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a division of the Chersonian Institute

Category: History (Page 6 of 14)

Cher Bits Catchup

December 29, 2014 / / 1 Comment

Richard-pryorCher History

A pretty funny recent article about how Richard Pryor once freaked out on the set of the Flip Wilson Show and fisticuffs ensued and Cher allegedly went and locked herself in her dressing room. It's an excerpt of a new biography about him. It's interesting that Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor both have new biographies out and how they were pitted against each other in the 1980s: clean comedy versus dirty comedy. And how history changes everything. As Camile O'Sullivan sings: "time's the revelator."

Cher Tweet Explosions

Cher takes the Robber Barons to task. My grandfather would love that Cher is invoking the Robber Barsons. Too bad she hadn’t done this by 1978 when I was eight and he asked me soberly over the kitchen table what her politics were:

In December Cher also tried to raise awareness for abused Pigs:

6a00d8341d6c7753ef01b8d089f36b970c-200wiA few weeks ago I linked to a Sonny & Cher video taken in a record store and Cher scholar Robrt recognized the album cover in the video. I also remembered Cher plays this video in her latest show.

Robrt believes this is their second album released in Italy with the Italian-language singles added.

Hall of Fame

I think from time to time about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s ridiculous prejudice in denying Cher an induction. I figure she deserves to be in for at least these things:

1. Her style influence in the 1960s and 70s

2. The collected impact of these songs alone:

  • “Bang Bang” – figuring the amount of covers this song has had.
  • “I Got You Babe” – and the phenomenal fad of this song.
  • “The Beat Goes On” – and how a pop song title has insinuated itself so fully in our cultural conversations. I hear this phrase over and over again on TV and in publications; and how impossibly uncoverable the song remains to this day.

We've all seen the most well-known picture of Cher and Angelica Houtson:

Angelica1

But there’s also a Cher picture in Angelica's new book, Watch Me.

Cher-houston

  

Thoughts on Cher Memoirs

December 3, 2014 / / 0 Comments

MemsThinking about Angelica Huston's new memoir (because one of my friends asked for it for Christimas) and ruminating on her comments about writing it, I'm reminded again of the kind of book Cher might write. Cher could easily put out two books, too, by the way

Last week, in a book called The Mindful Writer I found this quote:

“Let’s say you’re writing about your childhood…as you write, there are multiple variations of you [writing]. There is the wounded nine-year-old you, still (because childhood can be so searingly painful) aching after all of these years. There is the angry teenage you, still needing somehow to rebel, to lash out. There is the twenty-something you who finally recognized how much pain and anger there was in your childhood and what seemed normal to the youngster was neither normal nor healthy. And perhaps there is the forty-three or sixty-three-year-old you, sitting at the desk, trying to explain and explore the memories that somehow never go away. Whose perspective are you going to bring to the [story]? That is not a simple question—there is no right or wrong answer…There is no reason to tackle a subject, even your own life story, if you are not seeking understanding, looking to learn something, asking questions to which you do not know the answer.” That is what will make the work interesting to the reader, and that is what will make the process worthwhile for you.”

One of the recent issues of "Poets & Writers" magazine also broached the topic in an article by William Giraldi: 

“…there’s never been a consummately honest memoir, that all memoirs are fictionalized to one degree or another. The memory’s intrinsic fallibility makes an accurate book unattainable from the word go.”

Happily, complete honesty is not the point of it. If the impossibility of complete honesty ever stopped us, no one would ever tell a story to anybody–ever. Language is fallible but do you stop speaking? No, you acknowledge the imperfection as part of the life of the art.

   

Cher Postpones More Concerts, Memoir Notes, Q&A

November 16, 2014 / / 0 Comments

KidConcert Delays

I almost made a renegade trip to Lubbock, Texas, last weekend to see Cher's concert there. But then I found out it has been cancelled anyway, along with a slew of other November dates due to Cher's recent viral illness.

This has been the most dates postponed on a Cher concert tour that I can think of, a fact that is alarming some fans. Then Daily Mail broke a story about Cher having to wear a heart-monitor and it all sounds pretty scary so I asked Mr. Cher Scholar (who rates claims for Veterans Affairs and has a head full of medical knowledge) to tell me how alarmed we all should be and he said there's a danger of virus infections spreading to the heart. Cher-camp says it's all a normal part of recovery.

I first read about the postponed tour from an Allentown paper that called her tour "ill-fated." Besides the delay to the second leg, what the hell is so ill-fated about it?

Memoirs

But it all gets you thinking about mortality. So does the fact that Angelica Houston's two-volumes of memoirs are now out. Yes, Angelica Houston has unveiled her saga already.

