used to play the part of the bongos with sticks and are not used to play the traditional timbales part. Papaíto and Manny Oquendo were masters at playing the bongó part on timbalitos. Timbalitos are sometimes incorporated into expanded timbales set-ups, or incorporated into drum kits; the basic timbales part for danzón is called the baqueteo.
In the example below, the slashed noteheads indicate muted drum strokes, the regular noteheads indicate open strokes. The danzón was the first written music to be based on the organizing principle of sub-Saharan African rhythm, known in Cuba as clave. During the mambo era of the 1940s, timbalero s began to mount cowbells on their drums; the cowbells, or wood blocks may be mounted above and between the two timbales a little further from the player. The following four timbale bell patterns are based on the folkloric rumba cáscara part, they are written in 3-2 clave sequence. In the 1970s José Luis Quintana "Changuito" developed the technique of playing timbale and bongo bell parts when he held the timbales chair in the songo band Los Van Van; the example below shows the combined bell patterns. Tito Puente was seen in concerts, on posters and album covers, with seven or eight timbales in one set; the timbales were expanded with drum kit pieces, such as a kick or snare drum. By the late 1970s this became the norm in the genre known as songo.
Changuito and others brought funk influences into timbales playing. In contemporary timba bands, such as Calizto Oviedo, will use a timbales/drum kit hybrid; the original style of soloing on timbales is known as típico. Manny Oquendo played timbales solos famous for their tastefully sparse, straight forward típico phrasing; the following five measure excerpt is from a timbales solo by Oquendo on "Mambo." The clave pattern is written above for reference. Notice how the passage ends by coinciding with the strokes of clave. By the late 1940s and early 1950s, some timbaleros Tito Puente, began incorporating the rhythmic vocabulary of rumba quinto into their solos. Drummer John Dolmayan of System of a Down is known for using two mini timbales in his kit. Bud Gaugh of Sublime and Long Beach Dub Allstars used a single, high pitched timbal on his drumkit to the left of his snare during his years with those bands. Bud used his timbal for accents and transitions in the more reggae-influenced songs, but it is used in place of the snare on the song "Waiting for My Ruca" from 40 oz. to Freedom and Stand By Your Van.
He has not used the timbales in his recent bands Eyes Adrift and Del Mar due to the lack of reggae influence in those bands. The Ohio University Marching 110's drum line features four sets of timbales in the place of quads or quints, they are one of the few marching bands in the country to still employ timbales in their drum line. They employ four sets of dual tom toms to play the lower lines that a quad or quint would cover. A recent offshoot of the Washington DC funk genre of Go-Go known as the "Bounce Beat" features timbales as a predominant instrument. Dave Mackintosh uses a pair of 8" diameter attack timbales 9" and 11" deep made by Meinl Percussion to produce a similar sound to a pair of octobans. Meinl produce a set of mini timbales of traditional depth but 8" and 10" diameter suitable for drum kit usage. Timbales are traditionally played in: Danzón Mambo Cha-cha-cha Pachanga Descarga Salsa Songo Timba Latin jazz Latin rockOther Latin music genres such as cumbia sometimes incorporate this instrument in lieu of the
Manhattan School of Music
Manhattan School of Music is a private music conservatory in New York City. The school offers bachelors and doctoral degrees in the areas of classical and jazz performance and composition. Founded in 1917, the school is located on Claremont Avenue in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of New York City, adjacent to Broadway and West 122nd Street; the MSM campus was the home to The Institute of Musical Art until Juilliard migrated to the Lincoln Center area of Midtown Manhattan. The property was owned by the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum until The Institute of Musical Art purchased it in 1910; the campus of Columbia University resides close by, where it has been since 1895. Many of the students live in Andersen Hall; as of 2011, 75% of the students come from outside New York State and 31% come from outside the United States. Manhattan School of Music was founded in 1917–1918, by the pianist and philanthropist Janet D. Schenck, as the Neighborhood Music School. Located at the Union Settlement Association on East 104th St in Manhattan's East Harlem neighborhood, the school moved into a brownstone building at East 105th St. Pablo Casals and Harold Bauer were among the first of many distinguished artists who offered guidance to the school.
