Bette Midler Opens In Vegas

Singer and actress Bette Midler is bringing her 90-minute revue, "The Showgirl Must Go On," to the 4,300-seat Colosseum at Caesar's Palace on the Las Vegas strip. She started in mid-February what is expected to be a two-year stint in the theater just vacated by Celine Dion. This combination of photos by the Las Vegas News Bureau shows a Bette Midler marquee at Caesar's Palace in April 1976, left, and Feb. 20, 2008.

Bette Midler performs "The Showgirl Must Go On". The show, which reportedly has a $10 million budget, opened Feb. 20, 2008. Critics say it is similar to her concert act and features a lot of those characters, including a wheelchair-bound mermaid and the world's oldest showgirl.

Bette Midler arrives at a party following her premiere performance of "The Showgirl Must Go On" at Caesar's Palace hotel and casino in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2008. Known to fans as The Divine Miss M, the 62-year-old diva has won four Grammys, an Emmy and a Tony and has twice been nominated for an Oscar.

Bette Midler and her daughter, Sophie von Haselberg, pose together at a party following Midler's premiere performance "The Showgirl Must Go On" at Caesar's Palace hotel and casino in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2008.

Siegfried Fischbacher, left, and Roy Horn arrive at a party following the premiere performance of Bette Midler's "The Showgirl Must Go On" at Caesar's Palace hotel and casino in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2008. They were among the Las Vegas celebs in the opening-night audience.

Bette Midler arrives at a party following her premiere performance of "The Showgirl Must Go On" at Caesar's Palace hotel and casino in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2008.

Bette Midler poses for photographers after a press conference in Sydney, Wednesday, March 30, 2005. Midler was touring Australia with her show "Kiss My Brass." Her act, which she has been honing since her early days in show business, features her trademarks: funny characters, bawdy humor, revealing costumes and a distinctive voice.

Midler won her 1992 Emmy for her memorable performance on "The Tonight Show" during which she sang "One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)" to a retiring Johnny Carson, seen here listening to her in Burbank, Calif., May 21, 1992.

Bette Midler, seen performing April 21, 2004, during the annual Rainforest Foundation benefit concert at Carnegie Hall in New York, was named Best New Artist at the 1974 Grammys. She won a Record of the Year Grammy in 1990 for "Wind Beneath My Wings" and a Song of the Year Grammy in 1991 for "From A Distance."

Bette Midler, photographed at "The Stepford Wives" premiere in Los Angeles, June 6, 2004, has appeared in more than a dozen movies. She was nominated for Academy Awards in 1979 for "The Rose" and in 1991 for "For The Boys."

Midler founded the New York Restoration Project, a non-profit group to revitalize parks in New York's disadvantaged neighborhoods and worked with a coalition of green organizations to save 114 community gardens in the city from auction. Here, she is with Gov. George Pataki for the opening of the Peter Jay Sharp Boathouse on the Harlem River June 17, 2004.