I came across two blurbs about celebrity biographies that seem pertinent to Cher's possible look-back at her life. Young actress Lena Dunham of the HBO show Girls has a memoir already called Not That Kind of Girl. Referencing it in The Atlantic, James Parker says:

"So there's the id, the ego, the superego, and then there's the part of the psyche that writes the memoir. The latter function, in most humans, is inadequately developed until late middle age, which is why memoirs by young people are usually terrible. It's a syndrome, rather embarrassing: premature autobiography."

In an Entertainment Weekly interview, Angelica Huston also weighs in on memoir. Keith Staskiewicz says,

Many celebrity memoris are like bags of potato chips–mostly air and a little bit of salty stuff–but Huston wanted to avoid the anodyne politesse or, worse, self-delusion that can make for boring reading. "It doesn't necessarily have to be a confessional, but it does require a certain amount of looking inward," she says. "If you're gonna write a memoir, you have to talk about yourself. You have to talk about your feelings and you have to talk about who you are. Otherwise don't do it; it's a waste of paper. The trees could have lived."  

NPR on Believe

BelieveOn the bright side, last week I did find something I've been looking for for years. When the song "Believe" started to hit in the United States, I was living and working in Yonkers, New York. I'd hear the song on the radio when I drove home. It was both exciting and unusual to hear Cher's song with the other hits of the day, like Madonna's "Ray of Light," Whitney Houton's "It's Not Right, But It's Okay;" at least those hits were by somewhat older women, too. But then you had Monica, Britney Spears, and TLC. (See a review of 1999 number one hits). One day I was driving home and NPR was talking about the Cher/Believe phenomenon! Like in that breathy-really-serious-NPR way. I missed half of the conversation and for years I've been waiting for it to show up online in NPR archives. Here it is. It's worth a listen.

Halloween Q & A

Cher did a fan Q&A on Facebook on Halloween. There were almost 5,000 comments made and so many pages of questions I couldn't read them all. Cher answered maybe the first 30 of them. Highlights include the following:

Mary Pat Blockel O'Donnell: Hi beautiful Cher:-) Happy Halloween! Love u tons&what is your favorite memory of Chaz&Elijah as babies/and or little children at Halloween?or even teenagers? ‪

Cher: My favorite – I have a couple of favorites. My first was Chaz's first Halloween and I sewed a cat suit, a little kitten suit and painted whiskers and it was so hard making the tail. And the other was when we all went out and Elijah wasn't old enough to walk and we had him in a devil costume and Chaz was the Fonz and we walked around the neighborhood. It was really fun. Halloween is for kids and it's fun when you have kids.

Kaylee Rudnik: Do you think there is any place that you can go without being recognized anymore???

Cher: Hell, and I'm not so sure about that. I'm pretty positive I will be recognized.

John Nicholas Ward: What is the secret behind ur eternal youth??

Cher: Makeup and childishness

Amanda Darby: If you could change one thing forever what would you choose and why? ‪

Cher: I would change how people get along. I would make people get along.

Dean Menc: What is the best thing about being Cher?

Cher: I don't know. You don't have to wait in line.

Goran Srdija: Why u love Gaga and what's ur favourite Gaga's song? Xoxo

Cher:I appreciate her whimsy. And re-creativity.

Doug Wemple: Didn't David Bowie crash one of your house parties? Did hilarity ensue?

Cher: I don't think so. Andy Warhol did, crashed Chaz's birthday party with Keith Haring and hilarity ensued. I loved him, he was so much fun.

Leonardo Esteban Lizama Órdenes: Did you ever met Frank Sinatra? And if so, What was your fist impression?

Cher: I did meet him. I actually saw him on stage. I was following him into Caesars. I thought "HMM, he's old but he can really sing. It's amazing." He was cool.

Mike Scott Uetrecht: How has Rolling Stone never put you on their cover? Not even a review for CTTT. Disrespectful.

Cher: Well, you know, obviously I'm not their cup of tea. Never thought I was cool enough, certainly missed the boat on that.

Christopher Fox Tyler: Whats the fastest way for a man to win your heart/affection? ‪

Cher: Oh – I guess being funny and cute doesn't hurt

Sara Oldani: Hi Cher have you ever thought of doing a concert in Italy? What's your favourite song inyour discography (either original or cover, whatever ) LOVE from Italy!!!!!!

Cher: I guess Song for the Lonely, if I had to be buried with something that would be it

Chad Eric: Happy Halloween Cher! What was your favorite memory of Halloween as a child & adult? ‪

Cher: My favorite memory when I was a kid was when I was 9 and it was the first time I wore makeup. I was totally decked. My mom dressed me in this peasant skirt and she tied the belt so it didn't fall off, and she put on lipstick and curled my hair. That was the BEGINNING of the BEGINNING. I didn't want it to be over, I wanted to go to school the next day in my Halloween costume.

