Category: Scholarship In Action (Page 8 of 15)

Strong Enough Biography: Childhood Through the 1960s

February 2, 2014 / Cher Scholar / 1 Comment

So we've been discussing the new and wonderful Cher biography in detail. I wouldn't say this is my favorite Cher biography, (that would be hard to choose), but this is definitely a packed one and only the second one to have been published since I started this blog.

The two pictures here are not included in the book but they are new pictures I've come across recently (Cher posting on Twitter?) that seem to epitomize something interesting about a particular time in Cher's life.

All biographies give Cher's ancestry and childhood short shift. This biography spends even less time on her childhood since the book is ostensibly not a full-fledged bio. That said, the book does illuminate a few shadows in her story. This is the first biography that I have read that tells the story of Georgia's father trying to kill her and her brother and about her life in LA's Skid Row.

I also appreciate how the book gives more detail to Uncle Mickey. He seems like a somewhat important fixture in the story and we don't know much about him or his relationship to Cher and Georgia (except in flashes). He was involved peripherally in the Hollywood music scene after all. This book gives us more information on that in tidbits.

We also get a bit more about Cher's father. Although he was a troubled, often absent figure, his story is important. His story (and even the story of his parents and grandparents) matter in explaining why he was a troubled and absent figure in Cher's life (and why he was trouble when he was present in Cher's life). If he had been the perfect Dad, Cher wouldn't be who she is today. She'd be, for better or for worse, someone completely different. So his story matters, good or bad.

American Indian writer Leslie Marmon Silkos has some famous quotes; one is "You don't have anything if you don't have the stories." She meant that if American Indians lose their stories (and therefore their culture), they've lost everything. But I think we can extrapolate this idea to what we value about everything. Nothing is more valuable to us than our own story. And no story is disconnected from the stories of our parents.

So it's good to finally know why Cher was born in El Centro. Why were they down there? Turns out this has to do with her paternal grandfather trying to help out her father.

I love how Howard really breaks down her name and is concerned with the spelling of it. Finally!

The book also details Georgia's marriages a bit more (although I swear this trail of marriages needs a flow chart or some kind of visual aid or something). I wish we could get a detailed list of all the LA neighborhoods Cher lived in and all the schools she attended.

Along with many more childhood stories. I loved the ancestor stories in Cher's special Dear Mom, Love Cher but we need more, more, more. You don't become Cher right out of the box, for Chrissake.

This early picture of Sonny & Cher intrigues me because I think Sonny's main "Achilles Heel" regarding Cher was that no matter how far she grew into a glamour girl, no matter how much she matured, Sonny could never see anything but the young girl in this picture. And that was his fatal flaw.

I like how the recent Easlea and Fiegel biography put their music in context with what was happening at the time. This biography goes into more depth as well, but not regarding the music. Howard talks about how Sonny & Cher first connected and why, the desires they had in common. Howard also fleshes out Sonny's relationship to his first daughter Christy a bit.

And Howard also adds some new light to their financial situation through "Baby Don’t Go" and "I Got You Babe." Did you know "I Got You Babe" is the second most played song by astronauts, number one being Rush's "Countdown."

The book also is the first one to address Sonny's temper and witnesses to his explosions, from Les Reed talking about working with him on the show Ready Steady Go to quotes from friends who saw his personality change as Sonny & Cher became more famous. Is this because Sonny has passed away and people finally feel free to speak about it?

The book also addresses rumors that surrounded Sonny & Cher from their inception: that Sonny beat her up, that Cher was really a man. What wackadoodle things people are saying about you, this is a constant phenomenon that would plague Cher throughout her whole famous life.

The book lists out the various public service announcements Sonny & Cher were involved in, not just the anti-marijuana one. What would Sonny make of the current legalizations of marijuana? There was also the stay-in-school psa which you can hear yourself at the end of the "Hello" track on your The Beat Goes On, The Best of Sonny & Cher CD. This spot is overly ironic since neither of them did, in fact, stay in school and they were doing just fine and therefore were horrible examples for such a message. Sonny & Cher also did a spot apparently for National Bible Week. Surely it was the cumulative effect of all these unhip psa's helped to put their career in the shark tank.

By the end of the decade, after essentially funding their own interestingly flawed independent film (ahead of its time really; everybody is now funding their own interestingly flawed independent films), Sonny & Cher were, as we all know, broke and owning the government $200,000 in unpaid taxes. My question to this factoid has always been, why did they owe this much in back taxes? Did they have a Willie Nelson moment or was it some unscrupulous accountings?

Camille Paglia on Miley Cyrus

January 19, 2014 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Camille Paglia: you love her or you hate her. She's outspoken and strident and I tend not to agree with her politically or critically and she was not supportive of Chaz's transgendering and has both been critical of Cher's plastic surgery and supportive of Cher's persona on occasion.