Its name was changed to Manhattan School of Music. In 1943, the artistic and academic growth of the school resulted in a charter amendment to grant the bachelor of music degree. Two subsequent amendments authorized the offering in 1947 of the master of music degree and, in 1974, the degree of doctor of musical arts. In 1956, Dr. Schenck retired and Metropolitan Opera baritone John Brownlee was appointed director, a title revised to president. President Brownlee initiated the idea of relocating the school to the Morningside Heights neighborhood. In 1969, George Schick, Metropolitan Opera conductor and opera coach, succeeded Brownlee as president and led the school's move to its present location, he created the opera program, while all other major school functions were managed by Senior Director Stanley Bednar. John O. Crosby and general director of the Santa Fe Opera, was appointed president in 1976, he was followed by Gideon W. Waldrop, appointed in 1986, Peter C. Simon in 1989. On July 1, 1992, Marta Casals Istomin was named president, a position which she held until October 2005 when she retired.
Dr. Robert Sirota, former director of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, took over the presidency in 2005, he was succeeded by James Gandre of Roosevelt University, effective May 2013. Manhattan School of Music offers undergraduate and doctoral programs. Classical majors, jazz majors, Pinchas Zukerman Performance Program majors, cross majors from Barnard College at Columbia, most musical theater majors all take part at the conservatory. MSM offers classical and musical theatre training, granting the following degrees: Bachelor of Music – voice, performance, jazz performance, musical theater Master of Music – voice, instrumental performance and vocal, conducting, orchestral performance, contemporary performance, jazz performance, jazz composition; the program was created by Luis Perez, has an artistic advisory committee that includes Broadway stars such as Victoria Clark, Joanna Gleason, Norm Lewis, Susan Stroman, Tommy Tune, Kelli O'Hara, Ted Chapin, Bebe Neuwrith, Christine Ebersole, Graciela Daniele, James Naughton, Shuler Hensley, Ron Raines and more.
Created in 2016, the program is being considered one of the top MT programs in the nation with a current acceptance rate of about 1.6%. Following the 2017-2018 academic year, Perez retired from his position as associate dean and chair of the Musical Theater Department; the program is now under the direction of Liza Gennaro, former professor at Indiana University and daughter of Tony-award winning choreographer Peter Gennaro. Liza Gennaro, David Loud, Andrew Gerle, Mana Allen, Sara Brians, Enrique Brown, Andrea Burns, Claudia Catania, Marshall L. Davis Jr. Beverly Emmons, Peter Flynn, Andy Gale, David Gallo, Randy Graff, Andrea Green, Yehuda Hyman, Ebone VanityZo Johnson, Sue Makkoo, Sam McKelton, Robin Morse, Ross Patterson, Evan Rees, Laura Sametz, Shane Schag, Blake Segal, Bob Stillman, Eleanor Taylor, Rachel Tucker, Brandon Vukovic. Manhattan School of Music offers a wide variety of live audience performance experiences for its students, it has 8 performance spaces. There are three major orchestras: The MSM Symphony, the Philharmonia, the Chamber Sinfonia.
In addition, many smaller ensembles are assembled for orchestral chamber music. The MSM Wind Ensemble performs throughout the year; the Jazz Arts program contains various ensembles, such as the Jazz Philharmonic, the Jazz Orchestra, Concert Jazz Band, Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra, Chamber Jazz Ensemble. Tactus, the ensemble for
Latin jazz
Latin jazz is a genre of jazz with Latin American rhythms. Although musicians continually expand its parameters, the term Latin jazz is understood to have a more specific meaning than "jazz from Latin America"; some Latin jazz employs rhythms that either have a direct analog in Africa, or exhibit an African influence. The two main categories of Latin jazz are: Afro-Cuban jazz – jazz rhythmically based on Cuban popular dance music with a rhythm section employing ostinato patterns or a clave. Afro-Brazilian jazz -- includes bossa jazz samba. African American music began incorporating Afro-Cuban musical motifs in the 19th century, when the habanera gained international popularity; the habanera was the first written music to be rhythmically based on an African motif. The habanera rhythm can be thought of as a combination of the backbeat. Wynton Marsalis considers tresillo to be the New Orleans "clave," although technically, the pattern is only half a clave. "St. Louis Blues" by W. C. Handy has a habanera-tresillo bass line.
Handy noted a reaction to the habanera rhythm included in Will H. Tyler's "Maori": "I observed that there was a sudden and graceful reaction to the rhythm... White dancers, as I had observed them, took the number in stride. I began to suspect that there was something Negroid in that beat." After noting a similar reaction to the same rhythm in "La Paloma", Handy included this rhythm in his "St. Louis Blues", the instrumental copy of "Memphis Blues", the chorus of "Beale Street Blues", other compositions. Jelly Roll Morton considered the tresillo-habanera to be an essential ingredient of jazz; the habanera rhythm can be heard in his left hand on songs like "The Crave". Now in one of my earliest tunes, “New Orleans Blues,” you can notice the Spanish tinge. In fact, if you can’t manage to put tinges of Spanish in your tunes, you will never be able to get the right seasoning, I call it, for jazz—Morton. Although the exact origins of jazz syncopation may never be known, there is evidence that the habanera-tresillo was there at its conception.