Bob Radmore: What is it like to be famous?

Cher: It's hard for me to say it. I've been famous since I was 18, so I don't know what it's like not to be.

Brooke Bryant: What is your biggest pet peeve?

Cher: iPhones

Nick LeBlanc: Hi Cher, what is your favorite city/place that you've been at in the world whether on tour or vacation?

Cher: Bora Bora

Guillermo Issac Trevino: Do you have a favorite Stevie Nicks song?

Cher: Landslide

Mark Carder: Hey @Cher What is your favorite HORROR FILM

Cher: I'm such a gigantic chicken. I was watching Hell House last night and I was afraid to look at it. I don't do well with horror films they make me terrified. One of my closest friends made a blockbuster movie and it was the Exorcist.

(It was mildly exciting to think Mr. Cher Scholar and I were watching The Legend of Hell House on TCM at the same time Cher was. I even decided to use some of the character names for a novel I'm working on. Mr. Cher Scholar and I also watched The Excorcist again — Cher is referencing director William Friedkin there who, as we know, also directed Good Times – and Mr. Cher Scholar and I decided we were kind of burned out on the gory parts — although the special effects still hold up — but we really got into the quieter, character development of the movie this year. In fact, I don't think the movie would be quite as frightening without the quiet, ominous soundtrack.)

Annette Eland: Do you meditate?

Cher: Yes

Raymond Donahue: Is it true that you & Sonny were neighbors with Farrah Fawcett ?

Cher: I don't think so

Michele McLey: A couple of question's first what to you like to do when your not touring? And will you do a tour DVD? Oh and please say you are doing another movie, soon!

Cher: Be grubby and go to the movies. Swimming and hang out with my friends. Just nothing, the same thing everyone else likes to do. It's hard to be grubby nowadays though, it's hard to be yourself.

Jennifer Fontana: Hi Cher! What is your favorite moment from your legendary career? ‪

Cher: Ppppssshhhh. I guess winning the Oscar was pretty hard to beat.

Jason Andrew: Dear Cher, Once you are canonized as a saint, what will you be the patron of? ‪

Cher: Lost causes

Sam Durbin:  If you could be any item in a walmart, what would you be and why?

Cher: I would be in Target

Sam Durbin: What CD is in your car right now?

Cher: MY CD. Because I'm singing tracks to the show, I rehearse. The CD that is in my car is boring.

Christopher Eklund: What is your favorite memory of filming Burlesque?

Cher: HMm. The song, Welcome to Burlesque. I was kind of nervous. No, it's not really my favorite. One scene I had with Stanley, and the makeup scene with Christina. I don't have any favorite ones. Maybe You Haven't Seen the Last of Me.

Lorenzo Morrison: Hi Cher. No Lady Gaga. No Madonna. I would like to know what do you you think about Annie Lennox! Is there a song by her you particularly appreciate? ‪

Cher: She's a genius. Everyday we play "Take me to the River" and do our ab exercises to it.

Amanda Jean Bedwell: Is there anything you haven't done yet but you would love to do next

Cher: A million things I want to do. So many things. I can't believe I got this OLD and there are still so many things I want to do.

Dawn Decker: Will you ever do a meet n greet? The only thing on my bucket list is to meet you!!!

Cher: Oh gosh. Elvis, James Dean. There weren't many women icons when I was young with my mom watching old movies – there was Katherine Hepburn. But I identified more with Elvis and James Dean and I identified more with that. The women were more cute and I couldn't identify with them at all

Caricatures

HirshFinally, when we were talking about caricatures a few weeks ago, I forgot about a very famous Cher caricature done by Al Hirschfeld in 1974! 

Okay, I think the height thing is a little exaggerated there.

Radio Interview, New Mix, Clips

November 3, 2014 / / 2 Comments

AlbummysteryOld Video

Cher scholar Tyler sent me this clip, the Hell & Keller Pride remix of "The Beat Goes On." Thank God somebody out there is remixing something besides "Believe." I liked the video editing job, too.

I also found the original promo video sampled in the above remix, Sonny & Cher at a record store performing "The Beat Goes On." The clip opens on the record bin at left.

What record is this? Something about "Vol. 2." Is this a compilation album I've never seen before? Does anyone out there have this record?

This is now a good time to say I've always hated that boring ATCO logo.

Comrades in Retirement

In Entertainment Weekly for October 31 there's an article called "Retired? Not So Fast" Listed are people who made big claims about retirement but came back. The list includes Garth Brooks, Ozzy Osbourne, Jay-Z and Barbara Streisand.

In the same issue, Nancy Sinatra’s version of "Bang Bang" is also listed as part of a killer playlist for Halloween.