But recently my friend Christopher sent me a really good Time editorial by Paglia about Miley Cyrus' recent scandalous performance and it echoes many of the concerns Cher initially had. Her editorial also made many good points about the history of pop music and Madonna, as well:

"…the real scandal was how atrocious Cyrus' performance was in artistic terms. She was clumsy, flat-footed, and cringingly unsexy, and effect heightened by her manic grin.

How could American pop have gotten this bad? Sex has been a crucial component of the entertainment industry since the seductive vamps of silent film and the bawdy big mamas of roadhouse blues. Elvis Presley, James Brown and Mick Jagger brought sizzling heat to rock, soul and funk music, which in turn spawned the controversial raw explicitness of urban hip-hop.

The Cyrus fiasco, however, is symptomatic of the still heavy influence of Madonna, who sprang to world fame in the 1980s with sophisticated videos that were suffused with a daring European art-film eroticism and that were arguably among the best artworks of the decade. Madonna’s provocations were smolderingly sexy because she had a good Catholic girl’s keen sense of transgression. Subversion requires limits to violate.

…

But more important, Madonna, a trained modern dancer, was originally inspired by work of tremendous quality — above all, Marlene Dietrich’s glamorous movie roles as a bisexual blond dominatrix and Bob Fosse’s stunningly forceful strip-club choreography for the 1972 film Cabaret, set in decadent Weimar-era Berlin. Today’s aspiring singers, teethed on frenetically edited small-screen videos, rarely have direct contact with those superb precursors and are simply aping feeble imitations of Madonna at 10th remove.

Pop is suffering from the same malady as the art world, which is stuck on the tired old rubric that shock automatically confers value. But those once powerful avant-garde gestures have lost their relevance in our diffuse and technology-saturated era, when there is no longer an ossified high-culture establishment to rebel against. On the contrary, the fine arts are alarmingly distant or marginal to most young people today.

…

With their massive computerized lighting and special-effects systems, arena shows make improvisation impossible and stifle the natural rapport with the audience that performers once had in vaudeville houses and jazz clubs. There is neither time nor space to develop emotional depth or creative skills.

Pop is an artistic tradition that deserves as much respect as any other. Its lineage stretches back to 17th century Appalachian folk songs and African-American blues, all of which can still be heard vibrating in the lyrics and chord structure of contemporary music. But our most visible young performers, consumed with packaging and attitude, seem to have little sense of that thrilling continuity and therefore no confidence in how it can define and sustain their artistic identities over the course of a career.

What was perhaps most embarrassing about Miley Cyrus’ dismal gig was its cutesy toys — a giant teddy bear from which she popped to cavort with a dance troupe in fuzzy bear drag. Intended to satirize her Disney past, it signaled instead the childishness of Cyrus’ notion of sexuality, which has become simply a cartoonish gimmick to disguise a lack of professional focus. Sex isn’t just exposed flesh and crude gestures. The greatest performers, like Madonna in a canonical video such as “Vogue,” know how to use suggestion and mystery to project the magic of sexual allure. Miley, go back to school!

Read the full piece: http://ideas.time.com/2013/08/27/pops-drop-from-madonna-to-miley/

What Paglia does here is to maintain that sex has always been a part of pop music and that the raunchiness of Cyrus' performance wasn't the issue. It was the emptiness of it. She makes similar critiques of Lady Gaga. From the UK's Sunday Times, Paglia said that

Gaga is a "manufactured personality" who rips off her music and fashion from "Cher, Jane Fonda as Barbarella, Gwen Stefani and Pink." Paglia also disses the star's attractiveness, saying that "Drag queens, whom Gaga professes to admire, are usually far sexier in many of her over-the-top outfits than she is." Her sex appeal, or lack thereof, is quite a problem for Paglia: "Furthermore, despite showing acres of pallid flesh in the fetish-bondage garb of urban prostitution, Gaga isn’t sexy at all – she’s like a gangly marionette or plasticised android. How could a figure so calculated and artificial, so clinical and strangely antiseptic, so stripped of genuine eroticism have become the icon of her generation? Can it be that Gaga represents the exhausted end of the sexual revolution? In Gaga’s manic miming of persona after persona, over-conceptualised and claustrophobic, we may have reached the limit of an era…"

This is the enduring issue I have with Gaga, not her unsexiness (do we all have to be sexy?), but her flatness, how her artistic gestures are shallow and blatant. I just don't get a message there.

I like how Paglia compares the vapidness of shock for shock's sake between the pop and the art world, and how both fields need something to play against, "subversion needs limits to violate" like Madonna's transgressions against the Catholic Church. Likewise in the art world, if there is no establishment to rebel against, rebellion seems valueless.

