Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 3

We’re back again with more advice from 16 Magazine. But next up is some solo “Dear Cher” responses. From what Cher (or the 16 Magazine staff dude pretending to be Cher) says, this must be the first installment of the column. Plus there’s such a long preamble.

Did Cher start this solo and Sonny joined her later? As often happened in the Sonny & Cher story, Cher might have started off alone and then beseeched Sonny to help her out, like when she talked him into doing the final variety series or when she couldn’t talk on the “Hello” 45 record and Sonny had to do it all or when Sonny did all the talking to the live and studio audiences or when he tried to get Cher singing in the first place.

Anyway, hang on because this is going to be a long, repetitive and somewhat laborious introduction.

“If your young life is full of problems there’s no need for you to suffer alone. In fact, there’s no need for you to suffer at all. Cher wants help you—right here in the pages of 16!

[Jesus! That sounds so dire. Don’t suffer alone!]

Hi there! It’s me—Cher—and (like I told you in the last issue of 16) I have what I hope will be a groovey [sic, or maybe that’s really how they spelled it back then] surprise for you? I know it is for me. What it is, is this; beginning with this issue I am starting a column called Dear Cher right here in 16 Magazine. It will be a regular feature in which I will try to answer any of your questions concerning make-up, beauty, hair and self-improvement. I will also help you with your personal problems—[good lord, if only]—you know, like how to overcome bashfulness, how to get that special guy to notice you, how to get along with your parents and brothers and sisters (not to mention with your teachers), how to get a boy to keep on liking you once you’ve got him interested, what to do about those “moods” you fall into, etc.”

[So the target audience for this at the beginning was young girls, not boys. So much for their problems. Interesting we’ve already seen that some boys did write in.]

“In other words, I—Cher—promise you that I will do all I can to help and guide you in every way possible in your day-to-day life. I’ve just emerged from my early teens and I know what unhappiness and suffering a young girl often goes through—and all too often has to go through alone. Well, you aren’t alone anymore. I am here. You can count on me and I will not fail you.”

[Some big and wide-ranging promises are being made here. Oy vey.]

“So if you have a problem—whether it’s a boy who’s causing you a heartache or a hair-do that is giving you headache, you can turn to me. Don’t be shy. I am the only one who will see your letters, as signed by you, and you know you can trust me. [Somehow, I’m doubting this. Whenever someone says “trust me”…and you know what, I think Sonny & Cher taught me that]. Tell me what your troubles and problems are—and then look each month for my answer, just for you, right here in the pages of 16. Since most of your letters will be of a very personal natures, I will not print your name. Be sure to remember to put a code name of your selection at the end of your letters to me. I will use this code name when I print your letter and my answer in 16—so watch for it.

Meanwhile, since I have some extra space in this issue [despite a herculean attempt to preamble this to death], I am going to take care of a couple of letters that came to me recently in my general mail. They will give you an idea of how I will write this column.”

[Ugh! I’m exhausted now. If only we could take a nap. No, let’s forge ahead.]

Dear Cher, When I look at a picture of you, I just flip. You look so beautiful—your eyes are sparkling and your hair is long and shining. Then I look into the mirror and I just hate myself. Please, please tell me how I can get to look like you! Miserable

Cher’s Response:

Dear Miserable, I am glad you like the way I look, believe me—but in doing so you are overlooking a most important fact. I am me and you are you! I am quite sure you are just as pretty (if not prettier) than I am, in your own way. So forget about me and let’s concentrate on you. To have sparkling eyes, you must get enough sleep, keep your face and eyes clean, and perhaps wear a little make-up [that word has unhyphenated itself in the last 40 years… isn’t that interesting?]. A thin eye-liner line on your upper lid and a little mascara may just do the trick. [Is that ironic advice from the woman who, along with Liz Taylor, gave the thick eye-liner look traction in the mid-1960s?] Give it a try. Be sure your eyes aren’t dull because you need glasses. Don’t laugh [too late]—that is sometimes the case! You can keep your hair shining by washing and brushing it regularly. If you want it long, then let it grow. [Is there another way?] Long hair takes extra brushing, so be sure that you have the time required to take care of it. If you do these things, you will begin to discover your own hidden beauty, and soon you will find yourself liking that little girl you see in the mirror!