Costumes Through the Years

As I lamented earlier, I missed the People Magazine detailing all of Cher's concert outfits. I broke down and found a copy from eBay. What's ironic about the article is Bob Mackie does brief commentary on the evolution of some of his common designs. Problem is, he didn't design the new outfits in review. The D2K Egyptian opening-fit is compared to the one Mackie designed in Cher and Other Fantasies (1979). The full-fringe disco outfit from the Farewell show (red version) and the Cher at Caesars Believe-fit are compared. This comparison is very odd. First of all, this outfit and song are not even in D2K (yet) and they could have used either the Cher at Caesars fringe-fit (blue) or the older, original version back from the Take Me Home tour in 1979 (silver).

Red Blue Clear 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The current gypsy outfit is compared to the Farewell Indian sari instead of maybe to the original one from The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour. The newer hole-fit (Mackie calls it "The Swiss Cheese") could also have been compared to her 1979 Take Me Home concert tour version instead of her 1980s video version. The Half Breed photo uses the version Sonny & Cher toured with instead of the iconic TV show version from 1973. Kind of wonky choices here.

Obsessing about these things…it’s what Cher scholars do.

Radio Interview

LimpetCher News linked to a new radio interview for Cher. In the interview Cher says she loves the movie The Incredible Mr. Limpet. I would love this movie, too, because I love Don Knotts except for the fact that I have a very bad association with it due to Mr. Cher Scholar and a disastrous birthday night with him that included this movie back in 2006.

Anyway, Cher laughs a lot in the interview and talks about the Broadway play based on her life.

Mrlimpet

  

Not Busier Than Cher, But…

October 19, 2014 / / 0 Comments

…I'm Chergym2out of my mind busy. I had to put that comma in my blog title because without it, the title read like Cher's ass was busier than me. Probably true but still a distracting message. 

Over the last few weeks, my brother and sister-in-law came to town and we tried to show them the great state of New Mexico in a week. I've got another guest coming next weekend. And if you know me, you know I only clean the house when people are coming over. So this summer, I've been cleaning a lot! Yesterday, I spent the day covering the front of our house with Halloween decorations. I've also been trying to keep up with the latest in haunted houses in my city. I've been very distracted from the Cher Universe working on my projects, including final drafts of my Goodnight-Loving Trail poems, and notes for a new novel. I've also been preparing an essay to make into an eBook. It's called "Writing in the Age of Narcissism." On top of that, I've recently been drafted by my Dad's side of the family, the Burquenos (which is local for "people from Albuquerque"), to help organize a family reunion next year to celebrate my Aunts 90th birthday. In all this, blogging gets short shrift.

WandaOh, and we've been busy watching Quick Draw Season 2 which had a lot more stunts, was a lot funnier and had some surprise guests. But the most recent surprise has been the great fan art people have been sending in to the facebook fan page of John Lehr, including this hilarious send up of western statue-art collecting commercial sent in by a fan. The piece is called Vernon Shank Statue Commercial. It's very funny even if you haven't been watching the show.

The strong women characters on the show have been awesome this year, including the hilarious, lusty, toothless Wanda pictured above.

But there's LOTS  of Cher stuff to get to:

GingerFirst, I came accross this image right in the October 10th issue of Entertainment Weekly depicting an Edith Head outfit for Ginger Rogers. You can clearly see a direct line from Edith Head to Ray Aghayan to Bob Mackie and Cher.

Secondly, breaking news!! Cher gets some respect in Entertainment Weekly. More than seeing Cher's new Bob Mackie costumes in the second leg of her current tour, THIS is what required that I get some oxygen stat! My October 24th copy came Friday night and I'm perusing through the issue (which you can do in like 15 minutes), and I see a short news item on the nominees for this year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees. No, Cher didn't make it. Not expecting that.

The first section describes this year's biggest surprises. I scanned that part and thought, "wouldn't it be an alternate universe if this article called the HOFers out for snubbing Cher?"

AND THEY DO!!! I couldn't believe it. Entertainment Weekly has not been 100% Cher-loving over many years of record reviews. But, clear as day, the middle section is called "BIGGEST SNUBS" and Cher's hole-fit picture is representin' with this paragraph underneath:

"For the second year of eligibility in a row, De La Soul's game-change style was over-looked. The Hall also missed an opportunity to acknowledge Cher–whose impact and longevity far exceed those of many of the men enshrined in Cleveland [my flabbergasted italics]–on the 50th anniversary of her first album. And if Joan Jett, nominated again this year, doesn't make the final cut this time, voters have black hearts indeed."

I ran into the living room and gave a lecture on Cher Snubs throughout the history of time to Poor Beleaguered Mr. Cher Scholar. I want to rip that page out and send it to my brother in Cleveland and ask that he and his wife organize a protest in front of the museum pronto, something he would never in a zillion years do.

