a division of the Chersonian Institute
Becoming Chaz will be airing on Oprah's new OWN channel in May.
Speaking of OWN, I've been watching Master Class (so far I've seen Oprah's episode and taped but lost the Maya Angelou one when my Crapo–err Comcast–inexplicably erased all my taped shows. Now I'll never see the end of All that Jazz and A Haunting in Georgia. Bullocks!)
See the Becoming Chaz promo: http://www.movieline.com/2011/03/sundance-favorite-becoming-chazs-own-network-promo.php
My friend Coolia picked up this Susie Coehlo book Style Diva as a remainder and sent it to me. So you see, I am such an obnoxious Cher fan, my friends know the names of Sonny’s other wives.
Anyway, I never wanted to like Coelho to be honest. I mean, it was one thing Cher getting remarried to the redneck (that's honestly what we thought) but Sonny getting remarried was most upsetting. Remember the People Magazine article about the wedding…wasn't Sonny in a full, wilderness beard and the officiant mispronounced Susie’s name Cherie? Sonny was supposed to pine for Cher forever. And then Susie popped up in Sonny's Melrose restaurant publicity…I just didn’t like it. I never watched her gardening show on HGTV. And I was prepared to not like this book.
But…she won me over. And not just because of all the name dropping of Sonny and Cher. (Who’s gonna clean up all these names!?) Even though I have only a mild interest in home decor, the book went beyond that and the tips could easily be extrapolated to real smart life lessons: especially the end of the "Keep Creating" section with life tips that explore the ideas of putting aside perfection, how your failure help you to succeed, the 24-hour holding pattern of not over-reacting to initial impressions, and my favorite tips about learning to relax when things get overwhelming and why you should embrace chaos. It was really a fine mentoring kind of book. AND it had a few surprising Cher and Sonny tales.
From "How the Style Diva Got Her Groove On"
One Memorial Day weekend, my roommate and I decided to take off for Palm Springs for a getaway. That weekend, I met my first husband, Sonny Bono—an event that changed my life. I was taken by his tenacity, his sense of humor and-–believe it or not—his sense of style. He had fantastic taste in just about everything, including homes. His house in Palm Springs was filled with Indian fabrics and organic textures. Just the kinds of things I grew up with. The house was small and quaint and I felt right at home…Our Bel Air home was another story. It was a grand Italian villa. I’ll never forget the first day I drove up to the house. Everything was on a huge scale—big gates, long driveway, high ceilings, and enormous rooms. It was almost empty except for the bedroom and breakfast room. It was a huge decorating challenge. Luckily we had a famous decorator on board. I was excited, but also a little overwhelmed….when he finally did the installations, he sent us out of town. When we came back four days later the entire house was done all the way down to the smallest detail….(I can related to the joy that homeowners feel with my television team and I swoop in to remake their backyard in one day.) I'll never forget the impact that it had on my life…
While I loved our homes, I also spent lots of time with realtors looking at other properties just to see what was out there and to get inspired. So while other people went to the beach on the weekend, we would go house shopping even when we had no immediate intention of moving…We sold the Bel Air home to purchase the rustic four-acre property just up from the Beverly Hills Hotel …You thought perhaps the “Surprise Gardener” had a formal degree in landscaping? Nope, I learned the hard way—by doing my own backyard!…
I was shooting a TV movie in Hawaii when I got a call. “Guess what? We’re in the restaurant business.” Sonny had always dreamed of opening a little mom-and-pop Italian restaurant where he could serve his famous Steak Bono, a classic family recipe. Dreams often come and go with most people but not with him …We had to choose a direction for the style of the restaurant before we could even begin constructions..We knew we wanted a relaxed, fun and inviting atmosphere…inspired by my memories, I chose a Mediterranean palette featuring a burnt orange, dusty sage and a cream combination …for the wait staff I designed long aprons in the same burnt orange. I also used bromeliads as our flowers to give the room an exotic feel but I put them in small low vases to keep the style casual.