Cher Scholar’s Response:

If you do these things, you will begin to discover your own hidden beauty…for like 24 hours only and then you will forget about it again and will have to discover new eye-liner tricks and spend some $$ on beauty books and magazines and the latest, most scientifically-improved (or mystical) makeup and then write to more advice columns run by other celebrities and influencers and do you see the problem with this right here?

I’m not an expert on this but I am always most impressed by those women who present beyond their face, so to speak. I just saw an example of this last night on a Diane Von Furstenberg documentary. She’s indisputably beautiful but she presents in a way that indicates she’s not operating from an investment in her own beautiful face. Oh sure, you say, easy enough to tap into your inner beauty when you’ve got outer beauty! Ok, fair enough. You can also see this same phenomenon in certain women who are not considered stylishly beautiful. (Look behind you 200 years to see how trends influence what we think ‘beautiful’ is.) These women are tapping into some kind of arresting self-assurance and inner light. I can think of a few women right now who do it. You think they’re beautiful and then you say, well, they’re not conventionally beautiful but they’re pulling off something that’s very lovely and stunning.

I couldn’t tell you how to get there, but I’m pretty sure it’s not by using a tube of makeup or hair coloring.

As a tween and teen, I did all the things. I read all the library books and paperback books I could find on beauty by the likes of Revlon or Raquel Welch or Christie Brinkley. I did all the hair and face things. I did aerobics religiously. I didn’t spend a single day in high school without my finger nails painted. It seems ridiculous to me now. I mean it’s fun to paint your fingernails. It really is. I still do it. But to feel you have to do it every day is a problem. Because it doesn’t really matter. And I didn’t even need to compare myself to famous women. I had a charismatic, elegant comparison in my own house, my grandmother. To tell you what kind of an “influencer” she was, you just have to meet all the Katharines in my family named after her. I would never measure up, I was sure of it. She was the thinnest, most effortlessly glamourous person and more interesting than any woman on TV; and by the way, her fingernails were painted every single day. The only time I saw her without her nails painted was when she was in the hospital and it was shocking. I never for one second thought I could pull of a Cher. That never even occurred to me as do-able. But at least I had the genetics of my grandmother. That seemed somehow do-able. And I went to great and dangerous lengths trying to do it.

I’m probably closer than I’ve ever been to understanding the charisma of my grandmother (because I’m nearing the age she was when I knew her and have had a lifetime to understand her possible struggles and feelings) and still I only paint my nails once in a while. It was never about the fingernails.

There’s a back door into this idea of beauty, is what I think I am trying to say. It’s not a front door. The paint job is only the front door. And if you find you don’t have time to brush your long hair, “trust me” you will survive.

We lose ground in constant comparisons. They are irrelevant. Celebrity culture makes this worse. Advertising makes this worse. You have to shut all that down. While you’re comparing yourself to Cher, she was comparing herself to someone else impossible for her to emulate (and that was Audrey Hepburn). It’s a dead end.

Since the mid-60s I have no doubt Cher has received thousands of fan letters telling her how beautiful she is. The letters probably increased significantly in the 1970s when she was a TV glamour goddess and the most photographed woman in America, if not the world. More photographed than Diane Von Furstenberg even!

Fast-forward to the set of Silkwood with Meryl Streep and Mike Nichols in the early 1980s. I have a friend from High School and we were talking recently about Elaine Mae and Mike Nichols and so she sent me an excerpt she had on Silkwood from a Mike Nichols’ biography. I just read it last night. Here’s the relevant part:

“[Nichols] told Cher that he didn’t want her character to wear makeup. She was so nervous she wept—’I am so convincingly ugly,’ she said.”