Speaking of zillion, Cher is pissed at Zillow. See stories on GeekWire; Twitchy tracking Cher's tweet discussions; and an article on Bloomberg about Chinese buyers getting access to Zillow's U.S. properties.

"Chinese buyers spent more than $11 billion on U.S. real estate last year, with an average $425,000 purchase, Zillow said."

Zillow is saying this is only good for U.S. sellers. I'm not sure. but Cher is probably saying this is bad for U.S. buyers.

SandchouseThis is the satellite picture of the Owlwood house on Zillow.

Zillow has labeled this page: "Sonny Bono and Cher's Former Home – Zillow"

 

 

Here are the stories I missed in October:

According to Cher News a new version of the Norman Seeff photograph was for sale for a while (but it's sold-out now): http://cher.shop.bravadousa.com/page/SignedLithograph. What's interesting is how the store calls the photo "THE iconic 70s image of Cher."

So Cher's been sick lately as we all know. I hope it wasn't the ice bucket challenge that gave Cher the ice bucket illness. And although one of the U.S. tabloid rags had a picture of Cher on the cover last week insisting she was, in fact, dying (not the first or last time we'll see that melodramatic headline while waiting to purchase our Scooby Snacks), Cher says herself that she's on mend. Cher News tracks her tweets: she was actually in the hospital for a week; doctors say she's built to last; she's been to the gym recently; and she was humbled by the whole experience. I just hope she got some good classic movie watching in while being laid up.

http://chernews.blogspot.com/2014/10/ill-cher-im-getting-better.html 

http://chernews.blogspot.com/2014/10/photos-recovering-fitness-icon-cher-at.html
(Pics of Cher at the gym taken by Paulette, see top photo)

New dates were announced for D2K, partly makeup dates for the shows cancelled: http://tour.cher.com/

Cher News reported that Cher's concert-fits were profiled in the Fall 2014 issue of People Magazine. Is People Magazine now a quarterly? Bummed I missed that.

BbI finally listened to the Lady Gaga version of "Bang Bang" and I do like that it's not simply a re-working of the Nancy Sinatra version, which all the latest re-makings have been. Granted, the Sinatra version is pretty great and I never do get tired of hearing more incarnations of it, I also appreciate something different now and then. Gaga's version seemed more sincere and less ironic. Which is refreshing. I still don't like that red jumpsuit or the somewhat unnatural demeanor of her performance but what can you do?

By the way, this is one of my least favorite Cher single covers. Yes, chainmail tops were cool, but the acid-washed jean-jacket and jeans, the teenybopper hair flip and the wide-eyed expression all smell too much like 80s-teen-spirit, and worse–popular-girl 80s-teen-spirit. And what's with the unbuttoned button-fly jeans? Did Cher eat too many doughnuts before the shoot? Or is the boob-view, jeans-undone look a come-hither call to Anthony Michael Hall?

    

Cher Caricatures

September 10, 2014 / / 0 Comments

 

UntitledThe caricature to your left is by Kerry Waghorn. I think it captures Cher's very specific attitude.

I was thinking about Cher caricatures today because I discovered the Georgia O'Keeffe museum is starting an exhibit of works by Miguel Covarrubias this month. Many of us already know of Covarrubias' famous caricatures from Vanity Fair such as OkeefeeGeorgia O’Keeffe and Greta Garbo.

I always wish I could find more (good) caricatures of Cher.

View the Cher caricatures on Google.

View the Cher cartoons on Google.

While I was looking for caricatures of Cher, I found this amazing site by a Quebec artist designing Cher on Playing Cards inspired by her songs. I wish they were for sale.

Correction: They are on sale! (Thanks for the link Cher scholar Dishy)

Unt2itledHere is a new cartoon by the same artist named inkjava.

 

 

 

 

And of course, the most famous caricature of Cher of all… Logo

I'll have to refer back to Josiah Howard's Strong Enough book to learn who designed it.

   

Cher Walks Down Memory Lane

September 4, 2014 / / 0 Comments

SoncherIt's fascinating and unusual-seeming when Cher does things everybody else does, like visit places where you used to live. Maybe she's been feeling nostalgic. 

TMZ reports Cher revisited one of her S&C homes, apparently one of the early ones, said to be off Lauren Canyon Drive in the Hollywood Hills where S&C lived around 1964-5 before the money started rolling in and they moved to Encino, the “Good Times” house.

She hadn’t been back for 49 years and she just dropped in “unannounced,” the way only celebrities can.

Current homeowner, Daniel Dreifussher, was not at home. I guess you should never leave your house in case some celebrity who once lived there happens by. Dreifussher's roommate answered the door and Cher was there with her two assistants (cum backup bodyguards).