You have to understand that neither Sonny or I had a clue about the restaurant business. Yet we dove in headfirst, talked to those with more experience, used the information we gathered and trusted our instincts. Wolfgang Puck was already having great success with Italian nouvelle cuisine in his famous Spago Restaurant which was just up the street. He…supported our mission.
“Sonny had been a huge inspiration to me and I remember very fondly my nine years with him. But the time had come for me to find myself and create my own life outside of his world.”
From "Believe in yourself"
One of the best examples of this I have ever seen was my former husband Sonny Bono. He never learned to play the piano—or any other instrument for that matter—and some say he could barely sing. But he refused to let that stand in his way. He would get an inspiration in the middle of the night, so he would go down to the piano and bang out a song with the only five chords he knew…Sonny believed in himself when no one else did. That is one of the greatest lessons I learned from him. He would make a decision then jump in. If he didn’t know how to swim, he'd figure it out along the way. Sonny believed in himself so powerfully that he eventually became a congressman of the United States—and mind you, he didn’t even have a high school diploma.
From "Don’t follow trends-set them"
I’ve met some pretty daring trendsetters in my life, but I think the trophy has to go to Cher. I learned a lot watching her. She was family…like a sister-in-law. Cher is a trendsetter, always looking to be unique, to find something different and to push the envelope. Whether she and Sonny were wearing bobcat vests or she was showing her navel on national television, she has always lived her life on her own terms, regardless of what anyone else might think. She’ll dress is some wild outfit by Bob Mackie at the Academy Awards if she feels like it or star in an off-beat movie (for which she then wins an Academy Award, of course).
And by pursing this ongoing creative approach to life, she has stood out, been successful, and been the one to set many a trend. She doesn’t let people deter her from her vision, and she is not afraid to follow her instincts. If anything, she actively looks to be different from everyone else—which is why she has such a distinctive sense fo style…
A great example of Cher’s approach to life and her ability to set trends is the time she bought a plot of land in a rustic part of Benedict Canyon in Los Angeles…this was by no means prime real estate. The property was pretty run down and dilapidated, the kind of dusty, arid spot that always seems to attract rattlesnakes and tumbleweeds…Cher had a vision: She was going to transform this bare lot into a spectacular Egyptian mausoleum…I think a few of the neighbors thought she was nuts, but Sonny and I knew better. There are no rules in Cher’s book.
Years later [it] became a magnificent estate with grand gates and spectacular drive. It was a huge, two-story house with exceedingly high ceilings. All the lines were very clean on the outside, yet the inside was filled with lots of softer exotic elements and wonderful textures. I especially loved the wonderful array of nubby, fuzzy and textured fabrics and materials used…That arid, rattlesnake-laden section of Benedict Canyon in now one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Of course, Cher has moved on to a new creative endeavor. You can’t keep a Diva down.
The mention of Steak Bono reminds me that we need a book of Sonny's family recipes. I propose something as follows:
Women & Food: What’s Cooking with Sonny Bono
It amazes me that no biography has yet been published about Sonny. This cookbook could serve as a casual one with memorials to Sonny around the topic of the food he loved. If she is able, his mother could talk about his childhood and where he learned to love food, Cher could talk about what they ate in the 60s and 70s, Susie Coelho could talk about what was popular in their restaurant, Bono’s on Melrose, his first daughter Christy could talk about her restaurant experiences with Bono's and Christy's Ristorante and how her menus have evolved, what recipes she likes best and are most popular. Mary Whitaker Bono could then talk about what Sonny was cooking up late in his life.
Last week on the Cher-freaks list, Cher scholar Tom posted the following clip of Karen Carpenter singing "I Love Making Love to You," a song Cher sang with Gregg Allman on the 1977 album Allman and Woman: Two the Hard Way.
The fact that Gregg Allman and Karen Carpenter covered the same song calls for a moment of silence.
Cher attended the Pre-Grammy Gala last week to give David Geffen an Icon Award in a somewhat surly manner.
In honor of Geffen, Mary J. Blige sang a spirited version of A Free Man in Paris (Joni Mitchell wrote the song about Geffen). Cher presented the Icon Award to Geffen, her longtime friend and ex-boyfriend. She told the audience she had been instructed to speak from the heart.