I'm also interested in Paglia's concerns about arena shows and how computerized elements "make improvisation impossible and stifle natural rapport." I hope Cher keeps in mind a balance between cool technology and bling-bling effects and allows a spot of unplanned-out intimacy in her new show, understanding the fact that she is beloved to her fans and she could sing on a stool in a pretty dress and charm us all well enough. She is truely much more than "packaging and attitude" (or trust me, I would be bored to tears and would have jumped off the Cher wagon years ago) and defines, all by herself, the "thrilling continuity" of pop music's lineage. I hope someday she takes ownership of that.

She's also naturally sexy (sister to sister, you're time-tested) and thankfully doesn't need to bump and grind a teddy bear.

Cher Over the Holiday Break

January 19, 2014 / Cher Scholar / 1 Comment

Before Christmas, my husband and I watched the SCTV Christmas Episodes on DVD. I’ve been interested in this video ever since I spent the last year watching old variety shows and trying to get an intellectual handle on the genre. My only experience of SCTV as a variety-show parody is from the performances of the hilarious Juul Haalmeyer Dancers, a very camp and hilarious send up of variety show dance troupes. Watch a five-minute documentary on them: http://vimeo.com/82136213).

In one SCTV episode there is a very funny parody of a piano-duel between Liberace and Elton John that originally aired on Dec 18, 1981. Elton John, played by Rick Moranis, is dressed in what strikes me as a spoof of the outfit and he wore on the Cher show premiere and special from 1975. (See video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgH286eOni4).

For Christmas, Mr. Cher Scholar and I (plus the dogs) drove to Pennsylvania to see my parents. It was cheaper and more fun than flying. We stopped along the way in Fort Smith (for historical work Mr. Cher Scholar is doing for the show Quick Draw), Memphis and Nashville. Definitely want to go back to Nashville and see a show and the Country Music Hall of Fame.

We played the iPod shuffle for three days both ways. That was plenty of time for the song “Podunk” to come up. I have always been confused by this song and what it was trying to do. Mr. Cher Scholar thankfully did some scholarin and cleared up the mystery for me. He said that Cher and Sonny are actually doing impersonations of Mae West and W.C. Fields. Oohhhhh. But you all probably knew that already. So ok, that makes it mildly better.

Truly, I am a fan of Cher’s Mae West impersonations, both her straight-out Mae West and her Sadie Thompson version. In fact, I think her Mae West is an essential component of her oeuvre of characters on those variety shows and, on top of that, emblematic of the larger media character she came to be. I believe in some ways this song "Podunk" is a very raw precursor to those impersonations. I just think she got better and more organic the next decade.

The Byrds version of “All I Really Want to Do” also came up on the iPod shuffle and I was able to think more about why their version failed in competition with Cher’s in 1965. I think there are definitely tonal problems with the Byrds version. Their version is too crisp and neat for one thing, almost bourgeois neatness, if you can accept the Byrds as bourgeois for a moment. Cher’s version is rougher, more Dylanish, hippie-er, scragglier, much more believable as a hippie/feminist creed coming from Cher. Which brings me to my second point: this song needs to be sung by a woman. It sounds like a creepy manipulation coming from a man. “Suuuurre you just wanna be my friend. Uh huh. Friends with benefits.” From a woman it sounds like an emancipated idea/argument. For these two reasons, Cher’s versions comes across as more authentic.

Over the break I also received this message from my friend Julie about a Cher tweet, She said:

I was looking at something else on twitter so decided to take a look at Cher’s page. This is my favorite one.

.@manthon25 U Haven’t LEARNED!! EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE–My Grandma Picked Cotton,My Mom Scrubbed Flrs,My Shoes had Holes–,I SING IN ARENAS

Cher also popped up in one of my dreams. I was driving a car and she was in the passenger seat complaining to me about how many factual errors this blog contains. I was complaining back to her that perfection is impossible and any attempts to be perfect are paralyzing. This excuse brings to mind a quote Mr. Cher Scholar just gave me from Ben Franklin, (“He who is good at making excuses is rarely good at anything else.”). Anyway, I was discussing with one of our LA friends who visited last week that fan/celebrity meetings seem impossibly stressful and who would want to do it because I would expect a similar dressing-down about my blog’s inaccuracies in person (and that would pretty much rob the fun right out of it). Besides, I’ve always said I'm a fan of the stuff, my activities are rebelliously unofficial and unsanctioned and I have never looked to my celebrity-obsession as a role model or idol. Although, ever since that Miley Cyrus fiasco, I have been brushing my tongue.

On eBay, I purchased recently two magazines from Argentina called Holofote (which means "spotlight"), one on Cher and one on Sonny & Cher (Cher's is entitled, “Cher Super Musa”) and honestly they were too expensive for their size and the very little verbiage they contained (which is all in Portuguese). But for some reason I like them because I like to see how Cher comes across in other cultures. There are 18 pages of photos in each booklet but they are not in any chronological order, which bugs the scholar in me. It looks to be a fan production of "PHOTOS MARAVILHOSAS."