She was described as “down to earth and super sweet.” Apparently she wasn’t able to see her old bedroom, however, which is too bad because she says she spent all her time in their bedrooms.

Read more at:

    
 

Cher Respect: Little Bios and Forbes Magazine

April 12, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Some bloggy housekeeping: my parents will be in town for a few weeks so I'll be out and about with them. I'll be back to blogging in late April. And Cher News is reporting that Cher will be in the May issue of Elle as part of a feature about women in music. Miley Cyrus is on the cover.

Cher scholar Michael alerted me last week to the somewhat snarky bio of Cher on the music streaming site Rhapsody. I decided to look it up and compare it to what Pandora has. The artist bio ususally comes up on your device or computer when one of their songs play.

356x237Rhapsody's page

Complete bio:

"Few entertainers' career paths have been as forked as Cher's. Getting her start when Sonny Bono took her under his wing and became her producer, collaborator and eventually husband, the duo produced some of the most popular duets of all time, including "I Got You Babe" and "The Beat Goes On." They parlayed that success into a 1970s variety show that showcased the pair's onstage banter and had everyone asking (as Joe Jackson would later put it), "Is she really going out with him?" Once divorced, Cher pursued a solo career with some success. "Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves" and "Half-Breed" were imaginative story-songs in the Vegas revue tradition that established her as a torchy, impassioned vocalist. As her acting career began to take precedence during the '80s, her singing career fell into arrears, as evidenced on disco debacles Take Me Home and Prisoner. Recently Cher has reasserted her singing prowess and charting abilities with the 1998 hit Believe; both the title track and "Strong Enough" fared favorably on dancefloors. Clubby, slickly produced, and re-mix ready, Cher's new sound shows she'll never be too old to learn new tricks — especially when those tricks come from Madonna."

SNAP! That is a bit snarky.

Pandora likes Cher much better. They give her 12 paragraphs, which is more than they give most people, says Mr. Cher Scholar, the main Pandora-user in the house.

Q11493EPNPOPandora's page (and bio in full)

Bio Excerpt:

Cher has had three careers that place her indelibly in the public consciousness, and two have been in association with her then-husband, composer/producer/singer Salvatore “Sonny” Bono (b. February 16, 1935, d. January 8, 1998). She charted major hit records in the 1960s and 1970s, working in idioms ranging from early-‘60s girl group-style ballads to Jackie Deshannon folk-influenced pop, to adult contemporary pop in the manner of later Dusty Springfield. She also embared on an acting career, initially in the late ‘60s in association with her work as part of Sonny & Cher but later on her own, which led to a series of increasingly polished and compelling performances in Silkwood, Mask, and Moonstruck, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress."

Still, respect for Cher's career is a bit uneven. Which brings me to a Forbes article that appeared on the Yahoo Cher freaks group last week. Apparently, Forbes Magazine has published two (two!) articles on the financial success of Cher's D2K tour.

March 23: "With Strong Demand For Tickets, Will Cher's Dressed To Kill Tour Really Be Farewell?"

and April 4: "Price of Cher Tickets Continues to Rise Through First Dates of Dressed To Kill Tour"

Success should speak for itself.
  

Cher on Bad Biographies

April 5, 2014 / / 0 Comments

PeterlanzThere’s a new biography of Cher in German, “Cher, Die Biografie” by Peter Lanz. Cher responded to its existence on Twitter, saying “Don't buy this unauthorized biography crew. It p*sses me off when some *sshole I don't know presumes to write about me. Idiot." She went on to say she’s “not protected in any way, because I'm a public figure".

Biographies are a fascinating cultural artifact. They usually outsell many other categories of books. As a culture, we seem to care a great deal about trying to get to know our favorite people. This is either an obsessive pastime or some misguided intellectual quest to figure out other humans.

It is also bizarre this idea of being a “public figure.” Aside from the fact that entertainers use their “personas” as their product, I don’t see how they themselves can be defined as “public people” beyond having a public career. And to Cher's credit, it must be very discomforting to have a stranger tell your story incorrectly. Nobody can speak to how you felt.

But on the other hand, if there weren’t unauthorized biographies, there would only exist public relations spin. Although a celebrity controls the story in public relations, it isn’t necessarily always more truthful.

Cher is right that biographers don’t know her and likely get an embarrassing number of facts wrong. They may even have agendas. I always felt Lawrence J. Quirk had a conservative agenda.

But at the end of the day, even the best biographies are flawed artifacts. Every perspective is in some way prejudicial. Even one’s own. Although I enjoyed Lauren Becall’s autobiography By Myself, a book essentially made up of published diary entries, I don't doubt it's full of rationalizations, self-censures, agendas and untruths. It seems one’s own self isn’t even really qualified to write about one’s own self. And who are you anyway? Are you who you think you are, who your mother thinks you are, who most of your friends or co-workers think you are? It's hard to say.

