When I was working at ICANN years ago (my second of three consulting stints so far), I worked with a different Web Content team that consisted of a coworker who knew a lot about the local L.A. music scene (I think his uncle was a studio musician or something) and by this time I had moved from L.A. to Santa Fe, New Mexico (Mr. Cher Scholar wanted to get a degree related to archaeology) and I would connect with the ICANN team via Skype (which we don’t use anymore but which was the chat tool back then) and this coworker thought it was very funny that I was such a big Cher fan and so would always play Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon with me except it was Three Degrees of Cher.  He would throw out a musician or TV star and I would try to step that person back to Cher in three degrees or people, a challenge I was pretty good at because Cher has covered so many songwriters and has worked with so many people.

And I have to say that until I did a piece on My Top 1980s Music Videos on another blog, I never would have connected Billy Squier to Cher. When I did the video piece, I decided to exclude mentioning who the video directors were. I did this because what 15-year old girl in the 80s gave a whit about the video directors. In fact, when MTV started listing video directors in the lower left-hand corner, we thought that was pretty pretentious. And not because we didn’t consider music videos worthy of film credits, but the director line seemed grandiose, like so stereotypically director-ly. I say that but we did talk at great length about how Diane Keaton directed that Belinda Carlisle video and how surprisingly boring that one ended up being.

In any case, I was previously making an impassioned defense of the “Rock Me Tonight” video by Billy Squier which famously (and also simultaneously unknown to me) ignited a homophobic response that severed a rock star’s career. And as I was researching the video for the Top 80s Videos article, I learned who directed it: Kenny Ortega. And this is significant to me for many reasons.

Most of all because Kenny Ortega is gay. So the fact that the “Rock Me Tonight” video was accused of being “too gay” becomes more egregiously heartbreaking, as if the director’s gayness tainted the video. Definitely a thought homophobes recurringly have. Someone could do a whole essay now on this video and how it fits into the idea of Queer Readings, either incorrectly or by reading enthusiasm, sensuality and pastel shirts as “gay.” Which could lead to another essay about the oppressions and narrow-sightedness of a national culture in the mid-80s.

So then I read more about Ortega’s full career trajectory and how it started back with the band The Tubes and 10 years working as their choreographer.

Then in 1978, the Tubes appeared on Cher’s TV special which connected Cher with Kenny Ortega.

Then Cher asked Ortega to choreograph the Cher concert I love the most, Celebration at Caesars.

Cher was dating Gene Simmons at the time and then KISS used Ortega for their Dynasty tour in 1979. After that Ortega was one of the movie Xanadu’s choreographers and he worked on several John Hughes films. He also choreographed or directed other tours for Miley Cyrus, Olivia Newton-John and many shows for Michael Jackson. In fact, the best way to see Ortega behind the scenes would be to watch the This Is It documentary with Ortega working with Michael Jackson as they were assembling that tour which ultimately got cancelled due to Jackson’s accidental death. He’s also choreographed a SuperBowl, an Academy Awards and two Olympics, as well as directed a few movies that have become cult favorites.

By the way, I just finished the new Olivia Newton-John biography A Little More Love by Matthew Hild and there were many, many cross-over names with the Cher-o-sphere, including MCA Records, Warren Hamm, Billy Sammeth, Roger Davies, Kenny Ortega, Nick Vanoff, Gavin de Becker, John Kalodner and the Miles Copeland songwriters retreat. (By the way, the book illustrated how ONJ was ahead of the curve in supporting LGBTQ+ and medicinal marijuana.)

And while Ortega was working on all those tours, he choregraphed Madonna’s “Material Girl” and directed The Tubes video “She’s a Beauty” which was also on my Top 80s Videos list!

So there’s a straight line here. And at least I’m consistent, however innocently.