About this item
Bette Midler today is a beloved legacy star, best known for her comic witch in Disney's Hocus Pocus (1993) and its 2022 sequel. She has also gained prominence for sentimental, anthemic ballads like "Wind Beneath My Wings," her initiation of green space projects in New York City, and tussling with Donald Trump on Twitter. Her profile is that of an articulate, civic-minded matriarch enjoying thoroughly mainstream stardom. But more than fifty years earlier she emerged from the steam of the subterranean Continental Baths as the Divine Miss M, the bawdy, campy, fearless alter ego she created in front of an audience of towel-clad gay men who came to the baths seeking not just sex, but a sense of community and safety from an often-harrowing outside world.
About the Author
Kevin Winkler enjoyed a career of more than twenty years as a curator, archivist, and library administrator at the New York Public Library, prior to which he was a professional dancer. His book, Big Deal: Bob Fosse and Dance in the American Musical, won the TLA 2018 George Freedley Memorial Award Special Jury Prize for an exemplary work in the field of theatre or performance, and was a finalist for the Marfield Prize, the National Award for Arts Writing. Kevin has served as a consultant for Lincoln Center Education, curating resources to accompany PBS Lincoln Center Live performances available throughout New York City public libraries. He has blogged for the Huffington Post and is a MacDowell Colony fellow. Kevin is an on-camera commentator in the new documentary Merely Marvelous: The Dancing Genius of Gwen Verdon. He is at work on his next book, Everything is Choreography: The Musical Theater of Tommy Tune, to be published by Oxford University Press.
