Steve Osrow Has Died

[Karl-G]

Steve Osrow, the founder of the Continental Baths on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, has died in Australia.  The Baths established Bette Midler and Barry Manilow and other entertainers and was a major center of gay activity in the early 1970s.  The NYT has a nice, long obituary today with details about the Baths.

[+ Charlie]

Ah, memories! I loved sitting there in just a towel watching Bette between trips back to the steamroom.

[+ WilliamM]

I wasn't in the United States when Milder became popular. My friend @Kenny  thought she was great.

I referred Judy Garland 

[soloyo215]

5 hours ago, Charlie said:

Ah, memories! I loved sitting there in just a towel watching Bette between trips back to the steamroom.

Now it's a priviledge having experienced that. I wish I had the opportunity.

Edited February 13 by soloyo215

[Luv2play]

6 hours ago, Charlie said:

Ah, memories! I loved sitting there in just a towel watching Bette between trips back to the steamroom.

I only became aware of Bette Midler when she had her breakout hit, You Gotta Have Friends. Did you see her perform before she was a star?

Edited February 13 by Luv2play

[wsc]

2 hours ago, Luv2play said:

I only became aware of Bette Midler when she had her breakout hit, You Gotta Have Friends. Did you see her perform before she was a star?

She's always been a star; it just took a little time for that fact to be adequately acknowledged.

[+ Charlie]

3 hours ago, Luv2play said:

I only became aware of Bette Midler when she had her breakout hit, You Gotta Have Friends. Did you see her perform before she was a star?

She wouldn't have been working the Continental then if she were already a star.

[Shoedog112]

20 minutes ago, Charlie said:

She wouldn't have been working the Continental then if she were already a star.

How did that work with her and others as headline entertainment at a bathhouse? Was there a separate area with a stage that required you to be covered?

[+ Charlie]

As best I can remember, there was a large gathering space inside the entrance with chairs and tables (the baths were in the basement of a hotel in the West 70s), and as long as one wore at least a towel covering one's privates, one could sit there to watch the performer, who sometimes walked around among the audience. There was no stage, but there was a raised platform for the performer. I don't remember musicians, so the music must have been recorded. As you can imagine, my attention wasn't always solely on the performance.

[+ robear]

Bathhouse Bette

[+ WilliamM]

Mary andMary Martin  and her husband  were ie husband  we  mostly silence 

[+ JEC]

On 2/13/2024 at 7:47 AM, robear said:

Bathhouse Bette

I recently heard an interview with Bette where she talked about her early career on tiktok.   She referred to these as "social clubs".....I suspect the interview was on some mainstream outlet where she could not say clearly what kind of socialization was going on, but she did say these were all-men clubs and that the men were wearing only towels.  The interview seemed to be from many years ago, being resurfaced for the tiktok audience

[+ WilliamM]

Mary Martin said "do you believe in faires" on several live versions of "Peter Pan"  on television 

[Luv2play]

I watched the video of Bette in the Baths in 1971. She sang many of her songs that were to be featured in her album Friends which I think came out a year or so later. I heard it first around 1973 or 74 and still have it somewhere in my large collection of LPs. 
 

She did have live musical accompaniment with a drummer and guy on piano. And boy did she put a lot of energy into her act. I wonder how many in the audience thought she was going to make it big with what they were hearing then in 1971 in a dingy bathhouse. 

[maninsoma]

1 hour ago, Luv2play said:

I watched the video of Bette in the Baths in 1971. She sang many of her songs that were to be featured in her album Friends which I think came out a year or so later. I heard it first around 1973 or 74 and still have it somewhere in my large collection of LPs. 
 

She did have live musical accompaniment with a drummer and guy on piano. And boy did she put a lot of energy into her act. I wonder how many in the audience thought she was going to make it big with what they were hearing then in 1971 in a dingy bathhouse. 

That "guy on piano" was Barry Manilow, the guy who later had great commercial success as a singer-songwriter and who was one of the producers of Bette's Divine Miss M album.

[Luv2play]

8 hours ago, maninsoma said:

That "guy on piano" was Barry Manilow, the guy who later had great commercial success as a singer-songwriter and who was one of the producers of Bette's Divine Miss M album.

Interesting. The video seemed to be a recording of two different occasions as Bette had two different hair styles, the first one being her frizzy “do” and the second her hair pulled back tight at the back. In the first she was constantly playing with her hair. 
She thanked the two guys at the end of the film by name but I didn’t catch Barry. I thought it was another name. I’ll have to recheck. 

[maninsoma]

The video's credits name Barry as the pianist, and it's well known that they performed together at the Continental Baths.  According to a Wikipedia article about the baths, Barry was actually the house pianist and sometimes performed just wearing a towel like the patrons.  That I didn't previously know.