Bette Midler stars in I’ll Eat You Last: A Chat With Sue Mengers. The play tells the story of the fading glamour of one of 1970s Hollywood’s leading agents. Midler’s new venture opened last night (April 24, 2013) at Broadway’s Booth Theatre and catches up with Mengers in 1981, when her popularity is starting to wane and many of her high profile clients (she looked after Michael Caine, Barbra Streisand and Faye Dunaway to name but a few) have begun to turn their backs on her. 

Bette Midler
Bette Midler - curtain call on Broadway

A review from USA Today is full of praise for Midler, in this one-woman show and reassures readers that although the play begins with her uttering the line “I’m not getting up” (and she doesn’t , not until the very end), there is enough vivacious action in Midler’s performance to stop it from becoming static. “Under Joe Mantello's pitch-perfect direction, Midler dives into the role with predictable relish,” the review reads. Another, from the Hollywood Reporter, writes that even Mengers herself would most likely have been charmed by Bette’s portrayal of her: “It’s … hard to imagine her not being tickled by the eternally fabulous Bette Midler’s portrayal of her – a fusion of one self-made, larger-than-life persona with another in which the dividing lines all but vanish.” 

Bette Midler
Bette Midler - great reviews for her portrayal of Sue Mengers

Though I’ll Eat You Last captures Mengers in a state of fading glamour, there is still a sense of the grip under which she once held Hollywood, using hilarious – if dubious – methods to secure roles for some of her ascending acting stars.  

Bette Midler
Midler plays the role of the Hollywood agent Sue Mengers