Cher-related Christmas presents included this odd ornament-packaged version of the movie Moonstruck and this button ("Ask Me About Cher") which looks like legitimate tour or label produced Cher paraphernalia. My friend bought it at Rockaway Records in Silverlake and he said it was perfect for my Cher Scholar “duties.” He closed the note with this post script: “All I see is Reeeeeeeeeed.”

Anyway, I hope you had a good winter break. I came home from Pennsylvania with a cold and have spent the last few weeks hosting out-of-town guests. I’m back in the saddle and ready to blog about the latest Cher bio, Strong Enough. However, I have so much to say about it that I’m going to take it in small chucks: childhood, the 1960s, the 1970s, etc. Can’t wait to get started.

Cher Recipes for Food Holidays

December 1, 2013 / Cher Scholar / 1 Comment

Since we’re in the season of big family dinners, it might be fun to bright out the plethora of Cher recipes out there if you’re needing some Cher-themed inspiration for the holidays.

When I was in Junior High, I fell deeply into the world of celebrity self improvement and fitness. This started with Jane Fonda’s book, The Jane Fonda Workout. Christie Brinkley had a good book called Christie Brinkley’s Outdoor Beauty and Fitness Book. I also had Victoria Principal’s The Body Principal, Revlon’s The Art of Beauty and Raquel Welch’s yoga book, The Raquel Welch Total Beauty and Fitness Program. It was really hard to learn yoga from a book of still shots. Later I got into Susan Powter’s madness.

But I can honestly say, the long-awatied Cher beauty book with Robert Haas, Forever Fit, was the best of the bunch. Not only was it the most well-rounded, it was the least self-obsessed. It wasn’t filled with copious amounts of Cher photos and had very balanced and real advice and included a big recipe section of low fat foods, about 58 pages of recipes for breakfast, appetizers, soups, dressings and spreads, salads, sides, entrees, breads and desserts. The book also has a chapter on skin care.

Her later exercise tapes were more interesting for the same reason: she didn’t put herself out there as an expert, just a student like the rest of us. Although those wacky exercise outfits were nutty!

So I always enjoy dipping back into celebrity Cher recipe books and just found another one online: Singers, & Swingers in the Kitchen, recipes to get hung-up on compiled by Roberta Ashley in 1967. Celebrities included: The Byrds, Leonard Nimoy, Paul Revere, The Mamas and the Papas, all the Monkees, Sam the Sham, Leslie Gore, Carol Burnett, The Buckinghams, Paul Anka, the Rolling Stones, Bobby Vinton, Donovan, Herman’s Hermits, Marlo Thomas, The Yardbirds, Larry Hagman, Jane Fonda, Bob Denver, Eva Marie Saint, Bobby Darin, Sally Field, Barbara Streisand, Soupy Sales, Liza Minnelli, Don Adams, Petula Clark, The Supremes, Simon and Garfunkel and some others I’ve never heard of. It’s a slim 96-page book. Sonny & Cher are in the middle with a pork chop recipe and this intro:

“Sonny & Cher shared a pizza the afternoon they met. That was the day they both had jobs as background singers at a recording session. It’s been Italian food ever since. Cher doesn’t really know how to cook many dishes, but she’s learned a couple to please husband Sonny, who is Italian. At any rate, they always keep a gallon of olive oil on hand, and lots of different kinds of pasta. Sonny always cooks the pasta, and often have it with one of Cher’s specialties.”

It’s good for a game of Catch the PR Spin. Serve with spaghetti

Mrs. Flax’s Fun Fingerfoods was a promo piece created for the movie Mermaids. Although I didn’t love this 1990 movie, I am charmed by this little book of six pages of finger foods depicted in the film, from frozen fruit kebobs to BLT bites.

Cooking for Cher by Andy Ennis is probably the mother of Cher recipe books. There are about 200 pages of recipes and includes a section on Cher’s pantry, kitchen equipment and chapters on starters, soups, seafood, pultry, meats, vegetarian courses, veggies, desserts and extra material of Cher guidelines to being lean, a 10 day diet and menus for special occasions.

All books have interesting biographical information and are fun to try, especially in competition with other celebrity cookbooks. I competed directly with a Jack Nicholson fan in Cher Zine 2 for entrees, sides and in a fat-free muffin-off.

Ben Folds, The Conjuring, Cory Monteith and Zine Show

July 28, 2013 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Our landlord called last weekend. He needs to move back into our house. So this means I'll need to spend the next month or so seeking shelter, packing and moving. I'll be MIA for a while.

But before I go I'd like to cover a few odds and ends.

Finn Hudson, RIP

I was horribly sad to hear of Glee-star Cory Monteith's death from an overdose at the impossible age of 31. I love that show and couldn't help but feel its positivity and bubble of perfectness extended to its stars' lives. Considering what Cory's co-star and girlfriend Lea Michele must be going through right now, it's hard not to think of the stress and worry Cher probably must have felt back in 1976 and 1977 when she was married to Gregg Allman. Living with an addict, the possible outcomes must haunt you daily. It's probably no minor miracle Gregg Allman is still alive today. Unfortunately, Lea Michele was not spared in this regard.

