I Found Some Blog

As I said earlier, the fall of 2024 through 2025 was a very welcome, embarrassment-of-riches vis-a-vis Cher books.

I am reminded of something Sonny said in his memoir, that he could gauge how well Sonny & Cher were doing as an act by the way the hotels where they performed received them. If they made money for the hotel, they would be received more deferentially.

And similarly, I think you can tell how healthy a career legacy is doing judging by the quality of the writing from people who write about you. As Cher’s reputation has iconified over the last 10-15 years, the quality of mass media writing about her has improved measurably. Although this is getting harder to parse during the age of A.I. I’m not talking about grammar and sentence structure necessarily but also the thinking itself being done to conceptualize Cher as a performer, and also where this writing appears, not in A.I. results but in the mass media press.

These two books are a good example of that.

I Got You Babe: A Celebration of Cher by Annie Zaleski

By the way, Annie Zaleski also did the Cher chapter in the Hall of Fame program from 2024.

This slick-designed book of photographs and mini essays is a great overview of the Cher-universe for those who don’t have the patience to read her bios or memoirs. There’s a fun intro by Cher-friend Cyndi Lauper who talks about how professional, disciplined and encouraging Cher is, how basically pleasant she is and yet “if there was a problem, you’d hear about it,” how talking to her doesn’t feel like you’re talking to a famous person “even though she is one of the most famous people in the world.” Lauper calls Cher “sweet, kind and wise…and admirable.”

Zaleski has a good way of chunking the Cher story: breaking it up into digestible pop culture categories. She notes the multiple generations that have grown up with her and how: boomers (IGUB), Gen X (Variety shows, specials and movies, the rock diva), Millennials (Believe), Gen Z (tweets, RuPaul’s Drag Race, DJ Play a Song). Zaleski calls herself a longtime fan and music journalist. She calls Cher resilient, funny, brilliant and inspiring. The book is full of new quotes from Zaleski’s interviews with Cher and some new-old photos.

The book is color-coded by alternating chapters on Cher themes: personal life stories (much of Cher’s biography), Music, Television, Movies, Stage, Business (fitness, perfume), Fashion, Culture (being a gay and drag icon, the stuff like the dolls), Charity and Politics, and Cher stats.

Biography: Zaleski captures the core themes, that as a child “no one looked like me” and how Cher struggled for role models. There’s a great Cher’s quote about Sonny talking her “scattered energy” and “he focused the energy.” “I had such hero worship of Sonny, long after we were together…I just thought he was great.” Cher notes how they started out performing as the “100th on a bill.” Zaleski captures Cher and Tina Turner’s first impressions of each other and Zaleski notes that they “brought out the best in each other’s voices and stage presence.” She explains how David Geffen helped Cher “pivot.” “I was really, really lost,” she has Cher saying.

Zaleski has a knack for showing the iconic photographs and picking the best highlights of the Cher story.

Gregg Allman could be a “real louse” or he could build Chastity a tree house, Cher says. (There’s a Dr. Seuss poem in there with they rhyming louse/house.) “He split 9 days into the marriage.” Cher’s memoir makes it seem like the day after. Cher on Georganne: “My sister is the scholar in our family” Discussing Robert Camiletti (18 yr. difference) and Alexander Edwards (40 year difference), Cher says of younger men that they are “more supportive, less demanding” and give you more of their time.

Music: The book covers Cher’s Christmas album and major achievements.  Zaleski covers some of the early songs with her adjective-laden succinctness.

• The swaying, harmony-rich “The Letter”
• The Everly-Brothers-esque “Love is Strange”
• The dramatic noir classic “Bang Bang”
• The horn-peppered song “The Beat Goes On” – the message of which to Zaleski means “don’t’ stand still; the world is always changing and evolving.”
• The easy-going “All I Ever Need Is You”
• The theatrical “A Cowboy’s Work Is Never Done”
• The dreamy “A Love Like Yours” (her vocals dusky and delicate…a perfect match for Nilsson’s own keening tone”)
• Blazing disco-rocker “Hell on Wheels”
• A hungry bar band singer in “Dead Ringer for Love” and she quotes Meatloaf saying “I didn’t think she could do it…I couldn’t believe it.”