Buddy Bolden, the first known jazz musician, is credited with creating the big four, a habanera-based pattern. The big four was the first syncopated bass drum pattern to deviate from the standard on-the-beat march; as the example below shows, the second half of the big four pattern is the habanera rhythm. It is safe to say that by and large the simpler African rhythmic patterns survived in jazz... because they could be adapted more to European rhythmic conceptions. Some survived, others were discarded, it may account for the fact that patterns such as... remained one of the most useful and common syncopated patterns in jazz—Schuller. The Cuban influence is evident in many pre-1940s jazz tunes, but rhythmically, they are all based on single-celled motifs such as tresillo, not do not contain an overt two-celled, clave-based structure. "Caravan", written by Juan Tizol and first performed in 1936, is an early proto-Latin jazz composition. It is not clave-based; the first jazz piece to be overtly based in-clave, therefore, the first true Latin jazz piece, was "Tanga" composed by Mario Bauza and recorded by Machito and his Afro-Cubans the same year, 1943.
The tune was a descarga with jazz solos superimposed, spontaneously composed by Bauzá. The right hand of the "Tanga" piano guajeo is in the style known as ponchando, a type of non-arpeggiated guajeo using block chords; the sequence of attack-points is emphasized, rather than a sequence of different pitches. As a form of accompaniment it can be played in a repetitive fashion or as a varied motif akin to jazz comping; the following example is in the style of a 1949 recording by Machito. 2‐3 clave, piano by René Hernández. The first descarga that made the world take notice is traced to a Machito rehearsal on May 29, 1943, at the Park Palace Ballroom, at 110th Street and 5th Avenue. At this time, Machito was at Fort Dix in his fourth week of basic training; the day before at La Conga Club, Mario Bauza, Machito's trumpeter and music director, heard pianist Luis Varona and bassist Julio Andino play El Botellero composition and arrangements of the Cuban-born Gilberto Valdez which would serve as a permanent sign off tune.
On this Monday evening, Dr. Bauza leaned over the piano and instructed Varona to play the same piano vamp he did the night before. Varona's left hand began the introduction of Gilberto Valdes' El Botellero. Bauza instructed Julio Andino what to play; the broken chord sounds soon began to take shape into an Afro-Cuban jazzed up melody. Gene Johnson's alto sax emitted oriental-like jazz phrases. Afro-Cuban jazz was invented when Bauza composed "Tanga" that evening of 1943. Thereafter, whenever "Tanga" was played, it sounded different, depending on a soloist's individuality. In August 1948, when trumpeter Howard McGhee soloed with Machito's orchestra at the Apollo Theatre, his ad-libs to "Tanga" resulted in "Cu-Bop City," a tune, recorded by Roost Records months later; the jams which took place at the Royal Roots, Bop City and Birdland between 1948 and 1949, when Howard McGhee, tenor saxophonist Brew Moore, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie sat in with the Machito orchestra, were unrehearsed, unheard-of-before jam sessions which at the time, master of ceremonies Symphony Sid called Afro-Cuban jazz.
The Machito orchestra's ten- or fifteen-minute jams were the first in Latin music to break away from
Virtual International Authority File
The Virtual International Authority File is an international authority file. It is a joint project of several national libraries and operated by the Online Computer Library Center. Discussion about having a common international authority started in the late 1990s. After a series of failed attempts to come up with a unique common authority file, the new idea was to link existing national authorities; this would present all the benefits of a common file without requiring a large investment of time and expense in the process. The project was initiated by the US Library of Congress, the German National Library and the OCLC on August 6, 2003; the Bibliothèque nationale de France joined the project on October 5, 2007. The project transitioned to being a service of the OCLC on April 4, 2012; the aim is to link the national authority files to a single virtual authority file. In this file, identical records from the different data sets are linked together. A VIAF record receives a standard data number, contains the primary "see" and "see also" records from the original records, refers to the original authority records.