Scary Movies

In 2011 I used this blog to post an open letter to the horror movie industry. I'm happy to say they fullfilled my request with the movie The Conjuring. This old-fashioned haunted house movie scared the bejesus out of me last week. I loved the performances, the back story, the inter-cutting of scenes…all of it: top notch. Plus a plethora of early 1970s sets and parphernalia! Both scary and fun.

Cher Zine

Just as Cher has been spending time performing in Russia over the last year, Cher Zine also made an appearance there, at the ZineShow in Ukraine.

I'm sure my celebrity scholarship fit right in with the underground political screeds and punk zines.

Ben Folds Five and The Cher Experience

Finally, my iPod shuffle served up one of my favorite Cher-referencing songs that probably doesn't realize it references Cher, Ben Folds Five's song "Best Imitation of Myself." Ben Folds may not realize this song is about Cher, but it is. I've made one slight alteration in the lyric to solidify the simpatico.

I feel like a quote out of context
withholding the rest
so I can be free what you want to see.

I got the gesture and sounds,
got the timing down.
It's uncanny, yeah you'd think it was me.

Do you think I should take a class
to lose my (Elvis) accent?
Did I make me up
or make this face til it stuck?
I do the best imitation of myself.

The "problem with you" speech
you gave me was fine
like the theories about my little stage.
And I swore I was listening
but I started drifting
around the part about me acting my age.

Now if it's all the same
I've people to entertain.
I juggle one handed
do some magic tricks and
the best imitation of myself.

Maybe I'm thinkin myself in a hole,
wonderin who I am when I outa know.
Straighten up now time to go
fool somebody else,
fool somebody else.

Last night I was east with them,
west with them,
trying to be for you what you want to see.
But I can't help it
With you the good and bad comes through.
Don't want you hanging out with no one but me.

And if it's all the same
it comes from the same place.
If my mind's somewhere else
you won't be able to tell.
I do the best imitation of myself.
Yes, it's uncanny you see.
You'd really think it was me,
the best imitation of myself,
I do the best imitation of myself.

That's all for now. I'll write when I can.

The Great Women of 70s TV

July 28, 2013 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Mr. Cher Scholar and I gave up cable a month or so ago. We were being overcharged and getting fewer and fewer channels from Direct TV. Meanwhile, they've been calling me twice and day and leaving blank messages on my phone. Not cool dying-TV-service, not cool.

Without cable, I decided to watch all my 7 seasons of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. At the same time, Mr. Cher Scholar (formerly a French scholar) and I were finishing up reading Proust's seven installments of In Search of Lost Time. I started to think about those amazing women of 1970s TV on CBS: Cher, Mary Tyler Moore and Carol Burnett. In a Proustian-like effort of obsession, I came up with a list of interesting connections and comparisons.

It Was the Decade of the TV
Woman

These three women couldn't seem more different physically or characteristically.

Their presences as TV women:

The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour ran from August 1, 1971 to May 29, 1973
(3 seasons);
The Cher Show ran from February 16, 1975 to January 4,
1976 (1 season);
The Sonny & Cher Show ran from February 2, 1976 to
March 11, 1977 (1 season).
Cher was on for a total of 5 seasons.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show ran from September 19, 1970 to March 19, 1977 (7 seasons).

The Carol Burnett Show ran from September 11, 1967 to March 29, 1978 (11 seasons!)

All their shows ended around 1977 or 1978.

There Were Men Behind These Women

All these women were receiving significant support from their husbands behind the scenes, more support than the public probably knew.

Cher has described Sonny as her Svengali; he controlled the Sonny & Cher shows. Mary Tyler Moore's husband, CBS executive Grant Tinker, created and controlled her show and ran the production company bearing her name. Carol Burnett's husband was her variety show's producer, Joe Hamilton. According to her biographies, she might have been the most independent of the three. Mary Tyler Moore and Cher both describe their time with their husbands as a period of stunted
growth where they willingly allowed themselves to be "taken care of" by their business-savvy husbands. Both of their husbands had assertive, if not dominating, personalities and Cher and Mary Tyler Moore have both described themselves as obedient. Both Cher and Mary Tyler Moore also described
themselves as having a low level of confidence.

All women eventually divorced their husbands but remained, more or less, friendly with them. Mary Tyler Moore and Cher often give credit to their ex-husbands for their prominent success in the 1970s.

Ironically, they went on to become the independent single women the public assumed they
already were.

They Had Enterprises

Both Cher and Mary Tyler Moore had
husbands who started enterprises in their names (MTM Enterprises, Cher
Enterprises). Both Cher and Mary Tyler Moore had little to do with
their respective enterprises (Cher didn't even know about hers). Neither of them benefited much from their
enterprises professionally after they left their shows and their marriages.

