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Kiss-and-Tell Autobiographies

June 24, 2024 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

I was using an online bootleg of Sonny & Me; Cher Remembers to finish documenting what was in that TV special and I discovered at the end of the bootleg were some Entertainment Tonight segments from 1998 tagged on, including interviews of Cher on the set of the movie Tea with Mussolini responding to news about Mary Bono helping mount a TV movie about Sonny & Cher based on Sonny’s 1991 kiss-and-tell biography. It was around this time when Mary Bono started to come across as not-a-friend-of-Cher, this biopic news coming after Sonny’s funeral bruhaha died down.

It wasn’t the first gossip of tension there. It was rumored Cher took issue with some of the things Mary Bono had been revealing around Sonny’s late-life struggles with prescription drugs. Cher, like a regular Italian mafioso, was rumored to want to keep such news in the family.

I don’t know where to put this TV movie, to be honest, for various reasons. The origin of it, Sonny’s book, like Sonny himself was “a mixed bag” (as Cher has said recently). There were some good behind-the-music stuff in the book, but then he goes and talks about his sex life with Cher. Icky but we’ll get to that in a minute.

The movie didn’t crawl into bed with the sex storyline which was good. Although I have to admit I do have a fascination with “the Sonny & Cher Bedroom” but only up to stories about them having sex. For me, Sonny & Cher were more like my fantasy parents. And who wants to go there with their real or fantasy parents? I prefer the quaint stories of Cher reading a book all night in the master bathroom or her wanting to keep the TV on all night to sleep, bedroom stories which sounds interesting in a sort of innocent, albeit still groovy, way. The bedroom seems symbolic for Cher as the core of the house. She has for decades held court in her bedrooms over interviews and Sonny & Cher even captured their bedroom on their last album cover.

The biggest problem I have with the movie, which is the problem I have with any Sonny & Cher re-enactment, is that it is always hella-boring. And Sonny & Cher were anything but boring characters. It all just proves how completely inimitable they both are, Sonny too. Not to mention that the re-enactments keep portraying Sonny incorrectly, like a happy-go-lucky, trod-upon, luckless, aw-shucks fellow. And that is so far off-the mark when you consider the portrayal of anyone who has ever described Sonny: his family, his friends, his colleagues, his ex-wives. It’s not even an accurate on-stage read of Sonny. And you can tell this if you just pay attention. What we continue to get are just cliched readings of Sonny, dismissive shallow looks. And it is so annoying, a disservice to both Sonny and Cher.

I also don’t know where to place the movie in the Cher-o-sphere. It’s not a TV special but it is a legitimate moment of Cher history (for good or bad). It’s not a TV appearance. A network movie has been made depicting her life. So which bucket does it live in?

I do have Sonny’s book listed on by Book page. It’s Sonny’s documented point-of-view. You can’t fully dismiss it.

Cher Universe just published an MTV Rockline interview from the early 1990s which includes Cher response to Sonny’s book when it came out. Cher maintains in the interview that she did very much want to refute much of what Sonny said in his book but decided she didn’t want to kiss-and-tell. She wasn’t going to respond in kind.

To be fair, Sonny did some great things for Cher and he did some horrible things to Cher. His evaluation of their career are valuable. But his tales of their private sex life comes across as seedy and self-serving. And since we have to go there, (like walking in on your fantasy parents having sex), I feel I have to dance around what he said. And I just want to say that when you’re considering healthy sex between two people, it stands to reason that a 16-year old in a relationship with a 27-year old might be a different sexual relationship than a twenty-something TV star will have with a rock star of approximately the same age, or a forty-something rock/movie star will have with a younger man or whatever the combinations are. Different relationships have their own energy systems.

And why are we even talking about this? Because Sonny’s comments weren’t meant to be anything but tales out of school, the jackpot gossip of “What was it like to sleep with Cher?” (at best) or designed to continue to make Cher feel bad in a public space (at worst), like a punishment for a separate success that had occurred without him. In any case, not a loving or paternal move.

Cher didn’t respond in-kind and I think that says a lot about her character. After Sonny died, she became even more protective. Since then, for years she said she wouldn’t tell her story until “everybody has died.” Well, everyone has pretty much died and she still seems to be struggling with it. She still doesn’t want to throw anyone under the bus, I think she has recently said.

Telling your story is important, but it’s tricky, no doubt. What greater purpose can your stories serve? Fans are interested in details and things we might not know, how things came to be. What were the disappointments and joys we don’t know about.

On the borderlines, maybe it would be good to stick to feelings. We truly own our feelings, after all.

On a micro-level people deal with this every day: how much should I tell my friends and family? Sharing stories creates intimacy between people. But how much intimacy do you want? Whatever the case, we all own the story of our own lives.

