Bette Midler Shares Her Favorite Memory With the Late Diane Keaton: ‘I Was Crying With Laughter’

Earlier in the week, Midler echoed similar sentiments during an appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on Tuesday, October 14.

“She was such a genius,” Midler said. “There was something about her that was utterly magical … she was completely her own person and inimitable. She was so authentically herself.”

Midler added that she was initially intimidated by Keaton when they first crossed paths.

“I have a great memory of her with Goldie …  I had never worked or met them before, and we sat down in a cafe … at a round table, and I was so intimidated,” Midler told Stephen Colbert. “I was a little bit of a newbie. So, we sat there and they started telling stories, and I’ll tell you, I never laughed harder in my whole life. It was brilliant and magical.”

Midler, Keaton and Hawn played former college best friends in First Wives Club, who work together against their estranged husbands. The hit 1996 film was an adaptation of Olivia Goldsmith’s 1992 novel of the same name.

Prior to her late-night TV appearances, Midler paid tribute to Keaton via a heartfelt Instagram post on Saturday, October 11.

“The brilliant, beautiful, extraordinary Diane Keaton has died,” Midler wrote alongside a photo of Keaton. “I cannot tell you how unbearably sad this makes me. She was hilarious, a complete original, and completely without guile, or any of the competitiveness one would have expected from such a star. What you saw was who she was…oh, la, lala!”