"I would rather stick needles in my eyes than speak from the heart to a bunch of strangers," she said before sharing poignant and amusing details of their history together.
"He has a very soft heart," Cher said. "He's always the smartest man in the room. He falls asleep at the beginning of every movie we've ever seen. I have no idea what this (bleeping) award is. Whatever it is, I'm sure he deserves it."
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/awards/grammys/2011-02-13-pregrammyparty_N.htm
The Recording Academy-event was also dedicated to David Geffen, who was given the academy’s
President’s Merit award. The co-founder of Dreamworks is also a legendary and influential music figure and played a pivotal role in the careers of acts ranging from Joni Mitchell to Nirvana.
Longtime friend Cher, dressed in a sequined mini-dress, paid tribute to Geffen in a touching yet irreverent speech:
“When David asked me to do this I just wanted to kill myself, but you can’t say no to him,” she joked.
A few weeks ago I netflixed Who is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talking About Him) to get some better insight into Cher and Nilsson’s unusual pairing for their Phil Spector single. Cher was not mentioned in the documentary, but then not many women were. Most of his compatriots were the big boys of the 70s, Monty Python, The Beatles, Van Dyke Parks, Randy Newman, Paul Willams, Brian Wilson, Cher-producer Jimmy Webb and Cher-friend Mark Hudson (with rainbow colored beard). Other than comments from his ex-wife and widow that is. There was seemingly no collaboration with women artists. Which makes the Cher duet even more interesting and mysterious.
Although most know Nilsson for his bursting ballad “Without You” which he hated, he also wrote “One” the song Three Dog Night made famous, “Cuddly Toy” made famous by The Monkees and “Girlfriend” which was edited to best friend for the theme of that 70s show The Courtship of Eddie’s Father. You’d also recognize the “Coconut” song from the 70s and “Everybody’s Talkin'”, the hit from Midnight Cowboy. A singer’s singer and a writer’s writer, he was more popular among his peers than he was on the charts. He also refused to perform live or do a single tour, which may have limited his reputation. His newly released Greatest Hits has many of the best songs from the documentary (which was long and repetitive, but informative….you kept thinking his hard partying was going to lead to a bad end…but it didn’t really).
I learned a lot about producer Richard Perry and the making of Nilsson’s biggest album Nilsson Schmilsson. The song “Remember” I like but it almost sounds more like Leon Russel. Other good musical finds were “1941”, “Me and My Arrow,” “Jump into the Fire” (my favorite), “You’re Breakin’ My Heart” (reminiscent of Cee-Lo Green’s recent hit “F*#k You”) and his tracks from the album of standards “A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the NIght”.
His voice is sweet and contemplative with a mad edge and his melodies are meandering and experimental. Probably deserves more credit than being a one-hit-wonder. If only he had toured…
I also finally watched Tina Turner Celebrate!, the concert special with sound bites of celebrities wishing her a happy 60th birthday back in 1999. Cher has a few interesting sound bites. She calls Tina “a hurricane, a tornado, a force of nature.”
Cher and Tina also discuss (painfully briefly) their meeting during 1975 on The Cher Show where Tina questioned Cher about leaving Sonny and thereby gained the courage to leave Ike Turner. Tina said she and Cher “came along the same way although hers wasn’t Nutbush.”
I loved the venue for this show…so intimate. Tina’s show is incredible high energy and her duet with Bryan Adams was awesome. I also loved her dancers: clean, fun, and throwbacks to the Ikettes yet totally different. I also fell in love with the song and video “Whatever You Need” which I soon realized was filmed in Paris near where John and I stayed. The video takes place at those the Roman ruins found under those apartments near The Latin Quarter and Jardin des Plantes.
Chaz Bono's gender transformation documentary, Becoming Chaz, has just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last weekend and Oprah has snapped up the rights to air it on her OWN network.
From Entertainment Weekly:
Beyond hormone treatments and surgeries, the film walks moviegoers through Chaz’s changing relationship with his mom, Cher and girlfriend, Jennifer Elia.
