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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 5, 2005)
FILM ......... ▼............. We believe you are pei let I just the way you are. Rose City Mortgage Specialists supports diversity, gay pride, Best Bettes New DVDs celebrate the Divine Miss M by F loyd S klaver community, and dogs. 503.768.4248 w ww. Rosei ityMtq.com GLASS JEWELRY W ashington S quare CERAMIC WOOD METAL D owntown P ortland ■ 503.620.2243 503.223.9510 WWW.THEREALMOTHERGOOSE.COM FURNITURE FIBER P ortland A irport 503.284.9929 CUSTOM JEWELRY DESIGN AVAILABLE I Satisfy your need for speed and your sense of adventure with an Outrayeous excursion to one of three destinations: To Historic Astoria - Enjoy a colorful account of Lewis 6 Clark's push to the Pacific as your travel to beautiful Astoria, the "San Francisco of the Northwest." To Bonneville Dam 6 Colombia Gorge - Multnomah Falls, Beacon Rock, Bonneville CUim and more. No other stretch of waterway in the world offers so much grandeur. To Kelly Point - This convergence of the tranquil Willamette and mighty Columbia is steeped in frontier history and folklore. PortUnJ for information and reservations: OUTRAGEOUS Columbia River Adventurer 503-224-3900 • 800-224-3901 www.outrageousjetboat.com ince blasting onto the cabaret scene in 1969, Bette Midler has been one of gaydom’s favorite stars. With her brash and brassy brio, she personified our inner outrageousness as well as our hidden vulnerabilities. Throughout five decades of perform ing, Midler has won Grammys, Emmys, Golden Globes, Oscar nominations and a Tony Award. She is considered by many to be rhe greatest live performer of our generation. Two Midler DVDs are now available: a documentary about the superstar and a special edition of 1988’s Beaches. The Divine Bette Midler is a 135- minute documentary that aired on A&E’s Biography last year. Using the typ ical Biography format of clips interspersed by interviews with and about the star, it follows Midler from humble beginnings as the only Jewish kid in her Hawaiian neighborhixxl through her triumphs on stage, her meteoric rise and fall (and renaissance) as a screen star and the BETTE MURARA latest stage concerts MIDLER HERSHEY (most recently appearing in spectacular moment and worth the Portland in Febm- soMt F rii Ntmurs I avi forivir price of the DVD alone. ary ’04). Besides the documentary, The Since Midler is Divine Bette Midler features com best known for comedy and her plete performances from the TV specials Diva Las Vegas and Old Red outrageous alter ego, The Divine M iss M, Hair Is Back, deleted scenes from it’s hard to remem the documentary and expanded ber that she began interviews. (Unfortunately, the as a torch singer. bonus features were not available on the screening copy.) With rarely seen “Oh, my God, it’s Beaches. I’m early footage includ ing dips of smoky going to start crying already,” direc nightclub appear tor Garry Marshall says at the ances, her premiere beginning of his delightful commen tary about Midler’s eighth starring performance among towel-clad men at New York City’s Continen film role. With bonus tracks aplenty—includ tal Baths (accompanied by Barry Manilow on ing a revealing interview with Mayim Bialik, piano), her performance in the Broadway cast who played Midler’s younger self—and co-star of Fiddler on the Roof and her first appearance Barbara Hershey’s screen test, this DVD is a on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (she welcome addition to any Midler fan’s library. appeared 24 times, including as Carson’s final Beaches came at a time when Midler’s film guest when he retired), the documentary pro- career was finally revived. Her first starring vides a complete picture of a vast career that film, The Rose, had catapulted her to star status spans more than 40 years. (Her flop TV sitcom but was followed by the atrocious Jinxed, which Bette is quickly—and wisely—glossed over.) did exactly that to her career. It took four years According to Midler, “When the torch before a studio would take another chance on songs didn’t go over, I told jokes.” And what her. But when Down and Out in Beverly Hills, jokes they were: raunchy and uncensored and from Disney’s lower-budget Touchstone divi indicative of the newly burgeoning sexual revo sion, was a hit, suddenly Midler was hot again. lution. By being outrageous, Midler was prepar She made Ruthless People, Outrageous Fortune ing for the age of gay liberation, and her con and Big Business within a short period and fol certs were equal parts music ^theater and per lowed them up with Beaches, a screen adapta formance art. tion of the weepy novel that follows best • While enthusiasm for “The Diva of All friends over 30 years of loves and losses. Beaches contains Midler’s biggest-selling Divas” has waned slightly in the gay communi song, “Wind Beneath My Wings.” And ty since she questioned the validity of same-sex whether you love or hate it (both the song and marriage on Larry King Live, nothing prepared me for the emotional wallop I felt while watch the film), Marshall’s commentary is always ing her 2001 performance at the memorial thorough and entertaining. The director of The service for victims of 9/11. Singing “Wind Princess Diaries and Pretty Woman wins us with Beneath My Wings” to a stadium filled with witty observations and tongue-in-cheek jokes, dignitaries, heroes and mourners, there’s not a and his candid honesty about filmmaking and dry eye in the house (or my living room) as she Beaches is refreshing. JM brings heart-wrenching gravitas to a song that had become a banal wedding cliché. It is a FLOYD S klaver once auditioned to he a Harlette. BEACHES
