Bette Midler, named after Bette Davis, was born to Fred and Ruth Midler in Honolulu, Hawaii on December 1, 1945. Bette's father was a house painter and her mother was a movie fanatic housewife. Bette grew up with her two older sisters Judith, named after Judy Garland, and Susan, named after Susan Hayward, and her younger brother, Daniel, who was mentally disabled.

When Bette was young, she attended several plays and musicals, which sparked her interest in the theatre. During school, Bette would partake in talent shows, where she won the $2 first prize for her rendition of “Lullaby of Broadway,” a song Bette still sings to this day. After graduating high school, Bette got a bit part in the movie “Hawaii” where she earned enough money to move to New York, hoping someone would discover her.

In 1966, after many odd jobs, Bette landed a part in the chorus of “Fiddler on the Roof,” and later moved up to the role of the daughter Tizel. Bette’s sister Judith had come from Hawaii to see Bette on the stage, but on her way to the theatre she was struck by speeding taxi cab and killed instantly. It was hard for Bette to continue doing the show every night, and so in

, she decided that part of her life was done and she moved on to bigger and better things.

In 1970, Bette started performing at small nightclubs for free where Steve Ostrow, the man who ran the Continental Baths, noticed her. He offered her a job immediately and Bette began creating her unbelievable act and alter ego, “The Divine Miss M.” Bette would perform songs like “Delta Dawn,” “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” and Superstar - a song made popular by The Carpenters.

Bette was a great hit and began performing at other clubs such as The Bitter End where Ahmet Ertugun, the president of Atlantic Records, stumbled upon her act. He was amazed at her talent, and how the audience adored her, and offered her a recording career on the spot.

In 1972, Bette began working on her first album, “The Divine Miss M,” and took a cross-country tour exposing unsuspecting Americans to her “trash with flash” act. When the album was released in late 1972, after 9 months in the making, Bette began a larger scale tour that hit all the main cities in the US and Canada. She called the tour "The Divine Miss M Tour," to correlate with her new album, and both the tour and album turned out to be a huge success. The album peaked at #9 on Billboard's Top 200 Chart and spawned several hit singles, such as “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” and “Do You Want to Dance?” During the 1974 Grammy awards, Bette was awarded a Grammy for “Best New Artist.” Also in 1974, Bette debuted in the low budget film "The Divine Mr. J." it was later called "The Thorn."

With great reviews on Bette's first album, she began work on her second self-titled album, Bette Midler. The album went gold immediately and peaked at #9, but it was released to horrible reviews. Jon Landau, of Rolling Stone, wrote such horrible things that it devastated Bette to the point of felling completely worthless as a human being and caused her to have a nervous breakdown. Bette took the next year off to relax and reinvent herself.

When Bette returned in 1975, she had a brand new show, “Clams On The Half Shell Revue.” Nobody, including Bette, had any idea of how successful the show would be, but it ended up breaking all Broadway records, and had to be extended two months to keep up with the demand. The show ran from April 14,

he tour and album turned out to be a huge success. The album peaked at #9 on Billboard's Top 200 Chart and spawned several hit singles, such as “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” and “Do You Want to Dance?” During the 1974 Grammy awards, Bette was awarded a Grammy for “Best New Artist.” Also in 1974, Bette debuted in the low budget film "The Divine Mr. J." it was later called "The Thorn."

With great reviews on Bette's first album, she began work on her second self-titled album, Bette Midler. The album went gold immediately and peaked at #9, but it was released to horrible reviews. Jon Landau, of Rolling Stone, wrote such horrible things that it devastated Bette to the point of felling completely worthless as a human being and caused her to have a nervous breakdown. Bette took the next year off to relax and reinvent herself.

When Bette returned in 1975, she had a brand new show, “Clams On The Half Shell Revue.” Nobody, including Bette, had any idea of how successful the show would be, but it ended up breaking all Broadway records, and had to be extended two months to keep up with the demand. The show ran from April 14, to June 21st. While working on “Clams” Bette also was working on her third album, “Songs For The New Depression.” It was released to melancholy reviews and only peaked at #27 on the Billboard Charts. The album was produced by Moogy Klingman.

In 1976, Bette set out on another cross-country tour entitled “The Depression Tour,” which she hoped would help album sales of her latest album. The show, as with “Clams,” was very successful, and was turned into a critically acclaimed HBO TV special called "The Fabulous Bette Midler Show." The tour also spawned the album "Live at Last," which to this day encompasses every essence of what a live Bette Midler show is like.

In 1977, she released her fourth studio album, “Broken Blossom” and starred in her first TV special “Ol’ Red Hair Is Back.” The album was critically successful, gaining a lot of positive reviews, but the sales were no comparison to her first two albums. Her special however got great reviews and even won an Emmy award for best variety show. Bette went on a smaller based tour to promote the album called "An Intimate Evening With Bette," singing many new and old songs, along with her infamous vulgar jokes

In 1978, after long negotiations, Bette stepped into her first film role as Mary Rose Foster, in the film “The Rose,” about a self-destructive rock-singer loosely based on the life of Janis Joplin. All of Bette's performances were done live to extras, who were each paid $50 to cheer, but as the night ended, they didn’t need the money to cheer, and would have done it for free.

While “The Rose” was in postproduction, Bette took a highly successful world tour all over Europe and Australia! “The Rose” proved to be a great success for Bette, and she was nominated for many awards, including films highest honor, an Academy Award. Bette lost the Oscar to Sally Field, but won two Golden Globe for her riveting performance.

Bette's new passion was acting, and she wanted to peruse more of it! With her new hit single “The Rose” from the soundtrack of the film, more and more people were becoming fans of Bette’s, and wanted to see more of her! Bette went on tour to satisfy those fans, which became one of her most successful ever, called “Divine Madness." The tour was so successful that it inspired a live-concert film