From The Salt Lake Tribune:
The three stars of the premiere of “Becoming Chaz” were, in order, Oprah Winfrey, Chaz’s mom Cher, and Chaz’s longtime lover Jen.
But the buzz at the Park City premiere was all about Oprah, who, to the delight of Chaz and the film’s directors, has bought “Chaz” for distribution on her new OWN Network.
“Oprah said last night that she has seen the film and she loves it quite a lot,” said co-director Randy Barbato. Then he joked: “With Oprah approval, we don’t even need a premiere. We’re done.”
From the Sundance page:
Chaz Bono was a male trapped in a female shell for as long as he can remember. Growing up as Sonny and Cher’s adorable golden-haired daughter in a body he felt wasn’t his own was a crucible it took years to transcend. Now, as he undertakes gender reassignment, he’s bravely decided to share the process on camera. Becoming Chaz invites us along on Chaz’s remarkable journey of transformation. As hormone shots give way to top surgery, down-to-earth, unflappable Chaz beams with a sense of liberation and goes public with his story to put a face on a misunderstood issue. Meanwhile, his gregarious girlfriend grapples with the realities of suddenly living with a man, and it’s clear sex change isn’t solely a physical transition.
Intimate and nakedly honest, the film reveals the humanity and courage it takes for Chaz to ultimately embrace his true self. His moving struggle will reverberate profoundly for anyone to whom authenticity matters.
The film has been receiving good reviews. Excerpts:
Initially the documentary shows Cher struggling with her child's so-called gender re-assignment, though she eventually embraces Chaz's transformation, even if she struggles to refer to him as he.
While she has already spoken about him on Late Night with David Letterman, as we see in the film, expect her to be a guest on Oprah any time soon.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10702556
Becoming Chaz delves into the relationship with a level of honesty I wouldn’t have expected from a celebrity profile. Though the film probably would not have mass appeal were it to focus on a transgendered individual without ridiculously famous parents, Chaz uses his celebrity as a form of advocacy.
http://www.filmthreat.com/reviews/29406/
One of the most poignant segments of the documentary is the interview with Cher, who is openly uncomfortable with Chaz's transition and admits to being afraid to see him post-surgery. Cher often uses the pronoun "she" to refer to Chaz and uses Chaz's childhood nickname in place of Chaz or even Chastity. It humanizes the larger-than-lifesinger and actress, even as it shows how far even those we look to as icons and advocates have to go. (Cher and Chaz finally appear together at the end as Chaz, Jennifer and Cher attend the premiere of 'Burlesque.' Cher was reportedly not at the Sundance premiere of 'Becoming Chaz.')
http://blog.moviefone.com/2011/01/28/becoming-chaz-review-sundance/
Read in our local Santa Fe paper last week that the government has put a lien on Val Kilmer's properties for $498,165 in unpaid taxes.
…including a ranch in New Mexico that is currently on the market for $18.5 million. The asking price was knocked down at least twice, from $23 million last October and $33 million in 2009.
http://www.accountingtoday.com/news/IRS-Files-Tax-Lien-Against-Val-Kilmer-56794-1.html
I was reminded of Georgia Holt recently. I've been working on a novel about my Grandparents' old adobe house in a little town called Roy, New Mexico. Researching the town, one of their claims to fame is Bob Wills of Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys. From the Roy website:
"Bob Wills wrote the song "San Antonio Rose" while a resident here in 1927. Bob worked as a barber during the day in Roy and played with a dance band at night. He wrote a song called "Spanish Two-Step" which fit the style of dancing most popular here, and this song later became the famous "San Antonio Rose"."
Bob Wills, Bob Wills. Where have I heard of Bob Wills and The Playboys? Oh yeah, Cher's mom played with them!
So I found this good interview Georgia gave to The Chicago Tribune in 1988: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1988-07-24/features/8801170052_1_singing-daddy-murder-attempt
I started singing with Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys when I was about 10. He`s the one that told my Dad to take me to Hollywood because, he said, "She`s got the greatest voice; you`re just wasting it back here."
There's a lot to Georgia's story, as I've said before. And I had never even heard the tale about her father trying to kill her.
