We all have to start somewhere. This is especially true when creating a career in the arts. You have to work your way up. Bette Middler launched her singing career at the Continental Baths in New York City. It was a gay bathhouse.
Bette opened up about this to Whispering Bob Harris on The Old Grey Whistle Test. The interview was conducted in 1973. This was before Bette was well known in the United Kingdom.
The Continental was opened in 1968 by Steve Ostrow. It was located at the Ansonia Hotel on New York's Upper West Side. A video from 1971 shows Bette’s set. During her performance she joked: “I didn’t expect to be back so soon … They had me booked at Fire Island … I was supposed to work at Cherry Grove — I was supposed to sing. But they couldn’t find room for me in the bushes.”
Bette started in theater but wanted more. “I decided I had really felt a need to express myself so I started singing these little dumps,” she explained to Bob. She began to sing at “small clubs and, uh, brothels.” She worked her way up to “the concert hall area.”
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Regardless of where Bette performs, she values connecting with an audience. “I’m one of the few women around who actually relates to the audience you know, individually, and as a unit … I think that’s my main attraction, my main charm because I really like them, I really enjoy them,” she mused to Bob.
To learn more about Bette’s bathhouse days, watch this video.
