When I joined De Tour ’83, Bette was at the height of what continues to be an amazing career. By that time, she already had won two Grammy awards, two Golden Globes, and an Emmy, and had been nominated for a Best Actress Oscar and awarded a special Tony Award. I studied her from the wings and talked to her every chance I got. Her vocal talent and comedic timing were peerless. She was funny, fun, artsy, and smart as hell. She always had a book in her hand.
Bette immediately clocked that I was plenty crazy, but she respected me and honored my talent. I wanted to be the best Harlette she ever had, and she knew that. She featured me, but in a mask. She wasn’t about to let my charisma and star quality upstage her. Yet she loved to have me entertain her during breaks or at parties. She’d often ask me to do a monologue or song from my show. Bonnie Bruckheimer, who went from Bette’s assistant to her producing partner, told me I was one of the few who could make Bette laugh out loud in those days.
Bette was sort of an introvert and could come across as removed—even shy. You knew when she did or did not want to engage; you didn’t have to guess her mood.
We’d all been drinking one night after the show and Bette said to me, “Jeni-Fah” (she still says my name like that!), “you don’t want this, Jeni-Fah. This is hard shit!” But my idol was wrong. I did want it. I wanted those ten thousand voices in the arena to be cheering for me.
De Tour ’83 was sort of a mixture of rock and roll meets Broadway. We did forty-six cities in about three months. It was incredibly fabulous, but exhausting, even for my twenty-six-year-old body. The show included several big high-camp numbers, including “Pink Cadillac.” We also performed one of Bette’s torch songs, “Here Comes the Flood,” as well as the anthem “We Are Family.” There were elaborate costumes and sets with ramps, levels, and one scene where we wore mermaid fins and rolled ourselves around in wheelchairs. I did my specialty (Hula-Hooping) and had to learn to play the accordion. We Harlettes rehearsed endlessly, mastering the tight vocal harmonies required to back up Bette.
I fought with the other Harlettes, Siobhan O’Carroll and Helena Springs. We three were replacing the Harlettes who had done the wintertime portion of De Tour. There was plenty of drama. Stupid shit. Once I threw my Hula-Hoop during rehearsal and had to apologize the next day.
In the limo—we usually shared a limo as we traveled from the airport to our hotel—I guess I was too loud or teased too much because eventually Bonnie and the rest requested my silence. On one occasion, I needled Helena to the brink, and she jumped out of the moving car (we were going very slowly and she wasn’t hurt).
JOURNAL ENTRY: I am a monster.
Frannie the dresser said to me, “You have to get over this shit because it will kill Bette.”
Fortunately, our make-up artist, Geneva Nash, had a loving but stern way of settling my ass down.
Bette was a class act, but this was a rock-and-roll tour, so there was plenty of sex and drugs. In general, we were a pretty wild bunch. Bette’s collaborator Jerry Blatt, whom I loved very much, had pink hair. I sported a crazy Mohawk. We had a rollicking time, but Bette never allowed our antics to compromise the show’s professionalism. Believe me, we snapped to attention when the Divine Miss M arrived!
The tour started out in Philly and East Coast locations. When we got to Saratoga Springs in upstate New York, I had sex against a sugar maple tree with Ed Love, the choreographer. A few days later, he showed up backstage with another girl, so that was that—until we got to Montreal a couple of weeks later and I had a ménage à trois with Ed and Billy, with whom I’d toured in Eubie! I also had sex with one of the band members. But his enormous penis stayed soft. Too much cocaine.
The day we opened in Boston, I went ballistic because someone forgot to put VIP tickets aside for Temi, Billy, and their friend June. I pulled a full-out diva tantrum, banging on Bette’s trailer door, crying and whining. She barged out of the trailer half made up, hair flying, robe flapping, and shouted at the assistant: “Get her four fucking tickets in the front row! The last time she cried, she fell off the fucking ramp!” It’s true, I did have a few major gaffes on stage, like in Costa Mesa, where I fucked up the whole mermaids-in-wheelchairs routine.
If Bette got irritated with me, she rarely showed it. When the tour got to Newport, Rhode Island, and I asked Bette to sign my De Tour ’83 poster, she wrote: “To the greatest black entertainer who ever lived . . . I am the white one!”
Bette knew I was loyal and that I only wanted the best for the show. I think by this time she suspected I had deep emotional problems. But I also think she saw a bit of herself in me. I felt she kind of took care of me in her own way. I wish only that I had been able to pull my shit together this first time we worked together.
When all is said and done, Bette Midler probably had a greater impact on me than anyone else I have worked with. She polished my game and upped it several notches. She validated me and confirmed what I knew about my talent, especially the fact that JeniferMothaFuckinLewis does not belong in the chorus, be it as a Harlette, Ikette, or Ronette!! Honestly, though, the experience of observing Bette’s artistry and getting to know her as a loving friend made it all worth it.
Toward the end of the tour, Bette gave me a wonderful gift of original sheet music from an old Ethel Waters song. In turn, I gifted Bette a black Raggedy Ann doll. She named it “Killer.”
Prince came to see De Tour at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. During the after-party at Spago on Sunset, I found him in the back in the dark. I approached him. He extended his hand, which was swathed in a black lace glove. At first, I thought he expected me to kiss it. Instead I gripped his hand firmly, but got grossed out when I felt the sweaty moistness of his palm through the lace. Unfortunately, because I was so focused on my own glory, I did not take the opportunity to engage with this master. Damn. Prince and I met again twenty-six years later, backstage at the (first) final Jay Leno Show in 2009. I said, “Hey, Prince, I’m Jenifer.” He smiled and said, “I know who you are.” Then he turned to his beautiful companion and said, “Yeah, she’s funny all the time.” I get tingles just thinking about it.
In September, we did our final show in Minneapolis. The entire company sprayed their hair pink for closing night. I fucked an Italian guy named Frank in my dressing room. The party was over.
Nearly fifteen years after we toured together, I was still foolishly competing with Bette. I flew to Las Vegas to see Bette in her show called Diva Las Vegas. I went to her dressing room after the show and started clowning, telling jokes and singing loudly. Bette asked me, “Jenifah, why are you performing?” I said, “Well, didn’t you just perform?” She said, “Yeah, but I got paid.” I shut the fuck up.