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].
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