Newsday (Suffolk Edition) from Melville, New York • 99

JFaams IPaaUm News Jar Pbotos br Dick Ysnrood Crowd waits outside the Palace last night for the performer one fan called Judy Garland" By Jerry Parker Bette Midler made her big entrance at the Palace last night inside a giant sequin ned ankle-strap wearing a gold lame dress cut up to here and down to there while she and her vocal group the Harlettes tore through "Lullaby of Broadway" Then she settled herself on a stool crossed her legs in a less than ladylike way and said of the experience: "I felt like Ann-Margret up there! I said to myself I become a legend or what? At this stage it is probably too late for such a question to be anything but rhetoriaal In a little more than two years "The Divine Mis3 has worked her way up from the steamy recesses of the Continental Baths a gay health dub on West 74th Street where she initiated the cabaret policy and almost gave tubs" respectability into the hearts of millions of record-buying television-watching Americans Last night- the opened a three-week engagement at historic Palace Theater with everyone of the 1680 seats sold out for the entire engagement weeks before the opening still the last of the truly tacky Bette assured her opening night audience "but I am getting some class ain't Acu tally after a rather nervous first act Bette settled in and seemed right at home in the Palace even though she was by no means the only queen in the house The gay following that launched her career was out in force They included a couple of drag queens who all themselves Ruth Truth the bearded lady and wholly inspired by Bette and Chanel No 13 here in tribute to Mias But the exotics were not as dominant as Bettot staff had predicted nor were they as all out supportive John Jenne a 19-year-old student at Fashion Institute of Technology was there in a black sequiimed deeply V-neck ed top and black satin pants to give Miss one last chance sort of forgotten her beginnings at the he said go bade there anymore she seem to care about her old friends anymore If she coma through tonight it" At least half the first nightere seemed to be the standard Grade A Manhattan opening aggregation including of oourse the media stare (Clive Barnes Aileen Mehle Geraldo Rivera) a smattering society types (Princess Diane von got a standing ovation after almost every number "I think sort of a staid group hare tonight too many rich people with their noses in the air" he said But one disagreed with the opinion of Arthur Rubinstein the Seventh Avenue manufacturer not the pianist that the Palace Theater was exactly the place for Bette to be at this particular time Garland was here 10 years ago" he said "and Judy Garland" II REVIEW Furstenburg Mrs Oscar de la Renta both among the guests of Ahmet Ertegun the very social president of Atlantic Records label) and soma show business celebrities (Mary Travers Edgar Winter Julie Newmar) Dyan Cannon slipped in at the last moment wearing a floor-length fox fur a big brown floppy hat and taking swigs from a smuggled bottle of Fresca "She cooking Dyan said on her way up the aisle saw her opening in Los Angeles and she really blew my mind but somehow die get it off for me this time" There were many who agreed that Bette was not at top form for her New York opening particularly during the first half of the show when she often seemed short of breath and took too long with her kidding around between songs Most people chalked it up to opening night jittery although a Palace usher was busy at intermission explaining that Miss had a cold Bette herself pleaded a severe case of rose fever She has just returned from a cross-country tour cities in 11 minutes" is the way Bette recalls it Actually it was 33 cities in the last three months and a $3000000 gross Lawrence Schafer a University of Toronto student who stood in line 43 minutes yesterday morning to buy a $10 standing room dot said the fault was with the audience seen her in Toronto and seen her in Berkeley" he said "and aha Undoubtedly divine By David Marsh If I think Bette opening last night at the Palace Theater on Broadway in Manhattan was basically disappointing why did I leave with such a large grin? Conversely if her return to her adopted home town the real one was such a thrill why it as spine-tingling as it might have been? If you have tickets for any of the remaining nights of her three-week engagement maybe you can figure it out got me stumped Bette has changed since we last aaw her not half so desperate now but then again not half so vulnerable either And vulnerability on Page 6A.