The data are available for research and data exchange and sharing. Reciprocal updating uses the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting protocol; the file numbers are being added to Wikipedia biographical articles and are incorporated into Wikidata. VIAF's clustering algorithm is run every month; as more data are added from participating libraries, clusters of authority records may coalesce or split, leading to some fluctuation in the VIAF identifier of certain authority records. Authority control Faceted Application of Subject Terminology Integrated Authority File International Standard Authority Data Number International Standard Name Identifier Wikipedia's authority control template for articles Official website VIAF at OCLC
Bette Midler
Bette Midler is an American singer, actress and film producer. Born in Honolulu, Midler began her professional career in several Off-Off-Broadway plays, prior to her engagements in Fiddler on the Roof and Salvation on Broadway in the late 1960s, she came to prominence in 1970 when she began singing in the Continental Baths, a local gay bathhouse where she managed to build up a core following. Since 1970, Midler has released 14 studio albums as a solo artist. Throughout her career, many of her songs became hits on the record charts, including her renditions of "The Rose", "Wind Beneath My Wings", "Do You Want to Dance", "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy", "From a Distance". In 2008, she signed a contract with Caesars Palace in Las Vegas to perform a show titled Bette Midler: The Showgirl Must Go On, which ended in 2010. Midler made her motion picture debut in 1979 with The Rose, which earned her a Golden Globe for Best Actress, as well as a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress, she has since starred in a number of hit films, which include: Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Ruthless People, Outrageous Fortune, Big Business, Hocus Pocus, The First Wives Club, The Stepford Wives, Parental Guidance.
She starred in For the Boys and Gypsy, winning two additional Golden Globes for these films and receiving a second Academy Award nomination for the former. In a career spanning half a century, Midler has won three Grammy Awards, four Golden Globes, three Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, she has sold over 30 million records worldwide, has received four Gold, three Platinum, three Multiplatinum albums by RIAA. Midler's latest work included appearing on Broadway in a revival of Hello, Dolly!, which began preview performances on March 15, 2017 and premiered at the Shubert Theatre on April 20, 2017. It was her first leading role in a Broadway musical. On June 11, 2017, Midler received the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for the title role in Hello, Dolly!. Bette Midler was born in Honolulu, where her family was one of the few Jewish families in a Asian neighborhood, her mother, was a seamstress and housewife, her father, Fred Midler, worked at a Navy base in Hawaii as a painter, was a housepainter.
Both parents were born in New Jersey. She was named after actress Bette Davis, though Davis pronounced her first name in two syllables, Midler uses one, she attended Radford High School, in Honolulu. She was voted "Most Talkative" in the 1961 school Hoss Election, "Most Dramatic" in her senior year. Midler left after three semesters, she earned money in the 1966 film Hawaii as an extra, playing an uncredited seasick passenger named Miss David Buff. Midler married artist Martin von Haselberg on December 16, 1984, about six weeks after their first meeting, their daughter, Sophie von Haselberg, an actress, was born on November 14, 1986. Midler relocated to New York City in the summer of 1965, using money from her work in the film Hawaii, she studied theatre at HB Studio under Uta Hagen. She landed her first professional onstage role in Tom Eyen's Off-Off-Broadway plays in 1965, Miss Nefertiti Regrets and Cinderella Revisited, a children's play by day and an adult show by night. From 1966 to 1969, she played the role of Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway.
After Fiddler, she joined the original cast of Salvation in 1969. She began singing in the Continental Baths, a gay bathhouse in the Ansonia Hotel, 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. 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, I'm still proud of those days. I feel like I was at the forefront of the gay liberation movement, I hope I did my part to help it move forward. So, I kind of wear the label of'Bathhouse Betty' with pride."Midler starred in the first professional production of the Who's rock opera Tommy in 1971, with director Richard Pearlman and the Seattle Opera. It was during the run of Tommy. Midler released her debut album, The Divine Miss M, on Atlantic Records in December 1972; the album was co-produced by Barry Manilow, Bette's arranger and music conductor at the time.
It reached Billboard's Top 10 and became a million-selling Platinum-certified album, earning Midler the 1973 Grammy Award for Best New Artist. It featured three hit singles—"Do You Wanna Dance?", "Friends", "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy"—the third of which became Midler's first No. 1 Adult Contemporary hit. "Bugle Boy" became a successful rock cover of the classic swing tune introduced and popularized in 1941 by the Andrews Sisters, to whom Midler has referred as her idols and inspiration, as far back as her first appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Midler told Carson in an interview that she always wanted to move like the sisters, Patty Andrews remembered: "When I first heard the introduction on the radio, I thought it was our old record; when Bette opened at the Amphitheater in Los Angeles, Maxene and I went backstage to see her. Her first words were,'What else did you record?'" During another Midler concert, Maxene presented her with an honorary bugle. Bette recorded other Andrews Sisters hits, including "In the Mood" and "Lullaby of Broadway".
Her self-titled follow-up album was released at
