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 and Joan: The Divine Feud Bette and Joan: The Divine Feud Bette and Joan: The Divine Feud is an American biography by Shaun Considine first published in 1989 and re-released in 2017 by Graymalkin Media in paperback and as an e-book. The biography focuses on the celebrated, long-term feud of Hollywood's two iconic screen legends, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. The famous feud is dramatized in the first season of the FX anthology television series "Feud", titled "Bette and Joan" and starring Susan Sarandon and Jessica Lange. The elegant Joan Crawford, a former chorus girl who rose through the ranks at MGM, and the brash