She calls the music of Sonny & Cher “low-key…hewing toward kaleidoscopic ‘60s pop. She calls them “stubborn individualists” and notes one chaotic and “frenzied” concert where they had to escape by sitting in the middle of a river on a motorboat.” She quotes a journalist to say “Gypsys, Tramps and Thieves” was “one of the greatest pop songs of the last century.” And Cher’s retort: “No.” (I would argue it’s literature to boot.) Cher says it was the A&R men who brought the songs, not necessarily Snuff Garrett or Sonny.

Some songs Zaleski thinks didn’t flatter Cher like:

• The treacly “You’d Better Sit Down Kids”

But she liked Cher’s “quiet confidence” in Dylan’s “The Times They Are a Changin’” and her “soulful performance over  scratchy electric guitars” in “Hey Joe.” She also loves the “horn-driven R&B” of the Jackson Highway album, including the “gorgeous vocals” on “Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay” and “For What It’s Worth.” And these songs, Zaleski says, “laid the foundation for her vibrant career.”

Zaleski assembles a haphazard list of her musical successes in the charts. She talks about her “rock star phase” starting with Black Rose (and the book includes that unfortunate shirtless promo pic), opening for Hall & Oates, where Cher “held her own” with “no-frills hard rock with a dash of glam, power-pop and new wave.” (Oy, that’s some mash-up.) Theatrical howls and biting shrieks in “Never Should’ve Started,” a song which continues with “ferocious growls”. Zaleski creates her own 50-song best-of list and lists all the people Cher has collaborated with (not including studio musicians).

She does a segment on Cher’s live shows and residencies which she calls “uplifting” and notes revenues and tickets sold. There’s a separate section on soundtrack music and her guest appearances.

“Her legacy and impact are still felt today,” Zaleski says.

Television: The Television segments put Cher’s shows in context of Fred Silverman’s lineup of Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart and All in the Family and him saying in 1971, “They’re the kind of young new talent we must have.”  Zaleski  talks about Sonny & Cher’s deadpan, edgy insults. She quotes Meryl Streep as saying Cher on TV was a “natural talent as an actress…she made everybody else on TV look like they were trying too hard.” (And she did.) Streep also called Cher’s acting “immediate…canny…skilled, but it was invisible.”

Zaleski also rounds up the awards and ratings and notes “The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour would “become known as the Gold Standards by which all musical variety shows were measured.” (No one talks about that very much now but it’s true.)

Zaleski gets the name of Sonny’s solo show wrong but reviews both Sonny and Cher solo shows and has ABC president remarking that maybe it was “too soon” for Sonny’s show. And there are pictures from the first show attributed to the later day show. (Deep breath.)

There’s also a segment on the TV specials at the end of the decade and how tabloid problems with Gregg Allman meant that “mothers wouldn’t let kids watch.” (There was very little my mother wouldn’t let me watch: the movie Grease and the TV show Soap.) Zaleski calls the specials “equally amazing” and talks about Cher’s Letterman appearances. There’s a section on the music videos (including “Hell on Wheels”), the John Wilson cartoons and even the guest appearance on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse and Will and Grace among other things.

Movies: This section take us from Come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean through the aminated movies and Mama Mia 2. We begin with Cher’s struggles to break in to acting and how Jimmy Dean “gave me professional credibility for the first time.” Reviews for Silkwood include “the script was dense and smart” and “one of the most wryly clever performances on film in a good while.” Zaleski notes that Cher thanked her mom, Sonny and her children for her first Golden Globes win.

Reviews for Mask include “a sensitive, empathetic actress” and Cher saying, “I go out of my way to try to do women who are heroic people that would never make the cover of any magazine,” about Bagdanovich Cher saying, “I never did really understand what he wanted” and Bagdanovich on Cher saying, “she can’t act” and that she was “the most difficult actor I ever worked with,” that she “won best actress because I shot her well.” Zaleski  mentions Cher’s lifelong friendship with craniofacial kids. She calls Witches of Eastwick “underrated.”

Zaleski calls Moonstruck a modern classic. Zaleski also mentions the movies Cher barely missed out on including King Kong, Thelma and Louise, War of the Roses, The Drop Out and Catwoman.

She separates Cher’s main movies from her cameos and movie segments like If These Walls Could Talk. She has Cher saying she has “a narrow range. My characters, they’re me.”  (I would say this is only consistently true of the latter-day movies.)

