Like so many others, Jessica Vosk first encountered Bette Midler when, as a teen, she saw the 1988 movie Beaches. In the musical comedy about the friendship between two women who meet as girls in Atlantic City, Midler memorably played Cee Cee, a brash New Yorker who pursues a career as a singer, and in the movie memorably sings the Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit “The Wind Beneath My Wings.”
“I just thought: ‘Wow. This woman is electric and brave and unapologetic. I want to be like her,'” Vosk tells Billboard. Over the years following, as Vosk carved out her own career in musical theater — going on to become one of the most beloved actors to play Elphaba in Wicked, among many other Broadway roles — it “became even more clear to me that [Bette’s] was a once-in-a-lifetime talent. I wanted to work as hard as I could to someday even be in the same orbit as her.”
With her current turn as Cee Cee in the Broadway adaptation of Beaches (based on the book that inspired the movie), Vosk is realizing that dream eight times a week. But there’s one song in the movie that she doesn’t sing onstage each night: “Otto Titsling,” a humorous ode to, well, a certain feminine asset that Midler co-wrote with Jerry Blatt, Charlene Seeger and the movie’s musical supervisor and Midler’s own longtime pianist and collaborator (and future Grammy, Oscar and Tony winner), composer Marc Shaiman.
Kelli Barrett (left) as Bertie and Jessica Vosk as Cee Cee in ‘Beaches’ on Broadway. (Photo credit: Marc J Franklin)“I must get 20 questions a day asking if I’ll ever cover it,” Vosk says of “Otto” (the Broadway Beaches has original music by Mike Stoller, of the famed songwriting team Lieber & Stoller). “So I figured, ‘Let’s give the people what they want!'” She recorded the track with Shaiman himself and today premieres the fan favorite exclusively with Billboard.
Shaiman shared behind-the-scenes Beaches memories with Vosk, including how, with “Otto,” he was tasked to write a song that would feel “overdone, very hysterical and off-kilter … and of course I was more than game to do that!” (She also got to see his Beaches platinum record up close.)
For Vosk, the recording is both a gift to fans and another way for her to leave her personal stamp on the role of Cee Cee. “When I stepped into Wicked to play Elphaba, it was an amazing learning experience to tackle something that has been performed onstage so iconically for so long. Beaches being new to Broadway is a whole new ballgame for me, getting the chance to create something,” Vosk says. “I wanted to originate this role because I believe so much in Cee Cee’s humanity and how she gets there. I relate to her hustle, determination and grit. And I am in love with her heart.”
Hear Vosk’s rendition of “Otto Titsling,” accompanied by Shaiman, here.
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