Gay bathhouse (陣屋)" were built in the 1970s. Singer Bette Midler is well known for getting her start at the famous Continental Baths in New York City in the early 1970s, where she earned the nickname Bathhouse Betty. It was there, accompanied by pianist Barry Manilow (who, like the bathhouse patrons, sometimes wore only a white towel), that she created her stage persona "the Divine Miss M." On getting her start in bathhouses, Midler has remarked: Despite the way things turned out [with the AIDS crisis], I'm still proud of those days [when I got my start singing at the gay bathhouses].
Bette Midler Hot 100, achieved Platinum status, and won Midler her third Grammy Award – for Record of the Year – at the 1990 telecast. Midler's 1990 cover of the Julie Gold song "From a Distance", the first offering from her seventh studio album "Some People's Lives" (1990), topped the "Billboard" Adult Contemporary charts and achieved platinum status in the US. The same year, she starred along with Trini Alvarado as the title character in John Erman's drama film "Stella". The third feature film adaptation of the 1920 novel "Stella Dallas" by Olive Higgins Prouty, Midler portrayed a vulgar single mother living