Maybe it’s like talking to a therapist. You’ll get nowhere in self-discovery unless you try to be as fair to all parties involved as you can be. Maybe that’s a good rubric for public stories as well. A balance in all blame and kudos; humility in all stories.

I like Cher in June, How ‘Bout You?

June 22, 2024 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Cher was at the re-opening of The Abbey last night in West Hollywood. Here are some news stories:

https://variety.com/2024/scene/columns/cher-lgbtq-community-the-abbey-1236044264/

https://www.losangelesblade.com/2024/06/21/abbey-launches-new-era-with-star-studded-party/

TV Appearances

And the Cher TV page is now caught up with televised spring events.

I’ve also been working on the TV specials. I still have a cleanup to do on the variety shows, but I keep gravitating to these reviews of the specials.

I recently finished Celebration at Caesars (1982), Extravaganza: Live at the Mirage (1991) and Sonny & Me: Cher Remembers (1998),

We have four more to go. Track the progress at: https://www.cherscholar.com/tv/.

Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 2

June 22, 2024 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

So here we are with the next installment of Sonny & Cher’s advice column in 16 Magazine. I’ve stapled them together randomly and this is the second in line. And it’s a doozy.

This was so arduous a question, Sonny & Cher took up the whole column to answer it.

Let’s try to hit this awkward topic head on, the way Sonny & Cher did (or their handlers) back in the mid-60s. And there’s so much to unpack here in this list, Cher Scholar is going to respond differently than she did in Part 1. We’ll take the responses point by point.

How Do You Know When He Cares?

Dear Cher,

[CS: Notice this is addressed to Cher only but Sonny will weigh in too (unasked) at the end with some emblematic Sonnysplaining; but Sonny’s advice is actually better so… In fact, Cher’s answers feel a bit off-track to me in that they assume a lot, like they assume our young lady is on friendly ground with this fellow already and that they’re already doing things together. This makes me wonder if these were actually aspects of Cher’s relationship with Sonny, things that had really happened between Cher and Sonny. They did move from friends to lovers so her antennas were probably set to these particular relationship markers. She’s only a teenager, after all, or barely into her twenties at this point in time. And immature at that. Still solidly more girl than woman here. So can she be expected to be giving expert relationship advice? Sonny, who is 11 years older and a likely player to boot, probably has some bankable dish for us!]

“I am 14 years old and there is a boy who lives near me whom I like very, very much. [What 14 year old uses the formal whom in a question about a boy?] I think he likes me too, but I’m not sure. I see him from time to time in the neighborhood, downtown, and at sports and social gatherings. I really think he likes me. Please let me know ho I can tell whether he likes me or not.” IN LOVE, Meridian, Miss.”

Cher’s Response:

Dear In Love, Both Sonny and I read your letter with great interest. I, as a girl, made up a list of the things that I feel are dead giveaways—showing when a boy really likes a girl. When you get through reading my list—read on cos Sonny will give you the very necessary “boy’s point of view”. Here’s my list. Best of luck!:

[Oy. The colon after the exclamation point!:!]

+ He smiles or speaks to you when he’s alone, but becomes bashful when he’s with his friends.

[CS: Bashful is such a great word; This describes what appears to be a literal Grease situation. This could be a positive indicator, in a fantastical movie maybe. It could also mean he’s just being a dick. Roxanne Gay has a harrowing rape story in Bad Feminist along these same girl-confusing lines. Behavior around friends could be a big red flag. Sorry to deflate everyone’s Danny Zucko fantasies. That nightmare aside, I can totally see there being a public and private, behind-closed-doors-with-Cher Sonny. I always say don’t be quick to judge couples, because behind closed doors people are very different. And although that’s true, it’s not a great place to judge early behavior around, especially with people you really don’t know that well. Here is a photo of Cher meeting all of Sonny’s friends:]

+ At parties (or local hangouts), you occasionally catch him staring at you.

[CS: One time in high school biology class this happened to me and the guy turned out to be gay. He was just trying to deconstruct my fashion sense or lack thereof. Not failsafe is all I’m saying. And in Sonny’s case, he was probably staring at every blonde that came by. And it’s worth noting that three of the four women he married were not blondes. Men staring, I don’t know about that as a reliable rubric.]

+ He sends a Valentine or a friendship card [what’s a friendship card?] anonymously – but you know it’s from him.

[CS: Ok, I know I’m being a negative-Nellie here but this is terrible advice. If something is anonymous, by definition…you do not know who it is. Very dangerous terrain and potentially embarrassing to make assumptions. You don’t know. End stop. I’ve seen this end badly for people. Intuition is not evidence.]

+ You compliment him regarding a shirt or a sweater that he wears, and you notice that he wears it more often.

