So Cher turned 80 on 20 May and I did not have a post ready. I was working on a big poetry project and a friend asked me what I was doing for Cher’s big birthday (a few people asked me actually). And I was like…err.  Was I supposed to do something? Should I have prepared something early? I did not do this. Million reasons but there it is.

But it’s not that I wasn’t thinking about the milestone and, to be honest, it is quite a big deal. At every milestone year I can’t help but think about how lucky we are, as Cher fans, to still be enjoying Cher stuff after all this time. Especially us older fans who got on board in the 1960s and 1970s. But when you think about it, even the 1980s fans are now old-time fans now. It’s crazy these decades that keep flying by.

But also just for Cher, as an entertainer, to not have succumbed to all the pitfalls of show business: from short-lived fame (despite all the critics who predicted this) to all the health issues she has or could have had and all the mind-f**ks of of fame. It is an extraordinary thing. And just to live 80 years. To be one of the humans who can get there….is a lucky thing.

And another point I want to make: when male celebrities cross these milestones, nobody seems to notice or make such a big deal about it. Is this because women are not supposed to last this long? Old women should be disposable after 40, 50, 60, 70? Whenever their sex appeal starts to diminish out there on the market? So Cher being treated like a sexy 80 year old is a good thing for all of us.

It was originally my intention to make my next Cher blog post about exclusive, collector’s Cher magazines through the years; and this seems to fit nicely with an 80th birthday post. Because People Magazine just issued another collector’s exclusive Cher magazine and because these magazines are a great retrospective of Cher through the years,  each magazine in its unique way.

Let’s get started on the features of each one and if re-issues are really identical magazines or what the differences are.

(If I’m missing any U.S. publications or if any magazines that were published in other countries, let me know. I’ll try to find them and catch up.)

But first of all I want to say that the very idea of a whole magazine devoted to Cher was an unimaginable treat when I was younger, like a new biography out, except full of pictures. So maybe even better. I found out about the 1970s magazines from the early days of scanning eBay auctions. In some cases, I waited for years to find and win copies. This was in the late 1990s while I was a broke Sarah Lawrence College student. My friends famously remember a time I arrived at a Red Robin diner in Yonkers with a stack of quarters because I spent all my money on Cher picture discs that Cher superfan Ward Lamb was selling on eBay. Later I met him at a Cher Convention and told him all about it. That first year I was running the Cher Trivia game and he won. He had just given a lecture on Cher records I think. Good times.

Cher Superstar (1975)

91 pages, black and white, Sterling’s Magazines

The table of contents pages are always illuminating. In this magazine, there are articles. There are pin-up pages you can tear out and tack to your bedroom walls. There’s biography. Never-before-seen photos. There’s a beauty section! (More on that in a later post.) There are four color photos (the cover pages) and the rest is in black-and-white.

Some interesting photos:

And unusual photo of Cher’s mother with Cher in the 1960s (I haven’t seen many of these, more of them together in the 1970s) and a rare photo of Cher’s father in the 1970s (turns out he’s suing her at this time):

The Chastity Birthday Party:

The photograph of this birthday party blew my mind when I first saw this magazine. I think Photoplay had a whole issue on this party (I’ll look for it). It was photographs of Chastity’s birthday party at The Big House, Carolwood. This is when it occurred to me that the back cover of the All I Ever Need Is You album was taken at their house and not some fancy Italian shopping mall.

Sonny’s girlfriends after the breakup:

Interesting Sonny & Cher photos:

See? Stars Are Just Like Us:

The Sonny and Cher divorce day pics and speculation about their getting back together.

America was so sad about this divorce.

A candid with Gregg Allman and Fred Silverman:

Can I just say I miss paperback bookstores.

Cher Beauty Secrets:

A whole section on this! (We’ll come back to this later.) And I love any photos of Cher without makeup. Unlike for Dolly Parton, Cher was never afraid to go out in public without makeup.

Quotes About Cher, Quotes by Cher and Pet Peeves:

It’s interesting that Gregg Allman’s sexist quotes are always worse than Sonny’s sexist quotes. That quote from Gregg Allman’s grandmother is pretty funny, though.

Other significant quotes from Cher:

  • “I could never stop loving Sonny.” There! She said it way back in 1975. She didn’t just say it at Sonny’s funeral. She said it in the 1980s. She said it in the 1990s. But Sonny never did say he would never stop loving Cher. Not once.
  • “Feel my ass, it’s as hard as a rock” – Cher was always a proponent of fitness so…plastic surgery didn’t negate that.
  • “I’m not an easy lay.” (We should all use that one.)

“I’m not really a big advocate of women’s liberation…” and then she says something precisely feminist…This is typical of the things Cher was saying in the early 1970s. “Woman’s World,” among other more current things, has made up for this.

When she decides to sell Carolwood: “Now now man, I got the house inside of me.” Yes!

