one month from tonight i Experience the Divine

Divine Miss Midler becomes sassy Vegas 'Showgirl'



Showgirl is very much a ladies club, and so were the sets of Bette Midler's upcoming films.


By William Keck, USA TODAY

LAS VEGAS — A New Day is over. Make way for The Showgirl.

One level beneath the Colosseum theater at Caesars Palace, a five-room, two-bath dressing room is undergoing a renovation — evidenced by an open book of fabric swatches left in a hallway. The previous tenant, Celine Dion, moved out Dec. 15. And the new resident is the divine Miss Bette Midler, who wasted no time putting her own touches on the subterranean suite.

In place of Dion's dining room table is a Steinway used by Frank Sinatra during his 1970s Caesars appearances — rescued after many years of gathering dust in storage. Among other new additions: several plates featuring images of showgirls in various states of dress hand-painted by a family friend.

After wrapping a two-year Kiss My Brass world tour in Australia in 2005, this is where Midler will get herself gussied up five nights a week for the next two years, performing her over-the-top, 90-minute The Showgirl Must Go On. It follows the nearly five-year run of Dion's A New Day.

Curled up on a living room sofa, Midler recalls Dion telling her, " 'It's a great gig, but there are pitfalls.' And thank God she told me, 'cause I was a babe in the woods."

FIND MORE STORIES IN: Vegas | Celine Dion | Caesars Palace | Cher | Barry Manilow | Bette Midler | A New Day | Bette | Showgirl | Toni Basil

Midler had heard frightening tales of the desert's dry heat causing a dreaded condition known as "Las Vegas throat," so she has carefully heeded Dion's advice before relocating from New York City. "She gave me all her doctors' (phone numbers)," says Midler. "She said, 'Don't talk during the day,' and told me, 'Beware of the wind.' She had humidification built under the stage and into this dressing room. She cranked it. It was like the Amazon in here, and I intend to keep it the same."

Multiple thermostats and a vaporizer tucked in a corner are some of the aids that will help this 62-year-old showgirl go on night after night.

"We've got vaporizers everywhere," she concedes.

There were other concerns: "I was afraid of where I was going to go to run around. I was afraid of the heat. But this is the gig," she fearlessly proclaims. "I'm going to do it, and it's going to be great!"

Renovations are also taking place above in the 4,100-seat auditorium. The 120-foot stage will feature a new sound system and lighting, and Dion's stage-wide video wall will be reprogrammed to display different images. "Either you hide that sucker or you program it, so we have had to program it," Midler explains. "Every five minutes it's a new film, and we got some good ones."

Among the faces who will be in the audience at her Feb. 20 debut are Midler's husband of 23 years, artist Martin von Haselberg, and their 21-year-old daughter, Sophie, who (to her mother's great relief) has zero interest in showbiz. Currently completing a major in sociology and a minor in Asian studies, Sophie speaks fluent Chinese and plans to work in China after she graduates later this year. The family came together in China last year for Sophie's birthday.

Before this stint, the longest Midler had ever spent in Sin City was a one-week gig in the '80s alongside Johnny Carson, but she has been able to put her "reservations" aside and is hopeful that she will eventually grow to feel at home.

While Dion had a compound built for her far away from The Strip, Midler is, for the time being, without a permanent Nevada address. "I'm just sort of floating around," she says, vaguely explaining she's staying somewhere "in the area" — which suits her just fine. "Celine lived really far away, and I don't like to drive for 45 minutes because I'm an environmentalist who likes to take the shortest route possible."

After the show's up and running, she'll look for more permanent digs. Her husband will rent a studio to work on his painting, having moved on from the photography and performance art of his earlier years.

With no interest in gambling, Midler says her dream routine will involve sleeping in, eating a small meal, taking a run on her treadmill and warming up her vocal cords for rehearsals and evening performances.

When time permits, she will socialize with local friends, including boxing promoter Bob Arum and his wife, Lovee; Elton John, who is still performing his Red Piano gig at Caesars; "and I know that Cher Bono is coming," she says with a bit of excitement.

Longtime pal Barry Manilow is also in town regularly to perform at the Las Vegas Hilton. "Barry says this is the best gig he ever had in his life — he loves it!" she says. And "Elton has told me that he loves it. He likes the idea that it's only 10 weeks a year and he's free to do other gigs."