They Come From Dysfunctional
Families

All thee women grew up in dysfunctional families with an alcoholic or
drug-addicted parent who was either rarely present, never present or otherwise emotionally unavailable.
Carol Burnett and Mary Tyler Moore describe feeling abandoned either physically or
emotionally by one or both of of their parents due to their parents' addictions.

Mary Tyler Moore's father was emotionally distant and her mother was an alcoholic.
Cher's mother suffered from depression and her father was a heroin addict who was never involved in her early life. His involvement in her adult life was problematic.
Both of Carol Burnett's parents were severe alcoholics unable to take care of her.

They Were All First Borns

Mary Tyler Moore was the oldest of three.
Cher is the oldest of two girls. She has a half-sister, Georganne, who she looked after as a child and as a teenager.
Carol Burnett is also the oldest of two girls. She also has a step-sister, Chrissy, who she looked after as a child and as a teenager.

Both Cher and Carol Burnett helped raise their half-sisters and they remained close to their sisters as adults.

They Grew Up in Hollywood

Mary Tyler Moore was born in 1936 in Brooklyn
Heights, New York. Her family moved to Los Angeles when she was 8 years old.
Cher was born in 1946 in El Centro, California. She was raised in Los Angeles.
Carol Burnett was born in 1933 in San Antonio, Texas. She was raised in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles by her grandmother.

All three women went to high school in Los Angeles.

Not All of Them Experienced Poverty

Mary Tyler Moore went to private school. Cher experienced a seesaw of poverty
and wealth, but it was poverty that most affected her. Carol Burnett experienced severe poverty. Mary Tyler Moore often describes herself as a moderate politically but seems to be more strongly conservative. Cher is staunchly liberal. Carol Burnett rarely speaks about her political beliefs but was the only one of the three to overtly support Women's Rights and the Equal Rights Amendment.

They Could Have Been Convicts

Mary Tyler Moore's grandfather told her she’d either end up on stage or in jail. Cher says if she hadn't been an entertainer, she would have been in jail.

Fred Silverman Had A Feeling About Their TV Shows

Show Facts:

All their shows were on CBS.
Both The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour benefited
from CBS Head of Programming Fred Silverman’s lone support and his desire to drive youth-oriented programming in the early 1970s.
Both Carol Burnett & Mary Tyler Moore had Paul Sand (my first TV crush) on their shows.
Mary Tyler Moore and Cher were both
given personal votes of confidence by Lucille Ball.
Both Cher and Mary Tyler Moore did dance classes on their show's lunch hours.

Nobody Slept with Elvis

Mary Tyler Moore and Cher both express
regret for not “taking Elvis up on it.” Elvis called Cher
for a date in the 1970s and she was too shy to go through with it; Mary Tyler Moore was the only leading lady Elvis had whom he didn’t
sleep with. On Oprah, Mary Tyler Moore joked, “what was I thinking?”

But Were They Friends?

Cher and Carol Burnett were on each
other’s shows and did friendly spoofs of one another.
Carol Burnett's daughter Erin and Cher's then-daughter Chastity were childhood playmates.
Carol Burnett was fan of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and provided a nice blurb for the recent book Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted.
Cher
and Mary Tyler Moore were often described as “very nice.”

Did They Influence Each Other's TV Specials?

After watching Mary’s Incredible
Dream (1976), I believe this bizarre special (in its entirety) had a direct influence on Cher's segment, "Musical Battle to Save Cher's Soul Medley," from Cher…Special (1978). There are obvious similarities in the depictions of heaven and hell, both using similarly funky photographic techniques. As Jamie L. Weinnan commented on Mary Tyler Moore's special (but which could also be said about the Cher special): “TV could be pleasantly insane in the
70s.”

Mary's Incredible Dream was allegedly the first to feature Ben Vereen as a guest in 1976. He apparently became the ubiquitous guest. You can draw a line directly from that fact to his ironic portrayal in Bob Fosse's All That Jazz in 1979.

Compare Mary's performance (7:47 mark) of “Because
I’m a Woman” with Cher and Raquel Welch doing the song a year earlier in 1975. Mary Tyler Moore also sings "Let the Good Times Roll" and "Aflie" in her special.

Mary Tyler Moore, in my mind, is a very talented comedienne, more on the comedy mark than Cher. Carol Burnett is probably the broadest talent of the three. But neither Carol or Mary can "sparkle in the center" like Cher does (whether Cher's dancing, singing or in a skit). Cher has that sparkle of coolness the other two don't have.

Would someone please (Oprah maybe) get these three women in an room for an
interview about what it was like to be perceived (and so influential) as
independent women of the early and mid-1970s, in the midst of "women's
lib" (feminism's second wave), particularly since at least two of them
(maybe all three) didn't always feel so independent and/or feminist.

