Wednesday, July 26, 2000

Bette Midler fits right in on her new sitcom

---

        PASADENA, Calif. — So Bette Midler really wants to give up movies and concerts to star in a half-hour CBS comedy?

        You bet.

        “When they learn to make movies, I'll be back,” she told members of the Television Critics Association meeting here.

BETTE MIDLER (CBS photo) | ZOOM |

        “You know what? It just seemed like the right time, to tell you the truth,” the 54-year-old actress said by satellite from a family vacation in Florence, Italy.

        Her timing for TV is perfect. Her Bette is the best new fall show — comedy or drama — previewed by critics at their annual summer press tour.

        Ms. Midler plays herself, surrounded by fictional friends and family. It's sort of like Jerry Seinfeld playing a stand-up comic on Seinfeld, or the old Jack Benny Show or George Burns' Burns and Allen Show. She had been searching for a sitcom for several years, turning down several variations of the divorced mother/single mother themes.

        “I'm basically playing myself, so I'm hoping I won't be too far off the mark,” she joked about the show created by Jeffrey Lane (Mad About You). “It takes a little bit of a stretch to play myself, but it's the role I'm most comfortable with.”

        On TV, the Divine Miss M will be married to a college professor (Kevin Dunn from Arsenio Hall's short-lived Arsenio) and have a teen-age daughter. Her extended TV family encompasses her manager (Joanna Gleason from Love & War) and her accompanist (English actor James Dreyfus).

        Running gags in Bette include her friends accusing her of constantly quoting her movies, and her taking shots at Oscar-winner Sally Field, actor Danny DeVito (who does a cameo) and other contemporaries.

        “I'd like to go as far as I can (making fun of celebrities), as far as the network will allow me to go,” she said. “I think that could be pretty far. It's not cable, but it could be ... pretty funny.”

        So she has some old scores to settle?

        “No, no, no no. Not at all,” she said with a laugh. “But if it happens that way, it will be great.”

        The four-time Grammy winner also plans to sing in every show. In a brilliant comic scene in the pilot, she tries to get hip by singing Kid Rock's obnoxiously loud “Bawitaba,” and ends up turning it into a boogie-woogie tune. It's divine.

        “I really love music,” she said. “I don't think there's been a lot of pop music in sitcoms. I think that might be something special that we can bring to this material.”

        Some critics — not this one — complained that Ms. Midler's personality may be too big for the small screen. That doesn't bother her.

        “People say all sorts of things. It really doesn't matter,” she said. “If it goes well, if we maintain a really high standard of comedy, I don't think people are going to say that.”

        Other critics compared her to the legendary Lucille Ball (I Love Lucy), TV's greatest comedienne.

        “I would never make that comparison in a million years,” she said. “I adored her. I worshiped her ... I would never, ever, put myself in the same category as her. Ever.

        “She certainly did set the standard. She's my heroine, but I'm very flattered when anyone says it.”

        Television attracted her because she wanted to stop touring and be closer to her family as her daughter entered high school. And she was frustrated by the lack of film roles for women her age, and by the years it takes to make one movie.

        Or as she put it: Developing a film project “for 15 years, and then you have to wait for the 25-year-old (studio executive) to green light it. I mean, forget it! Life is too short!” she said.

        “I have to be brutally frank, and I'm sure that everyone's going to say it anyway: "Well, it was time for her to move to the small screen, because she couldn't get those (movie) jobs.' If you say that, that's fine with me. I don't care.”

        Isn't that divine?

Enquirer TV Critic John Kiesewetter is reporting from the Television Critics Association's summer press tour. Write him at 312 Elm St., Cincinnati, 45202.