Gay icon Own Kind of Music" and "Different") and free love. Her music was later featured in the acclaimed gay film "Beautiful Thing" (1996), adapted from the play of the same name. Singer and actress Bette Midler became recognized as a gay icon in the 1970s. After performing on Broadway, Midler began performing at the Continental Baths, a gay bathhouse in the city, where she became close to her piano accompanist Barry Manilow, who produced her first major album "The Divine Miss M" (1973). "Despite the way things turned out [with the AIDS crisis], I'm still proud of those days [singing at
The Best of Bette (1981 album) The Best of Bette (1981 album) The Best of Bette is a compilation album by American singer Bette Midler, released on the K-tel label in Australia and New Zealand in 1981. The album was the second compilation to use the title "The Best of Bette", the previous version with different cover art and an entirely different track list having been released on the Atlantic Records label in both the UK, Continental Europe, Scandinavia, Australia and New Zealand in 1978. The K-tel compilation is highly notable in Midler's discography for a number of reasons, the first of them being that it