It reminds me that most Cher biographers have missed the larger Cher story that is her family history, both sides – Armenian genocide on her Father's branch of the family tree and the Arkansas mother's family on the other side, not only the large hard-scrabble dramas that happened before Cher was even born, but growing up in that intersection of families. I think a real worthwhile Cher biography needs to be something like Katharine Hepburn by Barbara Leming. She spent half the book tracing the lives of Hepburn’s parents and grandparents to show what a force of nature was building to create Katharine the Great, not just the real heroes in her family (of which there were a few, including her own mother) but the tragic figures and suicides as well. It’s just the full arc of someone’s life story. Life coaching tells us, like it or not, we are the product of our early childhood, which was itself created by our family legacy. Even the bad shit makes us who we uniquely are. Aside from Randy Taborelli’s attempts, most biographies have treated Cher like a singular vortex of fame, starting with when she met Sonny and sketchy information before that. Watching old episodes of Merv Griffin with Georgeanne and Georgia interacting with her tells us much more about who Cher is: being teased as a sister, kavetching as a daughter and looking back as a granddaughter.
Honestly, the sister angle alone could probably fill a book.
My husband had never seen The Goonies until last night. Believe it or not.
I don’t even know how to begin to explain this. He’s practically my age and this was THE kiddie-version of Indiana Jones for my age set. I’ve seen The Goonies about 50 times on cable. How can you not have seen it? And once you're hooked in, it's a rainy-day-addictive flick.
I had always planned to Netflix it for my better half; but when I found out Burlesque-director Steve Antin was in it, I popped that sucker right up to the top of my Netflix que, ahead of Bull Durham, which my husband has also never seen. What the…??
In The Goonies, Antin playes the preppy a-hole fighting the poor, nerdy kids (or goonies). He's a richie-ditchie whose father owns the country club and is threatening to ruin the goonie's lives by building a golf course where their shabby homes sit with quaint ocean views. It reminds one of Draco Malfoy backing up his evil father, Lucius, in Harry Potter.
Antin's most memorable scene is when he finds out the hunky Josh Brolin (son of Amityville-dad and Barbra-Streisand-husband James Brolin) has turned his potential girlfriend into a Goonie. He screams “Aaaaandy” down a well. He’s a very convincing "jerk-alert."
He was also a memorable rapist in The Accused and more importantly Jessie in Rick Springfield’s video for the song “Jessie’s Girl.” He was a very cute preppie-looking teen and I’m sure he broke many hearts when he came out.
He was also David Geffen's boyfriend for about a year and this allegedly helped him (with Geffen's prodding of Cher) to win her as his co-lead in Burlesque.
"Jessie’s Girl" reminds me of Rick Springfield's prime back in the late 70s. I was in grade school and it was the first record album my fellow students took to in the 5th and 6th grade. It was probably their first album ever…meanwhile I had about six or seven Cher and Sonny & Cher albums by then and I felt a real pressure to conform. But I didn’t crack, my friends.
As a result, I don’t have any episodes of Magnum P.I. with Tom Selleck burned into my memory or any Duran Duran singles either. I did catch on the Billy Joel craze however. I’m not made of stone.
Steve Antin’s big Goonies moment
Antin was also in The Last American Virgin with Lawrence Monoson who played Rocky Dennis’s best friend Ben in Cher's movie Mask.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiOELJSpKe4
These videos are great! To scan them all visit: http://www.itgetsbetterproject.com/
Stephanie Miller has a particularly good one.
About the project:
Justin Aeberg. Billy Lucas. Cody Barker. Asher Brown. Seth Walsh. Raymond Chase. Tyler Clementi. All the names of American teenagers who in recent months have taken their own lives after being bullied in school.
For too long, LGBT youth have been forced to struggle through their formative years suffering from bullies in their schools, churches and homes — and with no support system to provide them any help.
Noted writer and media pundit Dan Savage founded the It Gets Better Project in September 2010 as a unique way for supporters everywhere to tell LGBT Youth that — it gets better.
© 2025 I Found Some Blog
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