Bette Midler talks 'Mamma Mia!' moment in new movie: 'What have we done?'
Spoiler alert! The following contains minor details about the ending of “The Fabulous Four” (in theaters now).
It’s a bright, sunshiny day for fans of Bette Midler.
The three-time Grammy Award winner shows off her golden pipes in bridal comedy “The Fabulous Four,” singing a duet of Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now” with “Abbott Elementary” star Sheryl Lee Ralph. The performance happens during the end credits, after Marilyn (Midler) decides to call off her rushed wedding in order to focus on friendship and herself. Never one to waste a fabulous gown, she chooses to throw a massive party instead, dancing and warbling along the Florida coast with her best gal pals Kitty (Ralph), Alice (Megan Mullally) and Lou (Susan Sarandon).
It's a welcome return to music for Midler, 78, who most recently recorded a handful of covers for the “Hocus Pocus 2” soundtrack in 2022. She last performed on Broadway in a revival of “Hello, Dolly!” in 2017, although she tells USA TODAY she’d consider coming back to New York to do “Mame.”
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The “Fabulous Four” performance came about – as most great numbers do – during brunch. Midler and Ralph, 67, were shooting in Savannah, Georgia, when they went out to eat with director Jocelyn Moorhouse and producer Richard Barton Lewis.
“We were talking about – I don’t know, sunshine and joy and this and that,” Midler recalls. “Sheryl started to sing ‘I Can See Clearly Now,’ and so I chimed in. Richard literally jumped out of his chair and said, ‘That’s it! We’re going to do it!’ Sheryl and I both looked at each other like, ‘What have we done?’ ”
Moorhouse remembers the impromptu duet brought her to tears.
“Everyone at the tables around us seemed to know who they were,” Moorhouse says. “So when they started harmonizing together, the whole room stopped what they were doing and just watched the two legends, awestruck.”
Initially, Midler didn’t think they would get the rights to the feel-good reggae classic, which was released in 1972 and peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. It has since been covered by Ray Charles, Willie Nelson, and most famously, Jimmy Cliff for the "Cool Runnings" movie soundtrack in 1993. But Lewis fought for the song’s inclusion in "Fabulous Four."
“Music licensing is really expensive!” Midler says. “This movie was made for a certain budget and we weren’t supposed to go over it. In fact, I believe that Sheryl had to pay for her own coffee one time, but we’re not going to go into that. Nevertheless, he went and got that song, and it turned into a real thing.”
The joyous dance number is reminiscent of another cherished wedding comedy: the 2008 movie musical “Mamma Mia!,” which similarly sends out the audience on a tuneful high.
“I like that, thank you!” Ralph says of the comparison. “I was so happy that I got to sing with Bette.”
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