Bette Midler to 1969, she played the role of Tzeitel in "Fiddler on the Roof" on Broadway. After "Fiddler", she joined the original cast of "Salvation" in 1969. She began singing in the Continental Baths, a gay bathhouse in the Ansonia Hotel, in the summer of 1970. During this time, she became close to her piano accompanist, Barry Manilow, who produced her first album in 1972, "The Divine Miss M." It was during her time at the Continental Baths that she built up a core following. In the late 1990s, during the release of her album "Bathhouse Betty", Midler commented on her
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