Can we make that happen? Anyone?

What Should Celebrities Do with Fan Mail?

April 7, 2013 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Is this photo staged or did Elvis really pour over his fan mail?

A week or so ago, BBC News posted a story about how a bag of Taylor Swift's fan mail (complete with sparkles and glitter and gushing love from pre-teens) was found unopened in a trash bin. The story went on to say what a burden the thousands of letters from fans can be to a celebrity. Some hire people to read them. Some, like Ringo Starr, just tell us outright they will not be reading any more fan mail.

I don't know if Cher reads her fan mail. When I was eleven I did write an impassioned letter to both Cher (about an outrageous story I saw in The National Enquirer) and to Richard Simmons (about following my dreams). I actually received a very warm and personal response from Richard Simmons (which he probably dictated to an assistant) and an autographed photo from Cher. Years later in my late teens I wrote a rambling and incoherent letter to John Waite and received a postcard back. In each case, I felt a kind of nerd's remorse at having broken the fourth wall.

I really don't know what good can come of fan mail. Cher gets into the muck too much answering twitter questions, our modern way of trying to touch a celebrity. Although I feel Swift's office should have been more discreet with her fan mail, I don't really blame her for not reading all of it.

Best National Anthem Singers

January 31, 2013 / Cher Scholar / 7 Comments

It’s Super Bowl Sunday this weekend and Alicia Keys is slated to perform the National Anthem.

OK! Magazine has just done a review of their favorite performances of the National Anthem: http://www.okmagazine.com/news/top-10-super-bowl-national-anthem-performances-cher-kelly-clarkson-carrie-underwood-more

Their list:

Whitney Houston –1991—what a wowee that was. I bought the single cassette!
Faith Hill—2000
Kelly Clarkson—2012
Jennifer Hudson—2009
Carrie Underwood—2010
Jordin Sparks—2008
Mariah Carey—2002
Cher—1999
Beyonce—2004
The Dixie Chicks—2003

Note the FOUR American Idol singers (three AI winners) in this top ten list. Cher’s inclusion is striking because she’s not the same kind of singer as the others (with the exception of maybe the country sangers). Many would make the case that she’s the weakest singer on the list (if you split vocal hairs about this sort of thing). I chalk up her inclusion on all these favorites listings to the fact that Cher has become, not only a real American idol, but a national treasure.

Rolling Stone magazine’s list: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/the-most-memorable-super-bowl-national-anthem-performances-20120130.

Whitney Houston
The Dixie Chicks
Faith Hill
Beyonce
Cher
Carrie Underwood
Jennifer Hudson
Aretha Franklin, Aaron Neville & Dr. John (in a New Orleans Tribute)—2006
Garth Brooks—1993
Mariah Carey
Luther Vandross—1997

They say about Cher:

She left the Bob Mackie headdress at home, but Cher's throaty take on "The Star-Spangled Banner" still had the pop icon's unmistakable style – not to mention some impressive notes.

Rolling Stone, still hating on the idea of spectacle (at least when it occurred in the 1970s). Get over it, Rolling Stone!

The site The Week also posted their list recently: http://theweek.com/article/index/239018/the-10-greatest-national-anthem-performances-in-super-bowl-history

Whitney Houston
Luther Vandross
Jennifer Hudson
Cher
Jordin Sparks
The Dixie Chicks
Beyonce (tie)
Carrie Underwood (tie)
Mariah Carey
Vanessa Williams—1996

Their comments on Cher:

Cher can sing? Holy crap, Cher can sing! This was great. No complaints about Cher. The interpretive dancers were kind of weird, though. The Week's multimedia editor Lauren Hansen nails it: "Cher was surprisingly impressive, but like Mike Bloomberg with Lydia Callis, her spotlight was stolen."

Arbitrary diva rating: 90.4 percent

This site also recommends Barry Manilow’s performance from 1984. I would heartily recommend his pitch perfect rendition. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A795MW-Qpow

I would also recommend Marvin Gaye’s brilliant and chill-inducing performance from the 1983 NBA All-Star Game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRvVzaQ6i8A

Cher Hits One Million Twitter Followers

October 18, 2012 / Cher Scholar / 1 Comment

There have been some posts in the last week floating out itty bitty tid-bits of news about Cher's upcoming album. I have itty-bitty-news-about-Cher's-album fatigue myself. So until the damn thing apparates itself into my hands, I am not going to engage.

Dear Cher album, I'll talk to you when you get here. Until then, I'm shunning you.

To read the latest Cher album gossip visit Cher World or Cher News.

Other Cher news last week touted the fact that she hit one-million twitter fans recently. This kind of sounded like a big deal and so I researched the larger twitter-verse to see if this was in fact a big dealio.

It is not.