Whaaaat? The makeup story is a famous Cher-Silkwood story but I had never heard that quote before and it just kills me! Cher was still beautiful in Silkwood! As I said in Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 1, we’re not always the best judges of ourselves (for good or bad).

Dear Cher, Nobody loves me. I know it sounds unbelievable, but it happens to be true. I am 13 and quiet and sort of bashful. When I try to talk to people, I stammer; and when people talk to me, I blush. My life is so unhappy. Is there anything you can do to help me? Scared

Cher’s Response:

Dear Scared, Don’t worry so much—you’re not alone in this terrible predicament. Guess what? I went through exactly the same phase when I was your age [which, let’s be honest, was six years ago]. I guess it is just a part of those awful growing pains. I think it would help you if you would try to find one good girl friend. It’s harder to get to know a group than just one individual. There must be one girl who seems a bit friendly towards you. Don’t hold back with her. Do something like asking her for help on a homework problem, or about how she gets her hair to go a certain way. Show an interest in her—and in others. If you can manage to compliment people in a sincere way—and there is something good to compliment in everyone—well, they can’t help but get to like you. Don’t be afraid of speaking to yourself in the mirror—out loud, I mean. I don’t care if it is just counting to ten, it will help you to get over the habit of not every uttering a word, and it will be a sure cure for your stammer. You don’t have to be a tiger, hon—but try to be just a bit of a ‘tigress.’ Good luck.’

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Tiger? Wha? Have we moved on to the bedroom? I’m confused.

Okay, compliments. Those are good, always appreciated. But you can go too far with compliments and you can actually get into trouble if you over-compliment or complement on a trigger subject. So stick to sincere feelings and strategically deploy it. Don’t blanket complement. Don’t complement to change the subject or as a diversion of any kind. Because then, your whole complementing apparatus becomes suspect and you’re right back to where you started.

My friend Christopher taught me a good lesson in conversation skills. I took him once to an art gallery in Taos, New Mexico, and he spent an hour chatting with the proprietor. We didn’t have time for anything else. But I was amazed he could do this for such a long time with a stranger. He later said you can get anyone talking just by being curious and asking them questions and then seeing where that goes. People love to talk about themselves. And if you’re genuinely interested, you can play it as it lays. Be in the moment. Follow the threads.

Chats with the mirror aren’t a bad idea either. Inner dialogue. Get to know your self.

Cher has always said she is very shy and was once paralyzingly shy. She’s said she was even too shy sometimes to sing in front of just Sonny.

Possibly she’s an introvert, too, and you can’t turn an introvert into an extrovert. Their brains are actually wired differently. But you can learn how to communicate more effectively with others. And if you can learn some of these things at 13, you will not have to undo a lifetime of bad habits so good for you.

Cher was an early fan of the movie Dumbo. And like Dumbo, she had a feather to get her through anxious moments. This feather’s name was Sonny.

When I was a tween, I had to set myself a goal. I had a girl gang in Albuquerque. We did things like steal lawn ornaments and write FUCK on the sidewalks with chalky New Mexican rocks. I was on track to become a real problem child until we moved to St. Louis and I feel in with the wrong crowd, a group of nerdy bookworms. But it took some work.

My biggest problem was also bashfulness. Mine took the form of being terrified to express an opinion. Because I knew I would be judged for having an incorrect one. I was at my friend Jayne’s house one morning after a sleepover. She was asking me which box of breakfast cereal I wanted to eat from their pantry of many cereals and I was like, “Uhhhh…which one do you want?” and she lost her shit. “Like just pick a goddamn cereal already so we can eat breakfast.”

I decided right then that I would have one opinion a day. (Sigh. True story.) I even practiced having one opinion a day with my other friends Lillian and Diana. They’d be on there way over to my house and I would think, “Ok, get ready to have an opinion.”

And I started having opinions and it worked out really well and now I have too many.