And how would we learn anything about Thomas Jefferson, Gandhi or even Buddha, for example,  if we had to rely on someone who knew them, all long dead. We should still be learning about historical icons even if their biographies are full of myths and mistakes.

Any book about Cher is doomed to this inaccuracy: a book by a stranger, a book by a friend, a mother, one of her sons, a book by Cher herself. But despite their imperfections, biographies make a good try at explaining someone’s trials and motives. Facts do tell a part of the story but certainly not all of it.

Without the messy attempts, I’d be left not knowing anything about why Frank O'Hara wrote "The Day Lady Died" or how a hard childhood in Oklahoma could make James Garner so prone to fist fights.

Which is not to say opportunists aren’t out there trying to make a buck off of celebrity fame. But who really thinks the spin Kitty Kelly doles out will affect how we view famous figures? The dis-credible biographers may make some ill-gotten earnings, but in time they tend to fall by the wayside.

The fact that Cher biographies exist at all matters. Think about how many films and books have been written about The Beatles, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. None without mistakes I'm sure. There are factual mistakes in Sonny's autobiography.

And it’s fascinating to think about what Cher might mean to Germans. Too bad this book might not tell us. I still wonder why there aren't more international biographies of Cher.

Me? I could never write a Cher biography. I’m too shy to do the interviews. But I can speak to the cultural subtexts in Cher’s persona and her works and the impact these things might have had on our culture. Does this say something about me? Yes it does. I'm rationalizing Cher. But that's we do as consumers of pop culture. We interpret everything we consume, whether we think we do or not. I may not interpret things the same way Cher would. But I am not having the same experience in life as Cher is having.

There will be crappy Cher bios. (I just read an e-book that was pretty bad). But frustration just leads to suffering. You desire the biographies to be something they can never be: well-intentioned and perfect. From a distance, they’re all part of the whole mass of good and bad. Having some at all, in some way, is a sign of importance.

But there’s nothing amiss with Cher saying, “This is a bad biography. There are a lot of errors in it.”

BonovbonoDid you know Sonny’s sister self-published a biography last year? I found Bono vs. Bono, A Battle Royale by Frances Erikcson when I was searching for Cher eBooks. It's also available in paperback.

Here is a case in point. Sonny's sister is telling the story of her battle with her father’s last wife over Sonny’s father’s small fortune. Although you are sympathetic with Frances as you read the book, you still get an unsettling feeling that she might be skewing the story her way. She often seems too much the victim in battles with her family, and in minor battles with banks and nurses. There are too many perfect betrayals, dramatic to the degree of melodrama, and yet she keeps coming back as the perfect daughter. And you know what, this may even be true. The point is, it’s difficult to believe the narrator of her own story.

That said, the book was a fascinating read, even though Cher isn’t really in it. In fact Sonny & Cher are barely in it. The worst Frances has to say about Sonny is that the siblings grew apart when he became famous, partially because her first husband was a Hollywood player-wannabie. In any case, Frances has nothing bad to say about Cher or Susie Coehlo or Mary Bono. She doesn’t really have much to say about Sonny either, except that he sided with their mother in the family saga. This is a book about the feuds between Jean Bono (Sonny's mother) and his two sisters, with the father being the pawn in much of it. Sister Liz is often mentioned as siding with Frances, but you don’t get a clear picture of her or her story.

Forget about a Cher biography. If you strung together all the dramas of Sonny’s family, Cher’s family and Gregg Allman’s family, you could have a soap opera that would run for 10 years.

JanehJust as I was mulling all this over this week, I came across a poem by Jane Hirshfield. It says all there is to say about biography.

It Was Like This: You Were Happy

It was like this:
you were happy, then you were sad,
then happy again, then not.

It went on.
You were innocent or you were guilty.
Actions were taken, or not.

At times you spoke, at other times you were silent.
Mostly, it seems you were silent—what could you say?

Now it is almost over.

Like a lover, your life bends down and kisses your life.

It does this not in forgiveness—
between you, there is nothing to forgive—
but with the simple nod of a baker at the moment
he sees the bread is finished with transformation.

Eating, too, is a thing now only for others.

It doesn’t matter what they will make of you
or your days: they will be wrong,
they will miss the wrong woman, miss the wrong man,
all the stories they tell will be tales of their own invention.

Your story was this: you were happy, then you were sad,
you slept, you awakened.
Sometimes you ate roasted chestnuts, sometimes persimmons.

