"Bette Midler today is a beloved legacy star, best known for her comic witch in Disney's Hocus Pocus and its 2022 sequel and for sentimental, anthemic ballads like "Wind Beneath My Wings." She's initiated green space projects in New York City and tussled with Donald Trump on Twitter. Her profile is that of an articulate, civic-minded matron enjoying thoroughly mainstream stardom. But more than fifty years earlier she emerged from the steam of the...