We learn that Cher picked Andy Garcia as her mate for singing “Fernando” in Mama Mia 2.

Zaleski includes all the animations on one page (TV, video and movies, except the John Wilson ones which appear with the TV videos): her appearance with Beavis & Butthead, Zookeeper (which wasn’t animated though but does classify as voice work), Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh, Bobble Heads, and both appearances on Scooby Doo.

Stage Work: This includes the 2018 jukebox musical and a cast member saying about Cher, “to be vulnerable and yet have the most power in the room, that’s a really hard place to stand in.”

There are sections about her other cultural influences including:

Fashion and her years with Bob Mackie on stage, television and on the red carpet (and with the dolls) and how Bob Mackie said he was always “attempting to present to the world this…creature in her own right” and Cher talks about the confidence he gave her. Zaleski lists the iconic fashion moments and calls her “a fashion plate for the free wheeling, forward looking 1970s” and says she’s been pushing the envelope since the 1960s. Another great Mackie quote is “she’s a chameleon, but you can never lose her.”

There’s a whole section on Cher wigs, a whole section on the dolls. Zaleski notes that back in the 1970s they called it the Cher Barbie doll and has Cher saying “they made about 30 dolls before I was satisfied.” Zaleski interviews the Mego Toy president.

The Social Causes: There’s a section on her support of LGBTQ community and her status as a gay icon. Separately Zaleski has a section on Cher’s influence and importance to the art of drag, including how she incorporated drag into her late 1970s shows.

The Business Ventures: This includes the fitness commercials and videos, Lori Davis, Aquasentials (where Cher says she felt she lost her soul), the Sanctuary catalog, the two perfumes, MAC cosmetics, Cherlato and a roller rink Cher started that never opened. (I didn’t know that.)

The book also has a stats page that covers her auctions, awards, chartings, record sales, tour receipts, awards and honors.

Charitable Interests: This list includes AMFAR, Pediatric Aids Foundation, Habitat for Humanity, COVID Pandemic Response, a village school in Kenya, Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, Operation Helmet, political support to Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, saving Kaavan, Free the Wild and her continued work to save Billy the elephant.

There are some new and rare pics, quotes and perspectives.

Some other great quotes from the book: “Cher is pop culture” and that she is “a model for staying true to yourself…brash, outspoken, unapologetic. The world is finally waking up and realizing that she’s one of the most influential and important artists of our time.” and video director David Mallet saying “she is probably one of the most unaffected people in entertainment.” (Very different from what Bagdonovich said.)

Style Codes: Cher: A Guide to Dressing Like a Fashion Icon by Natalie Hammond (2025)

I’m always looking for ways people talk about Cher’s fashion style because, like for music, I don’t feel real adept at talking about fashion. I don’t have the vocabulary. Although I do enjoy dressing up for occasions, I spend most of my time in jeans and a t-shirt. I did a lot of outrageous-wear in high school but it wasn’t modeled after Cher as much as Molly Ringwald. She wasn’t a bad guide either.

My only criticism of the book is that it’s so over-designed, it’s hard to tell where sections begin and end.

The book starts by considering Cher’s 1982 live show headdress and Hammond calls it an “extravaganza of camp” and she notes how that show’s outfit changes happened in front of an audience. She also notes the show’s “big mule sandal” and calls Cher a fashion “risk taker.”

Next she considers the 1986 Oscars dress and says Cher’s variety shows were “always source of controversy for CBS” but that Cher and Bob Mackie were adept at creating “a moment.” (An unforgettable moment at that.)

Hammond talks about how Cher’s album cover always provided a “glorious sense of escapism,” particularly Take me Home and Prisoner.

Hammond explains an episode when Cher was on a Barbara Walters special explaining what her 1988 Oscar dress would look like and it was supposed to have a motorcycle jacket instead of the wrap she eventually wore. ”I feel that’s really me.”  (I didn’t know that.)

The book is broken up in to 10 Cher codes along with tips as to how to use them yourself. “The average person has no Bob Mackie. So what’s a girl to do?” Generally this means pushing yourself out of comfort zone but still feeling like you. The book encourages you to throw in an “occasional curve ball” into the mix. Hammond talks about the word “appropriate” and how this concept doesn’t apply to Cher. To those who judge Cher’s fashion decisions, Hammond says, Cher judges you right back.

