Customer Reviews

Bette: An Intimate Biography of Bette Midler

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

First off let me say I am a huge Bette Midler fan and I was really looking forward to reading this book. However once I started to read it I realized how absurd this mans writing is. I can see writing a book about someone whom perhaps isn't your favorite person in the world but why waste your time writing a book if all your going to do is put the person down? There were many things that ticked me off in this book, the fact that he refers to Bette's daughter as "the princess," the fact that he has a hole chapter on Aaron Russo's life after Bette whom if your a fan of Bette's you'll know wasn't the nicest man in the world to her. I mean if your writing a book on Bette Midler why throw in a chapter on some slime balls life once Bette broke away from him? It just seems that in every chapter this man tried to take something that Miss M has said or done and turned it around. The book just wasn't what I thought it was going to be. As a Bette Midler fan I would defiantly NOT recommend this book.

I knew this book about this fantastic talent was in trouble almost right away. The credibility of Mair's account had to be questioned when I found a huge blooper - he states that "Janis Joplin died on stage in San Francisco". WRONG GEORGE. She was found dead in a motel. If this info is wrong - and it wasn't even dependent upon anyone's personal recollections, but rather could have been verified in numerious reference materials readily available to any layman - then I wonder how many other "facts" in this book are also incorrect. And were we kissing up to Aaron Russo a bit here - like, why the chapter about him at the end? Who cares if he started a political party. Par for the course for this book which repeats itself over and over (count how many times George mentions that "now that Bette had a good marriage and a daughter..." in various forms).

Inevitably, bios that depend so much upon quotes from people whose 15 minutes of fame was during the time the author spent interviewing them, are bound to be caught up in their own sudden value. Like does anyone who's now 50+ really remember such significant details about classmates in 3rd grade? This could have been a great bio - it was the author who messed up.

i love bette midler so much, and was so looking forward to reading an awesome bio of her. but ol' george had to go screw that all up! he's a dreadful writer - this book sounded like a 3rd grader's report on abe lincoln.

i can't imagine his bios on rosie or oprah being much better.

Not everyone over fifty may be able to remember the significant details of their third grade classmates, but I can, and Bette would remember, too. Her memories run long and deep. Bette Midler is talent, creativity and pizzaz unlimited. We all must start our careers somewhere, and Bette has come a long way from a pineapple factory worker in Hawaii to a illustrious, top-of-the world entertainer. She has played a host of characters, and often odd, characters over the years, but the one constant in her career has been her musical ability. She can belt out a song with gusto and enthusiasm or mellow it down to an emotional, heart-rendering performance. Who can forget the, The Rose", the infamous "Wind Beneath My Wings" from the movie, "Beaches" or the poignant rendition of, "My One True Friend" from the movie, "One True Thing?"

This book is jam-packed with nostalgia, information and events in both Bette Midler's personal and career life. She is the type of lady one would like to get to know better, both for her compassionate side, her strength and perserverance, and her endless witty humour. Overall, this is a great biography and well worth reading.

As i Said before,Bette Midler is a special person,and the way George Mair showed this was a Unique (?)and Interesting way. It was Easy to follow,and was not hard to read,even I , A 12 Year old can read it,though it is Well Expressed and use's Discriptive words.I enjoyed this book,and for all those Bette Followers out there, you will too.

There is no excuse for this book to have landed on the bookshelves in this sorry state. Mair's writing is pedestrian, but this might have been pounded into shape and been an adequate look at this brilliant performer. But Birch Lane apparently has fired all their editors and replaced them with Spell-Check. This book is so full of grammatical and spelling errors, factual errors, clunky phrasing, that it reads like a first draft. Didn't anyone READ it before sending it to the printer? It's shoddy, amateurish books like this that shatter my faith in the state of the publishing industry today.

I cannot even describe how great this book is! I plan to be an actress and he not only gave a great great description of the most wonderful person in the world (Bette) he also got me to know how things work in Hollywood! I think this is an amazing book!

I absolutely love Bette! She has been my idol for many years and I know that I am the most devoted and the biggest Bette fan ever! This book is really good and goes far in depth about the divine, but there aren't that many pictures. But, the pics that there are, are obviously fantastic, there can not be a bad picture of Bette anywhere. She is the most fantasticly wounderful ever (along with Janeane Garofalo and Stockard Channing). Bette rocks!

I am a HUGE fan of Bette, but some of the things Mr. Mair put in here, makes it sound trashy, and dirty. If you are going to write a biography, about someone like Bette Midler, the good things would be first on the list. Ok, the thing with Geraldo Riveara, or however you spell it, it happened. You don't need to tell every detail! And the massuer thing, it happened too, but the details! Hey, this is just my opinion, but if I were Bette, and I had a choice, I would'nt want my personal, and I mean PERSONAL things in there, like the masseur thing. I would be embarassed if my friends read that. No offence to Bette, because I am a big fan and would never mean that as an insult.