Over the course of Bette Midler’s long and active career, there are few artistic feats she hasn’t achieved. For more than 50 years, she has been a steady presence on screens and stages of all varieties, and she has the accolades and awards to show for it. A lifelong environmentalist, Midler has devoted many of her nonworking hours to the New York Restoration Project, the nonprofit organization she co-founded in 1995, which revitalizes the city’s parks and community spaces. This month, she returns to Disney+ with Hocus Pocus 2, the sequel to her 1993 hit film. On the occasion, she shares her thoughts on the key components of the good life. —Ashley Baker
Airline: Braniff.
Airport: Hollywood Burbank Airport.
Alibi: If I tell you, I won’t be able to use it again.
App: The New York Times.
Bag: Paper.
Birthday: My daughter making a Mexican feast.
Boyfriend: Jann Wenner.
Breakfast, weekday: Two cappuccinos with oat milk. I’m so embarrassed.
Breakfast, weekend: Waffles. My dad’s waffle recipe, a vintage waffle iron, and our own maple syrup.
Car: The green Prius my husband gave me for my birthday in 2012, painted in 1950s Porsche Auratium green. I’m a goddess to every valet in Los Angeles.
Child: My beloved Sophie Pinkie Flower Pie Fredericka Alohilani von Haselberg.
Cocktail: Gin-and-tonic. Sarah Jessica Parker introduced me to Empress gin. Lavender-colored; it’s like drinking the sky.
Cocktail appetizer: Marinated anchovies with paximadia, which is dried bread.
Couple: Sophie and Harry.
Date: A trek to an old movie house, and a black-and-white film I’ve never seen before with someone who loves to talk about movies.
Diet: Intermittent fasting.
Dinner, weekday: Anything but meat.
Dinner, weekend: Mexican anything.
Disguise: I’m unrecognizable out of drag.
Drive: Blue highways.
Enemy: You’re kidding, right?
Escape: The New York Public Library.
Excuse: “The oven wasn’t calibrated.”
First Lady/First Man: Eleanor and Franklin, Elizabeth and Philip, Michelle and Barack …
Fit:
As tight as humanly possible onstage; offstage, muumuus.
Flaw: Haste.
Friend: Carole Bayer Sager and Toni Basil, both of whom I’ve known for nearly 50 years.
Good-bye: “Aloha Oe.”
Hideaway: Halekulani Hotel, Waikiki.
Indulgence: Books, music, linens, and travel.
Insult: “You have no talent.”
Jacket: Christian Dior Bar.
Kiss-off: “Back the fuck off, motherfucker!”
Last Meal: Red beans and rice with a side of my mother’s potato salad.
Movie: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
Name: Gussie Fink-Nottle, Honoria Glossop.
Nonfiction book: Disloyal: A Memoir—The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump, by Michael Cohen. I liked him for spilling the beans.
Novel: Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov.
OPENING-NIGHT GREETING: “A warm hand on your opening.”
Pants: Huge Comme des Garçons from 1995. Patched.
Pet: Queen Puddles, Jack Russell. She hated everyone but me.
QUOTE: “Humans are an invasive species.” —Edwina von Gal
Restaurant: Guisados in East Los Angeles.
Ride: The one with the least emissions.
Saying: Why enjoy the present when you can regret the past and fear the future?
SHOES: Spike heels, now Skechers. Imagine my surprise.
Spouse: Incredibly, for 38 years, the intriguing and completely original Martin von Haselberg.
STORM: Four unbearable years with the odious Donald Trump topped off by a global pandemic and an insurrection. WTF? Or, Tempest Storm, a burlesque artist who worked in the 50s. Big on the West Coast.
Street: Atlanta Street, Halawa, Hawaii. Now under the H-1 Freeway on Oahu.
Television series: I Love Lucy. Forever.
Theme song to your life: “Do You Wanna Dance?”
View: The Aegean Sea from the mountains of Crete.
WRITING IMPLEMENT: Pencil, Blackwing Palomino, with the only eraser that actually works anymore.
Bette’s Essentials