On Cher’s least and most favorite things: I don’t like scratchy sweaters either. But I never did understand that whole Backgammon craze of the 1970s (or how to play Backgammon for that matter).

Cher, TV’s Dazzling Superstar (1975)

71 pages, black and white, Beauty Secrets Inc.

The magazine has the nicest design of these 1970s collector’s magazines. It’s all black and white except for the 4 cover photos and the 4 high-quality pin-up photos in the middle. The magazine calls Cher “TV’s first sex symbol” but I don’t think that’s really true. There was Goldie Hawn and I Dream of Jeannie. Maybe Cher was the first non-blonde sex symbol on TV.

Cher in the 1960s:

The Chastity Birthday Party and the Album Cover from the same patio!

Sonny & Cher, A Family Again (1977)

75 pages, black and white, Ideal Publishing Corp.

The very title of this clearly shows America’s obsession with this couple and a kind of yearning that existed for a reunion after the divorce. One section is titled “They Changed America, America Changed Them.”

This magazine has good pics and a Beauty Book (more later on that) but it’s also full of errors and ads and has a tabloid-y feel.

Sonny & Cher in the 1960s:

Sonny & Cher in the 1970s:

Photos of Cher trying to needlepoint all the sad away:

The lookalike contest:

I wonder who won.

Cher in the kitchen:

The Beauty Book

Can’t wait to get to these!

Sonny & Cher Partying:

Cher Exposed (2000)

73 pages, color, AMI Specials

“Rock N Roll’s Dream Girl” Yeah she is. This issue reviews the Sonny & Cher years, her iconic outfits, albums, Gregg Allman, Cher’s favorite products, Chastity coming out, Cher lovers, her TV shows, tattoos, movies and a final breakout box of her quotes about Cher.

The most infuriating quote is from Peter Bogdanovich who in other interviews said Cher had NO talent. Here he says “Cher is one of the most talented women I’ve ever met. She’s got depth and emotion that haven’t even been touched.” Totally unreliable.

A better quote is from Robert Altman: “She has guts–if Cher says she’s going to do something, she will do it.”

Meryl Streep calls Cher “Very real. Very honest.”

Childhood:

Cher in the 1960s:

Cher in the 1970s with Gene Simmons:

These were the tabloid photos I kept seeing when I first became old enough to start tracking Cher-abouts in magazines. Always with Gene Simmons. Always with the stupid face hanky. In her memoir, Cher said it was hard for them to eat out with that thing. I mean the hanky, not Gene Simmons.

Cher in the 1980s:

Growing kids:

Cher charts and graphs:

These are great. They call her the Comeback Kid and this chart shows her early ups and downs.

Is this my childhood bedroom wall? No, it’s the album page (with a few mistakes).

A great graph of the real and dumb accusations for plastic surgery. It was a no-win argument for Cher and somewhere around here she stopped divulging her “improvements” including some tattoo removals.

The first magazine to highlight the dolls.

Cher (2018 and 2019)

Both 97 pages, color, Closer Weekly

The 2018 and 2019 contents pages:

The childhood sections are the same.

The “I Got You Babe” section is the same text with some different pictures. 2018 vs. 2019:

The “Beat Goes On” section is identical.

The sections for Sonny & Cher “at home” and the TV shows are the same text with different pictures. The 2018 TV section is longer.

One of my favorite photos from The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour:

“The Men” sections are totally different pictures.

The music section is mostly the same but has different live pictures. 2018 vs. 2019:

The Motherhood sections are the same. The Movies section has different opening pictures but the rest is the same. The section on Cher’s mother Georgia is the same.

The Life After Sonny and Behind the Scenes sections have different pictures. 2018 vs. 2019:

The Bob Mackie, Fashion Forward and Drag Queen sections have different pics.

This 2018 opening Drag Queen picture, a shot from The Talk, is the better one. That was a great episode.

The section on the Classic Cher Las Vegas is the same. The Cher in her 70s sections are the same (and include a picture of Elijah’s wife.)

The Year of Cher section is new to the 2019 magazine and includes information about the movie Mama Mia II, the Dancing Queen album, the Kennedy Center Honors and the Broadway musical.

Instead of that, the 2018 edition has a spread of Cher’s iconic magazine covers.

The Memorabilia section is the same. The last page of Cher quotes are the same. But the back covers are different.

These magazines love to end on quotes. This from Cher: “Until you risk doing something foolish, you’ll never have the possibility of being great.”

Cher at 75 and Cher at 80 (2021 and 2026)

Both 97 pages, color, People Magazine

I re-read the 80th issue a few weeks ago and have some notes. On page 22 (both) there’s a picture of Georganne on that first London trip with Sonny & Cher and their managers, proving that Georganne is the one who can resolve the argument between the Sonny and Cher memoirs over whether Cher was thrilled or miserable on that trip.  The 80th issue does not correct the fake Tijuana marriage story and does not correctly state when Sonny & Cher started wearing hippie clothes when performing live. They should have, after Cher’s memoir. And has the hit “All I Ever Need Is You” in the wrong spot chronologically, stuffed with the 1960s S&C hits.