Cher says she didn’t set out to be scandalous. She was simply trying to be herself. (That’s a complicated idea.)

Hammond says first you need to take stock of your wardrobe (t-shirts and jeans) and do a cleanse and list out the gaps. (Anything that isn’t t-shirts and jeans. Jk, I have some sweaters, too.)

If Cher has only  one legacy, it would be the naked dress, Hammond says. Now naked dresses are standard practice on the red carpet. But in the 1970s nobody was showing that much skin. But Cher was already using “see-through fabrics, peekaboo lace and decolletage-clinging sides.” Hammond quotes Mackie about Cher’s fantastical armpits. There’s the comment about the appearance of Cher’s navel during television’s family hour.

Cher was accused of corrupting the morals and had to hide her navel again by 1975. Her variety shows spent $30k on the costume budget per episode. But in the process, she became a style icon in the 1970s. Not a pinup (as if to differentiate her from Farrah Fawcett). Hammond talks about the Cher silhouette,” slinky to the point of making her look statuesque”  with the elongations, the crisscross designs and the fluid maxi skirts.

Hammond provides mix-and-match options charts, tells you how to shop and what to pair with what. This book has mostly illustration and very few photos of Cher, as if the book is on a budget. But there are enough. And the illustrations are helpful.

There’s a section on makeup and Cher’s heart-shaped face and how empowering it was also to see Cher out-and-about wearing no makeup, similar to how it is also empowering to see RuPaul and Pamela Anderson without makeup today.

Hammond takes us through the decades.

1960s

After the “staid fashions” of the 1950s, “modest was out, megawatt was in.” There’s even a color-scheme page for each decade, with the primary colors of the 60s, the paisleys, Cher’s vinyl minidress in sunflower yellow.

She calls Cher “queen of the crop tops” and talks about Cher’s early use of bell bottoms.

1970s

A glamourous approach, “gone were the garish or girlish” and how Cher wore a “lustrous spectrum that dazzled under lights.” Hammond focuses on her “jewel tones,” an example being the ruby-red Ringling Brother’s outfit.

Hammond talks about the artist who worked on the first variety show (or with Cher during that time):Jim Ortel (hair), Ben Nye II (makeup), Renata Leuschner (wigs), Minnie Smith (manicurist of the stars) noting how Cher started the squared-off nail trend.

She mentions the Beatles Tribute dresses.

And “the kaleidoscope effect” of Cher’s butterflies outfit.

“By 1978 Cher had laid three shows to rest” Hammond says and she calls their next variety show in 1976 “the ex-couples second bite of the cherry as a double act.”

By the late 70s Cher is “dressing with a devotion to the razzmatazz.” She turned the volume up, Hammond says and her “outfits were brief and the colors were bold.” As Cher struggles to launch and acting career, Hammond says her clothes were “a visual sucker-punch that would have done little to quell the doubt about her suitability for cinema audiences.”

An example she notes is the 1978 turquoise body suit and its pose, “a starfish in spandex,” the silver knee high boots and the whole thing “a swaggering kind of energy” (which, btw, is where real rock and roll style resides).

But it was “the flame dress that really set pulses racing.”  Hammon notes that a version had already been made for Tina Turner inspired by the tendrils of sequins already worn by Raquel Welch.

Here’s a slide-show of women who have worn a version of the dress.

Cher as “Prime Time Queen” wore all those jewel tones and “showgirl getups” but Hammon notes all the times she wore white and later in the decade purple and pinks. And the gold on 1979’s Take Me Home.

1980s

Black was Cher’s color in the 1980s. Hammond says, because she was in her serious Hollywood phase but that she “makes the shade her own”  and that “the genius of Cher” is to turn black into a statement or even everyday wear. She notes the “Turn Back Time” leotard and that silver belt, noting this was the only outfit Cher was ever nervous about because….all those sailors.

Someone on The Phil Donahue Show asked Cher if she had shed her “Barbie doll image.” She was wearing a studded leather jacket, short shaggy hair and leather mini skirt.

Hammond provides advice on wearing all black, how to mix textures and that “black doesn’t have to mean boring.”

She talks about the “I Found Someone” video’s black peekaboo body stocking paired with a leather jacket and the chain-mail suspenders and the armor minidress.