[CS: Ok, this seems reasonable.]

+ He asks if you would like to go for a ride in his car, and when he comes to pick you up you can tell that he must have spent hours polishing it.

[CS: This is a good sign no doubt–effort–but like point one above you should be careful about rides in cars. Unfortunately, the whole “go for a ride in their car thing” has changed in the modern era of both First 48 and Snapped. I’ve had a few close calls where I had to think fast on my feet (or think fast in the passenger seat). And I’m sure I have fewer stories than most people. I’ve taken a few rides I should not have. One time I found myself with the son of someone I worked with at the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy. The father was very nice. It seemed the son would be nice too. The first red flag was the car. It was a mess and had pictures of his estranged kids taped to the dashboard. Bad sign. At the time, I was going to be moving down to NYC and when he asked me out I said I didn’t want to start dating anyone. So he proposed a friendly dinner. (I know.) It turned out to be a very romantically-skewed Italian dinner in the North End of Boston. Over gnocchi, he confessed apropos of nothing that he didn’t believe in hitting women. (Whaaaa?) After dinner he didn’t want to take me home (yikes!) and I found myself in a beautiful but unplanned stop at a penthouse bar in downtown Boston where, get this, he sucked on my fingers. And because this is a Cher blog, I can tell you this should have been very funny because Gregg Allman did this to Cher on their disastrous first date. But it was just too creepy to be usefully funny. It helped immensely to have been living at the time with a brother I could make sound crazier than the date-crazy experience I was on (total fiction). And that is what, I believe, got me home that night. If the car seems weird, no matter how polished the fenders, drive separately (a very reasonable suggestion for a friendly dinner; why didn’t I think of that?) Cher was a bit of a runaway at 16 and had already gotten into cars with Warren Beatty and God knows who else? But sometimes, girl, you gotta drive yourself to those first few.]

+ He gives in and sees the movie you want to see.

[CS: What movie disagreements were Sonny and Cher having? I am dying to know. This clue assumes they are to the movie stage.]

+ He’s polite to your parents, and family – even to your little brother.

[CS: Whoa. We’re really jumping way ahead here. Meeting the parents already? I feel like Cher’s experience is very unique to Cher here. Our damsel in distress is still in the barely-a-stranger stage. It’s worth noting here that Sonny won over Cher’s mother, who was more than ready to call the cops on this adult man dating her underage daughter. In the documentary Sonny & Me, Cher also indicates she was so infatuated, her mother was worried a separation would just make the problem worse. Georgia did try it. And it did make it worse.]

+ He wears the hippie beads you gave him, though you know his buddies tease him about them.

[CS: Actually, a good clue. And Sonny did more than wear silly hippie beads. He wore fur fests.]

+ He’s there when you need him – not just when there are parties and fun.

[CS: Also a very good indicator for more serious relationship material, but premature at this point for our 16-Magazine-letter-writing heroine.]

Sonny’s Response:

It’s me—Sonny. Cher has just given you the clues a girl picks up on when she begins to realize that the guy she digs—digs her! But being a guy, I know a few things Cher doesn’t know, so I’ll pass these “secrets” on to you. Stay alert!:

[CS: Alright! The secrets to the castle. Here we go!]

+ He often drives his bike or car by your house. (He may not speak to you, but it’s his way of making sure that you notice him.)

[CS: Ok this is another borderline situation, like the ride in the car above. Times have changed. This could flip over into stalker-strategy maneuvers. Firefighting Academy Son did drive-bys. And stop and ring-the-door-bys.]

+ He starts combing his hair more often and dressing neater.

[CS: Ok this seems reasonable but boys are better dressers these days in general so…not always the giveaway it sounds like it should be. Alexander, for example, was interested enough in fashion to be at Paris Fashion Week where he met Cher.]

+ He names something after you—like his dog, motorbike, etc.

[CS: Do boys do this??]

+ He takes on an afternoon job to have more money to take you out.

[CS: Again, this sounds reasonable but who but his friends would even know? Our girl only sporadically sees this guy out and about. In Sonny’s case, the extra job he took on was the nightclub circuit after promising Cher he’d get them back on top within three years after losing all their money while making a bad independent movie. This is Sonny’s extra job moment, but he made Cher work on it too. I guess it’s the thought that counts.]

+ He calls you earlier or sooner than he said he would—

[CS: Interesting idea, but if we could be much looser with this measurement: he’s not really, really late.]

+ and when he speaks to you on the phone, his voice is softer and deeper than usual.

[CS: Sonny! Good tip there! Now we’re getting somewhere….assuming she even gets to the phone stage. Here’s another example from Grease. Pretty much every item in this column we could tie back to Grease.]

