Bette Midler The Showgirl Must Go On

The 'Divine Miss M' blows into Vegas

By Jerry Fink

Sometimes the rumors are true.

Bette Midler has replaced Celine Dion at the Colosseum.

Midler signed a two-year contract to perform one 90-minute show per night on select dates.

The 61-year-old Midler, born in New Jersey and raised in Hawaii, has been entertaining fans with her high-energy performances for more than 40 years. In 1970 she and piano accompanist Barry Manilow performed in the bath houses in New York City. Manilow produced her first major album, "The Divine Miss M," in 1972.

Midler recently discussed her Caesars engagement by phone from her home in New York City.

Q. Have you gotten any taller since your "Divine Miss Millennium" performance at Mandalay Bay on Dec. 31, 1999?

No, but I haven't gotten any shorter.

The Colosseum has a huge stage. Are you concerned about being dwarfed by the size?

No. I'm going to wear high heels.

Your old friend and accompanist Barry Manilow is just down the street, at the Las Vegas Hilton. Have you talked to him about his show?

Yes. He's really having a great time. He's really enjoying himself. He told me he loves it there.

Did he influence your decision to accept the deal with Caesars?

He did tell me how much fun he was having. He did say it was the most fun he'd ever had, and that's a good recommendation.

What motivated you to make the deal?

I love my show. I've been doing this show on and off for 35 years and every year they get a little bit bigger and harder to haul around. You go from one truck to two trucks, from two trucks to five trucks and five to 10 and once you get to 14 trucks you really feel bad. I really wanted to just sit in one place and see what I could come up with if I only sat in one place and didn't have to pack up every night. So, this is an opportunity to do it. The Colosseum is an absolutely world-class theater. I thought I would die when I saw it. My God it's uncanny. It's just unbelievable. It's like an opera house. When the opportunity came up and I saw what other people were doing in it I thought, "I think I can do it." I had some confidence that I wasn't going to drown in the experience. But I've been wrong before. Who knows what's going to happen.

It's a kind of a challenge. What can I do imaginatively? How can I use this theater in the most imagin ative way that would serve me and my group the most?

Compare what you are going to do with what Celine has done at the Colosseum.

I thought what she did was very brave and I thought she was fabulous. I thought her dancing has gotten so brilliant. She didn't have any trouble holding the stage. She had a lot of kids on the stage. I probably won't have that many. I think I talk 15 times more than she does. I talk and I tell jokes and I run around in a fish tail. And I have nudes. She doesn't have nudes.

So you like her show?

I thought her show was fabulous. Really, truly fabulous. After I saw it I thought, "Holy cow. What am I going to do? How can I top that?" Everybody tried to calm me down and said : "Well, you know you're not Celine. She has one of the most beautiful voices on Earth and you know that's not what you do." And I realized what I mainly do is I mainly make people laugh. Sometimes I make them cry. I have a peculiar take on life, which is somewhat irreverent. We're not too high-tech and we're not too low-tech and we like to have a good time. I think it's going to be fun. It's going to be great fun.

What will you be doing in the show?

We're going to sing as many hits as we can scrounge up. Some old songs. Some brand - new songs. Do some production numbers with nudes and some surprises. I think it's going to be fun. It's only an hour and a half. I'm used to doing two hours, so I don't think it's going to be too hard.

Celine's show was created by Franco Dragone, who worked with Cirque du Soleil for many years ("O," "Mystere"). Her show has a kind of a Cirque feel to it, very artistic. What will your's be like?

We're certainly going to be artful, too. Everybody wants to be artful. Nobody wants to be hack. So we're going to be as artful as we can in revealing our low-rent self.

Showgirls?

We're definitely going for the showgirls. We're definitely going to have feathers. We're definitely going to have lots of things that sparkle because people love things that sparkle, and I do, too. It's going to be a very feminine show and I think it's going to be very lively and colorful, but more than anything else it's going to be funny. And that's the key because there's not that much funny going on and that's what people like the most.

Might you move to Vegas?

I don't expect to buy a big mansion. I'm very modest in some ways and very flamboyant in other ways. I'm trying very hard to be a good citizen and have a small carbon foot print and all that crap. I'm not sure what we're going to do because I don't know the town well enough. I came in a couple of days and drove around and tried to assess what life is like there on a day-to-day basis, not just sitting in a penthouse in a hotel, which can also be very nice, but I also want to be in a place that has windows that I can open. That's very important to me. I like to be near certain amenities. I don't know. I don't know what the town has to offer. Someone will take me in hand, I'm sure, and help me out.

Is there anything else you can say about the show?

We're just starting to put it together now. I don't know what any of the numbers are or what any of it means. I've never worked with a cast as big as Celine's. It's kind of intimidating to have that many people on a stage with you. We're just putting it together now. It's very, very preliminary. There's so much you could do. The possibilities are limitless. The stage, the theater. It was built so you could do whatever you can think of.