Midler's early 70s act "nailed the nostalgia thing" with Andrews Sisters takeoffs (i.e., 1973's "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy") and 60s girl-group numbers, as well as including blues and show tunes in its broad musical spectrum. After enjoying cult status, she emerged aboveground as a major sensation of the TV talk-show circuit, and her debut album went gold and won her the Grammy for Best New Artist. Her second album ("Bette Midler" 1973) also did well, and she landed on the cover of Newsweek that year. Although sales dropped off sharply for her third LP ("Songs for the New Depression" 1976), she retained a loyal concert following and picked up her first Emmy as the star of "Bette Midler--Ol' Red Hair Is Back" (NBC, 1977). She then made her first impact as a film actress in Mark Rydell's "The Rose" (1978), earning a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her portrayal of a high-strung, burned-out singer, loosely based on the life of Janis Joplin. The soundtrack LP went platinum in 1980, aided by the Top Ten title song, and a Midler concert film and soundtrack entitled "Divine Madness" came out later that year, as did her first book, "A View from a Broad", a humorous memoir of her first world tour. She had spent a good part of the 70s recreating her image, and her success at the end of the decade seemed to validate her choices.

Believing her unscrupulous agent that she would be off the screen for two years if she didn't make the aptly named comedy "Jinxed!" (1982), Midler suffered greatly for her decision to do the movie, warring with co-star Ken Wahl and director Don Siegel and ultimately serving as scapegoat when it flopped. The film's failure followed her firing of her back-up singers the Harlettes, who successfully sued and won a $2 million judgment, and the twin debacles helped bring on the nervous breakdown which kept her off the screen for four years, though she remained busy with concert work and TV specials. Signed by Disney in 1986, Midler proved herself a deft, aggressive comedienne in a skein of profitable films beginning with the bright satire "Down and Out in Beverly Hills" (1986) and continuing through the enjoyable if forgettable "Outrageous Fortune" (1987, opposite Shelley Long) and "Big Business" (1988), in which she and Lily Tomlin each got to play identical twins. Probably the best of her movies in this period was the clever black comedy "Ruthless People" (1986), which hilariously paired her with Danny DeVito as a thoroughly despicable couple.

Midler formed her own production company, All Girl Productions, and made her first foray into producing with the moderately successful "Beaches" (1990), an updated "woman's picture" which yielded her first Number 1 hit, "The Wind Beneath My Wings". The studio, sensing it was on to something, decided to cast her in two old-fashioned follow-up tearjerkers, but Jeffery Katzenberg's wrong-headed passion for "Stella" (1990) earned Premiere magazine's kiss of death: "A must to avoid." She faired somewhat better in Rydell's "For the Boys" (1992) as a World War II USO performer, a seeming natural for Midler based on her success with the Andrews Sisters' material. Though the picture revealed a charismatic flair for drama not really tapped since "The Rose" and earned her a second Best Actress Oscar nomination, audiences avoided the big-budget musical like the plague. She next teamed with Woody Allen as a married couple for Paul Mazursky's ill-advised "Scenes from a Mall" (1991), but it did not mimic Midler's earlier comedic success, and her outlandish appearance as a long-deceased witch in Disney's "Hocus Pocus" (1993), suggesting a return to the zany fare that made Midler a bankable movie star seven years earlier, could not save the ghoulish, effects-laden bomb, deemed a discredit to Disney "family entertainment" by Leonard Maltin.

1993 marked a long-delayed return to live concert performances ("Experience the Divine") for the indefatigable star, capped by a record-breaking 30-night stand at NYC's Radio City Music Hall, not to mention a tour-de-force performance as Mama Rose in a TV remake of the musical classic "Gypsy" (CBS). After an uncredited turn in "Get Shorty" (1995), Midler returned to screen comedy full-force teaming with Diane Keaton and Goldie Hawn in Hugh Wilson's "The First Wives' Club" (1996), a film about women whose husbands have left them for younger beauties which, thanks to the collective star power of the threesome, became one of the surprise hits of the season. Next she starred with Dennis Farina in "That Old Feeling" (1997) as a divorced couple whose romantic yearnings are rekindled at their daughter's wedding. She earned her third Emmy for that year's HBO special "Bette Midler--Diva Las Vegas" (her second one had come for her memorable appearance on the next-to-last installment of NBC's "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson" in 1992) and garnered an Emmy nomination for her guest-turn as a secretary on the final episode of the long-running CBS series "Murphy Brown" in 1998. Returning to features in the biopic "Isn't She Great?" (2000), she portrayed the late, potboiler author Jacqueline Susann, a character whose own outrageous persona was large enough to accommodate the outsized presence of the Divine Miss M.

The box-office failure of that film coupled with Midler's next, the pallid comedy "Drowning Mona" (also 2000), disillusioned the diva. In a move to rejuvenate her career, Midler agreed to headline a sitcom, playing a variation of herself, a showbiz veteran juggling the demands of career, marriage and motherhood. Despite initially positive reviews, ratings were so-so. Gossip about behind-the-scenes problems plagued the series (the original actors cast as Midler's husband and daughter left the project when production was moved from New York to Los Angeles), and when Kevin Dunn (who was cast as Midler's husband) opted to leave the series after 10 episodes and Midler's inability to deliver the big name guest stars she had promised put the rumor mill into overdrive. Midler didn't help her case by giving interviews in which she appeared to be complaining about the work load associated with a sitcom and pronouncing her consideration of retirement. The network eventually relented and cancelled the sitcom after only 18 episodes were filmed.