She notes that the record label, Geffen didn’t want Robert Camilletti in the video so Cher funded it herself “and if that isn’t rock and roll, what is?” Snap. Hammond talks about how her outfits seem effortless and Cher’s “utter disregard of the rules” which is “better than leather.”

Later in the decade, Cher wears more florals.

1990s

Hammond talks about the Love Hurts bodysuit with all its rivets and charms and high cut crotch.

The was a decade of animal prints for Cher. She notes the 1993 CFDA event with the crystal buckle. She calls Cher “the mistress of I don’t give a damn.”

There’s a section explaining Cher’s use of slightly oversized biker jackets, “the definition of rock and roll,” going “loose and louche” with extra zips, belt, cuffs to the knuckles, and always falling off her shoulder.

She gives tips on vintage shopping.  She notes the 1997 Met Gala outfit.

2000s and 2010s

This was a decade with the return of color, of “Believe” silver and the 2000-2005 Living Proof Tour metalics.

She notes the 2002 MTV Icon award honoring Aerosmith.

2020s

Hammond talks about the idea of “owning your own sex appeal” and how Cher does all the “no-nos” in outfit combos.

She mentions the Versace show where Cher wore blue leather in 2021.

And her appearance at the opening of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures wearing two prints. (One of my favorite recent ensembles.)

And her Chicken Shop Date jacket.

Hammond talks about how Cher has worn denim across all the decades and how Cher says denim is the “longest relationship I’ve ever had.” She calls out the flared jeans Cher wore on her first appearance of Will & Grace and of Jack: “He should have know better. Who could pull off those jeans but Cher.”

Or the jeans she wore opening night at Studio 54 on April 26 1977, coming downstairs with Steve Rubell.

The 1987 photo session on shag rug in her Egyptian house.

Cher can made double denim okay, Hammond says.

There’s a section on “embracing your alter ego” and Hammond calls out the outfit Cher wore on the cover of Paper Magazine in  2023.

Hammond calls Cher an “airport influencer” and how she has made airport appearances into “her own personal runway.”

She calls out a 1974 appearance with a cowboy hat.

A 1977 airport appearance wearing snake skin boots.

A 1978 appearance in a checkered shirt and a 1984 with leather pants and a 1988 appearance with a velvet scarf.

Hammond says Cher has even mastered dressing down (and I’m reminded of how she does interviews with jogging pants,  track pants or jeans and a t-shirt .

Like the outfit she wore on The Dick Cavett Show in 1982 (where she shows him all her tattoos).

Hammond talks about film roles that featured “a grittier kind of realism” and that “Cher was more than capable of playing a ‘real’ person.” She calls out Dolly Pelliker’s t-shirt, workman’s pants and cowboy boots from Silkwood which “couldn’t have been more of a departure.” Hammond calls it a “make-under.”

She calls out the 2018 Met Gala dress when she talks about how Cher has a “sparkly me” and “the quiet me.”

There’s a whole section about add-ons and her Hammond features the 1985 Met Gala dress with the black skirt and beaded top with ear cuffs. Hammond says for Cher “more is more.”

She tells us the “Believe” video head piece was an accident of walking by an artist who happened to be on set crafting to pass the time. (I did not know that.)

There’s a section on hair and hats: Charlie Tweeddle cowboy hats, cowboy hats with plumes, halos, war bonnets, headdresses.

A final section is on prints and of course Cher’s character Laverne is featured with the bra strap always exposing itself (Bob Mackie’s genius idea) and how the outfit is “loud and unapologetic.”

“Clothes never eclipse Cher,” Hamond says, whether she wears rock-and-roll studs and beads, sequins, crystals, pearls.

On page 184 Hammond promises that by following these codes “you’ll look a little like Cher” but on page 1986 she admits “there can’t be more than one Cher.” All we can do is emulate her style codes and “perhaps push yourself out of your style comfort zone….Cher didn’t take her wardrobe too seriously.” And if you do, “snap out of it.”

In Hammond’s acknowledgements she says, “this one felt personal because to me Cher is the ultimate in so many respects—a person who lives fearlessly. I hope this book encourages you do to the same.” Hammond also has done books on Dolly Parton and David Bowie. She is currently the Senior Fashion Editor of Grazie but has written for many publications about fashion.