     

Cher in the 1970s

March 8, 2014 / / 0 Comments

CherengsteadCher’s life an career through the mid-1970s is what the book Strong Enough is about. It goes into the struggles the Sonny & Cher had from 1973 to 1975, including the fact that Cher grew up and Sonny’s fatal flaw was not recognizing the changes. Josiah Howard interviews witnesses to speak on how Sonny was behaving with everyone and the strain on the whole staff. He talks about their cancelled shows, what the tabloids were saying, the bloat (in many senses, including the title’s) of their last record album Mama Was A Rock and Roll Singer…

I appreciated how the book slowed down to really detail:

 - Cher’s appearances on award shows
– Cher’s Emmy and Grammy nominations and wins
– Details on their divorce (Cher used Lucy’s divorce lawyer) and how they behaved with each other at concerts
– How CBS and MCA responded to the drama
– How the lawsuits settled out
– Cher’s outings to concerts and parties
– Which major magazines she appeared on the cover of while she was a “newsstand staple.” We also learn how the tabloid The Star built itself on Cher stories around this time.

Cher's love life after leaving Sonny has been covered extensively through the years but this book goes into Sonny’s relationships with “models and dancers” and his long term affair with “secretary” Connie Foreman, how it was Sonny on his dates with Connie that actually blew open the story about his split with Cher. (See tabloid photos of Sonny & Connie)

The book also goes into more detail than I’ve ever seen about Sonny’s solo show and the press surrounding it. How they unfortunately tried to spin him as Chaplinesque. We also learn about Cher’s real reaction to the show. This biography is also the first one to deal with Sonny’s Mimi Machu scandal. And the first Cher biography to track more fully the struggles she had with her father at this time, although I felt there was a lot more to tell here. Did he work for Sonny & Cher (I heard he did), did he really try to make money off of his connection to Cher?

The book combs through all the starting players of Cher’s solo show, called simply Cher and not The Cher Show: George Schlatter, Art Fisher (and his affair with Sally Struthers), the head writer and the writing staff, set designer Robert Kelly (remember the Cher logo and the tongue set stage?), musical director Jimmy Dale, choreographers Tony Charmoli and Dee Dee Wood (I just saw that she did that unforgettable choreography for Mary Poppins), Ben Nye II doing makeup, her PR photographer John Engstead, producer Lee Miller, her unusual dressing room, the rock and roll guests she wanted on the show and who was unavailable, her sponsors. The book details the excitement at CBS during the first few shows with other stars and dancers dropping in.

We learn again more about the beauty regimen: about her skin problems at the time (due to pancake makeup, Kleig lights, stress and bad eating), her Christina Smith eye lashes, lighting tricks used to hide acne, her hair darkenings (from warm Armenian brown to black), her Minnie Smith manicures, Jim Ortel hair and Renata Leuschner (Rena) wigs.

The book also confirms CeeCee Bloom’s character from Beaches was based on staff-writer Iris Rainer’s experiences working with Cher.

We learn about all the skits (in fine detail), what skits never aired, which were “banked,” and how the show fared in the ratings and with the press as the weeks progressed. I found it ironic that CBS typically cut songs for original airings (famously for Raquel Welch, Bette Midler, The Spinners) and when the show finally re-aired on VH-1, the majority of the skits were cut out.

One thing I could never get used to was Cher’s move from the cut-up bitch on her show with Sonny to the hip-talking, ingratiating  nice girl on her solo show. "Far out man." "That’s cool!” This slangy, wanting-to-be-liked was ironically unlikable. Everyone seemed to prefer the stoic tough broad.

From the start, the show seemed to have dysfunctions built in: staff fighting, the star’s missed rehearsals and troubled private life encroaching on the schedule, inconsistent material, the show always suffered a lack of a strong point of view. Either because of this or encouraging the sense of something missing, often tapings occurred without a live audience.

Although her femme fatal characters were mostly gone, the show did profess power to the gals with memes such as “Girls are smarter,” women behind the men, and “Trashy Ladys” skits.

The book talks about how variety Shows were starting to decline around this time as detective shows were on the rise.

RockfordThis is why I find it interesting each time I hear a Cher reference on The Rockford Files (a show which I watch obsessively when I can):

I’ve seen two Cher references so far since I’ve been re-watching them on ME TV: one episode was about the cut-throat LA real estate business. A real estate agent tells Rockford that he just sold a house to “Cher and Gregg.” Interesting that viewers would know what that meant. Would they today? The other episode was about tabloid journalism and Rockford was hiding out at a tabloid on a private investigation on a burglary. Rockford bemoans the potential lack of privacy in hospital records and warns about the dangers of coming across “Cher’s last physical.” The tabloid office eventually burns down.

Oscars73Sonny & Cher presenting Best Original Song at the 1973 Ocsars; watch them present pretending to be couple-y.

  

 

Grammys74The 1974 Grammys appearance, Cher’s first public appearance without Sonny.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

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