We talk all the time about seeing Cher’s belly button on TV but we don’t talk enough about how many times we saw Sonny’s belly button on TV.

On page 31, that iconic Sonny & Cher album cover photo is incorrectly given the date of 1975 instead of 1971. The magazine states that at their least popular, Sonny & Cher played to crowds as few as 45 people but in Cher’s memoir she had that number as low as 4 or 5 people.

The magazine talks about the Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour’s “thrust and parry repartee” which is a good way to describe their comedy. Cher is quoted as saying she learned from Sonny “a gut feeling.”

The Movies section has this sentence to introduce it: “Watch out, world, director Robert Altman warned in 1982.” (Yeah, he did.)

Robert Altman also predicted Cher would surprise audiences. Roger Ebert called her performance for Altman, “a revelation.” Her performance in Silkwood is called a “starkly unadorned performance.” The New York Times says “When you take away those wild wigs she wears on television…there’s an honest, complex screen presence underneath” (because yeah there is).

Of people’s preconceived ideas about her, Cher says, “People are so limited” (because yeah they are).

Of her performance in Tea With Mussolini The New York Times said Cher was “as likeable as ever, dispensing her blend of gawky true grit and zany regality.”

Of Cher in Mama Mia II according to Meryl Streep, “She steals the movie.” (She does.)

There’s a section on the Broadway show that reminds us that show won two Tonys and ran for 296 shows. Not exactly a long-running Broadway musical but one that is still playing in Europe and the U.S. (after years of delays, the magazine says).  One of the bad reviews called the show “dramatically threadbare” and is that a comment on her life? Because that makes no sense. Or just these jukebox musicals?

There’s a section called “Tour de Force” about her live shows and a funny story about a 30-thousand dollar laser butterfly that malfunctioned on the Take Me Home tour. (I hope she got a refund for that. No, she says, “we really ate it.”) They totally skip the D2K tour.

But they do cover her charity work, including her 1993 trip to Armenia in support of the United Armenian Fund and her support of animals, veterans, the people of Flint, Michigan and kids with craniofacial disorders. The 80 issue catches up with recent support of New York City’s City of Hope.

The music section talks about her “60-year genre-hopping recording career” on 34 albums which includes folk, power rock, new wave and disco and “a vocal style that remains unique despite many imitators.” (I just said that in a new music blog.) According to People, Time Magazine called Sonny & Cher “the first-family of folk rock.” The album section is shockingly accurate and includes a note of highlight for each album. According to a 1972 issue of Rolling Stone, a critic called the music on the album Foxy Lady, for example, “dynamite work.” (Because it is!)

Of her advancing age, People says “she can still rock black leather bodysuits” and describes her as regal yet fully human.

The 80th issue catches up with her Saturday Night Live appearance and Cherlato venture. Both issues have sections on her houses, her other boyfriends and husbands and her work with Bob Mackie.

Now the differences:

The 75th issue has a section on her children that the 80th has removed.

The 80th issue instead adds six pages to the first section, “Cher Through the Years,” with new material about Alexander, her mom and sister and her appearance with Chaz at the premiere of the movie Little Bites. There’s also catch up about her icon awards and a great photo of her singing and holding hands with Jennifer Hudson.

These sections are the same: Sonny and Cher, Cher Solo, Movies, Bob Mackie, Cher homes, the tours, the charities.

The music section, “The Beat Goes On,” is completely overhauled and the 80th issue includes the latest interviews and appearances. The album list catches up with the Christmas album and includes information about an app you can download to see evidence of Cher being candid in interviews.

The back covers are the same, but the final image is different.

So anyway, that is a tour of all the Collector’s Cher magazines I know about. These are some of my favorite pieces of Cher memorabilia. And again, how lucky to have a spread of them from 1975 to 2026! 50 Years! That puts Cher up there with stars like Katharine Hepburn, who until the day she passed, was also getting the full magazine treatment.

It’s a significant milestone, 80, just the number. But also all the more amazing because Cher continues to be a relevant cultural touchstone not only because of her stories about her past but because of her ability to break through career limitations that were once based on a women’s age or behavior.

This reminds me, recently I broke down and did my first on-camera interview as Cher Scholar for a French documentary on Cher. The whole process made me think about my four year old, five year old self. Could she have imagined that one day she would grow up to one day end up as a talking head on a documentary about Cher, alongside legit critics and biographers?

I think that four year old me would have said, “Of course, I will.”

But she would have been nuts is the thing.

I’m thrilled to still be a Cher fan, thrilled for all the other Cher fans out there, and thrilled that Cher has made it 80-spins around the sun.

Happy birthday, Cher.