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].
Experience the Divine: Greatest Hits Experience the Divine: Greatest Hits Experience the Divine: Greatest Hits is a compilation album by American singer Bette Midler, featuring many of her best-known songs. The fourteen track compilation was released on Atlantic Records in 1993. While several greatest hits albums with Midler had been released in the UK, Continental Europe, Scandinavia, Australia, New Zealand and Japan throughout the 1970s and 1980s, such as "The Best of Bette" (1978) and "The Best of Bette" (1981)—two different compilations with the same title—and "Just Hits" (1987), this was the first career overview to be released worldwide including the US and Canada, some