Although it has me beat by about a million, give or take one or two, it is not in fact that significant. According to the stats at Twitaholic, Cher does not even crack the top 1000 tweeters for followers. Yes, that's right. One-thousand tweeters have more followers than Cher does. It looks like this:

Top five are:

Lady Gaga Gaga (with 30-freakin-million)
Justin Bieber (29 mill)
Katy Perry (27 mill)
Rihanna (26 mill)
Britney Spears (really?) (21 mill)

Obama has 20 million. Those with over 10 million include: Taylor Swift (19), Shakira (18), YouTube (18), Kim Kardashian (16), Nicki Minaj (14), Oprah (14), Justin Timberlake (14), Ellen DeGeneres (14), Twitter itself (13), Ashton Kutcher (12), Eminem (12).

Other lady pop-singers/celebrities at the top (in the millions): J-Lo (12), Pink (11), Adele (10), Alica Keys (9), Paris Hilton (8), Mariah Carey (8), Kloe Kardashian (7), Avril Lavigne (6), Beyonce (6), Jessica Simpson (5).

Sadly, the only news service at the top is CNN Breaking News with 8 million. Bill Gates is the top business leader with 8 million and the top spiritual guru is the Dalai Lama with 5 million.

To break the top 1000, you need to have 1,161,806 or more followers. So although the press loves to follow Cher's tweets, she's not in the top stratosphere of tweetdom.

Maybe some day she will be "trending."

Moonstruck over Mothers

June 21, 2012 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

I finished ready The Unruly Woman by Kathleen Rowe and it has only one section of one chapter about Cher and the movie Moonstruck. But it's packed with goodies. Rowe does a study of many romantic comedies including It Happened One Night, Sylvia Scarlett, Bringing Up Baby, Ball of Fire and The Lady Eve among others. She singles out Moonstruck for many things, one being its inclusion of a mother-figure in a traditional romantic comedy.

She states,

"Comedy in mainstream narrative film usually makes its case against the father with very little attention to the mother or daughter. Comedy may deflate Oedipus and show him to be a fool, but it still places him at the heart of the story. Comedy is generally guilty of symbolic matricide. [The young woman, or bride, is seen as] a token of exchange between men [and] mothers rarely hold any power to transfer. [In] the subjugation of female by male [the girl] must sever the most important feminine identification in her life, her mother, for an exclusive attachment to a man, a stand-in for her father. Adrienne Rich [how serendipitous, I just did a profile of Rich yesterday in another blog] describes this rent between mother and daughter, ignored in our culture, as 'the essential female tragedy: we acknowledge Lear, Hamlet and Oedipus as embodiments of the human tragedy; but there is no presently enduring recognition of mother-daughter passion and rapture.'"

Moonstruck is an exception because it centers not only on Cher's character but her mothers: "Both are at turning points in their relationships with men."

"In contrast to the men, Moonstruck women have a clearer sense of who they are. Loretta is a paradigmatic woman on top, enhanced by the strong unruly off screen presence Cher brings to the part….she holds up her own autonomy as long as possible. In doing so, she follows the same course as the unruly virgins in the classical romantic comedies."

Rowe also discusses how the use of ethnicity serves the comedy, how the film uses ideas of death and life, she explicates the meaning behind character names and the symbolism of the moon.

Rowe also explains how the movie alludes to Puccini's La Boheme, particularly between the couples of Ronny and Loretta and Mimi and Rudolpho: the use of ordinary vs. mythic characters, the symbolic scenes with snow, and some symbolic hand-holding moments. However, "Mimi dies…and Loretta remains a woman on top; while Mimi wastes away in isolation, Loretta will draw strength from….her mother and a community that extends beyond the couple."

Most importantly, "Loretta doesn't have to give up her mother to get her man."

This argument by Rowe enticed me to go over all the scenes between Loretta and her mother in the movie, and to realize how realistic they were to normal family relationships between mothers and daughters, the support, the nagging, the daily business of living, right down to the scenes of Loretta's mom serving breakfast in the kitchen.

Rowe ends the book by reminding us that unruly women, in Natalie Davis's words "widen behavioral options for women." She ends talking about Roseanne Barr Arnold (Just Plain Roseanne)…

"Her performance in front of the camera, marked so strongly with her presence behind the camera, is a reminder of the authorship inherent in the performances of other of other women—from Mae West to Cher—who, by making unruly spectacles of themselves, have also made a difference."

Another fan blog post for Moonstruck: http://www.triloquist.net/2012/05/my-love-of-moonstruck.html

Category: Scholarship In Action (Page 8 of 15)

Strong Enough Biography: Childhood Through the 1960s

Camille Paglia on Miley Cyrus

Cher Over the Holiday Break

Cher Recipes for Food Holidays

Ben Folds, The Conjuring, Cory Monteith and Zine Show

The Great Women of 70s TV

What Should Celebrities Do with Fan Mail?

Best National Anthem Singers

Cher Hits One Million Twitter Followers

Moonstruck over Mothers

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