Aside from punch-up comic Bruce Vilanch, longtime set decorator Bob DeMora, a few men in her horn section and her security detail, Midler's posse is one big girl's club. In addition to her main backup dancers, the Harlettes (who feel at home lounging in her living room as they are this afternoon), Midler has employed musical director Bette Sussman and Toni Basil (yes, that Toni Basil, of Hey Mickey MTV fame) as choreographer of 20 female dancers.

Being part of the Midler sorority, says Sussman, is "loads of fun, but a lot of work."

"Hell's-a-poppin'," concurs Basil, who has worked with Midler since the mid-'70s. "With the kind of shows we put on, work is work. The laughing and fun comes later over dinner or out shopping."

Basil will be raising Midler above the stage via motorized platforms, while Sussman has incorporated such Midler standards as Wind Beneath My Wings, From a Distance, Do You Want to Dance and Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, but — shockingly —The Rose may need to be cut for time to make way for such new songs as the big opening number, The Showgirl Must Go On, and one that is Midler's comedic take on Sophie Tucker.

Midler is committed to creating what she calls "a really feminine show — feminine dancing, feminine costumes. I want it to be beautiful and call up another era."

Before she was clued in that nudes are "not encouraged" at mainstream casinos like Caesars, Midler had planned to feature bare-naked ladies — though, good heavens, not her own: "Who wants to see me nude?" she cracks. "The word I got is that they're not happy to have the French kind of nude — nude all the way down to the ground, which I personally find beautiful. They'll go for pasties and G-strings," of which there will be plenty, she assures.

Midler also will revive her repertoire of loony ladies. Among the colorful characters she will embody: Delores Delago, the wheelchair-using mermaid (Basil will fill the stage with mermaids in chairs for what she calls an "extravaganza"); and old, old Soph, the oldest living Vegas showgirl. It is a character to which Midler can now sadly relate. "I tell ya, I'm hanging on by a thread," she says with a sigh.

Bull, counters Basil: "She's probably doing more physicality than she has ever done. People think, 'At her age, she can't be running across the stage as much as she did 10 years ago.' But let me tell you, she is!"

Midler likes to credit her hair and makeup team (as well as flattering lighting) for her youthful appearance, but there is ample evidence to her own contributions. On her lunch plate are berries and fruit slices — accounting for her trim shape in tight-fitting jeans. She has long avoided the harmful rays of the sun and for several years has studied tai chi, a martial art she picked up from her husband.

"It really is very rejuvenating and gets the blood going," she says. "It's gentle pushing and pulling, very good for the knees."

Midler will be 65 when her run concludes in 2010, and she says that unlike Dion, who extended her run by almost two years, she plans to get out upon the completion of her contract.

"I'm much older than Celine is," Midler says of her predecessor, 39. "Physically I'm in good shape right now, but I can't tell what's going to happen to me. Life doesn't go on forever. You have to ask yourself, 'How many summers and winters do I have?' and I really don't want to die on stage. When you're done, you're done. I just want to go in my sleep. I have sleep apnea, so I kind of know what that's like. I wake up screaming a lot."

No one will name a specific dollar figure, but Sussman notes that the two-year run will give Midler "freedom for the rest of her life."

With Manilow, at 64, Cher, 61, and John, 60, Midler is part of a community of older performers exploiting the pool of tourists and high-rollers in this neon desert. Midler says she feels as energetic as she was 10 years ago — crediting good genes from a long line of family members who "are speedy and don't shrink."

Does that suggest she has no need for plastic surgery?

"What are you trying to get me to say?" she shrewdly shoots back, raising an inquisitive brow that actually moves. Up close, Midler's skin appears flawless with no signs of the stretching other divas her age have obviously undergone.

After a reassuring chuckle, Midler asks, "Why would you want to do that to your body? You only have one body, and if you beat the crap out of it, what are you going to have left? You might have a nice shell, but then you have these organs inside screaming, 'My days are numbered!' "

Then with a shrug, she adds: "Although I'm sure when I die, I'll collapse into a heap and be unrecognizable. I'll melt and there will no longer be a Bette Midler. And I'm sure a lot of people will be really happy about that."