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
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