+ He remembers your birthday and other special occasions.

[Yes, usually a sign.]

+ He somehow manages to offer to let you wear his class ring.

[CS: Ok, totally dated…even for Sonny. What other proto-hippies even had class rings? See hippy-beads above. Oh wait, this is 16 Magazine…but still…yeah, no. Now if he gets a ring with your name on it and gives you a ring with his name on it…]

+ He begins to spend more time with you than with his best friends.

{CS: Definitely good news, this clue, and also, sadly a sign the relationships is on the decline when it goes the other direction.]

Cher Scholar Adds:

So there were some good things up there. Not all bad, dated suggestions. But what can we add that isn’t on this list above? We’ve had 50 more years to reflect on this issue. In the early 1980s, teens would circle each other at the mall like groups of panthers in baggy neon. It was weird, too. Or alternatively, we had a new version of 1950s cruising, but only around shopping malls.

In college and the later workplace, the deal was finding excuses to work together on projects or figuring out how to set up meetings with each other. Alcohol also seemed to assist in getting those clues out in the open.

Our modern-day Internet has given us some interesting additional avenues:

They “like” or respond to a larger amount of your social media posts (that’s how we convinced a friend of ours she had a gentlemen suitor a few years ago when we pointed out he would like every single thing she ever posted.)
They find excuses to send you friendly emails or texts.

It’s been my experience that even the bashful have their own tricks, like they’re always hanging around or they’ll try to Cyrano-de-Bergerac-it with the help of a friend.

I had a friend of my friend’s brother once try the whole hang-out-with-us and then argue with everything I said strategy. It’s a strategy I guess. I mean people don’t have to agree about everything, but spread the debates out over a whole relationship, guy. No need to cover all the issues before the first date. Because I had to wonder if he thought everything about me was a hot mess (and I would never argue that point), then why are you hanging around? (The answer which I didn’t know at the time was: it’s complicated.)

This is probably the best sign or the second best sign (aside from telling someone straight out to their face, which is Neil Diamond’s recommend): their willingness to exist in discomforting conversations. A willingness to be candidly vulnerable. Even if they do not “dig” you as girlfriend or boyfriend material, this shows they appreciate you as a deep connection.

You will notice nobody (including me) said to just ask the other person. That’s because we’re all the too fucking afraid to do that. Nobody even suggests it. Isn’t that incredible?

This advice above is also missing its other shoe, so to speak: what should this lovely girl do if over a reasonable amount of time nothing on this list has materialized. We need to let our young inquisitive lover know what to do in case the answer is negatory. As I said to Hotpants last week, don’t escalate the pressure if the other person doesn’t “dig” you. People like who they like and it often defies reason or explanation. As it should.

Love should be more powerful than culture itself, bigger than the riff-raff of advice columns.

It’s also important to note that people often find themselves the object of unwanted attention. One of my brothers was a crush-magnet growing up so I witnessed a good example of this. I also have a local relative who is exceedingly handsome but also painfully shy and actually grew the Oakridge-Boy-beard like the formerly handsome Oakridge Boy did for allegedly similar reasons.

This is all to say sometimes it’s a act of love to back off and leave them alone. It’s messy out there in Loveland and sometimes you have to take one for the team. Talk to Hotpants from last week and he’ll tell you.

Technology’s Manipulation of Cher’s Voice

June 15, 2024 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

During my nightshift last week I relistened to the song “Dream Baby” (written by Sonny Bono) as I was going backwards through Cher’s catalog one night. This is Cher’s official second recording after “Ringo, I Love You” (written by Phil Spector, Paul Case, Vini Poncia and Peter Andreoli), this one initially released as Cherilyn before appearing on Cher’s first solo album, All I Really Want to Do. Both singles were released in 1964.

Spectorphilia aside, this is clearly a better song.

But I could hear what sounded like Wall-of-Sound production on the track and remembered reading how Sonny’s early records with Cher relied on the production formulas he learned while working for Phil Spector. So I went to speak to Cher scholar Robrt Pela to ask him exactly what was going on here. We had been talking about something else…and so I said,

“Unrelated, I was just going to email you. What are the vocal tricks that are used on Cher’s voice in Dream Baby? Is it just wall of sound? Cher sang the part over and over and they layered it? Or she just sang it once and they layered it? What’s happening there? I just want to make the case that studio/technology manipulations were being used on Cher’s voice from day one so calm down about autotune, grumpy people.”

I had an agenda see? And this is the awesomeness I got in return:

“I love that you’re making this point about Cher!

‘Dream Baby’ uses a wall-of-sound trick called ‘double tracking;’ The same vocal is used twice, on separate tracks, to make it sound ‘doubled..’

It’s a studio trick used a lot by the Bahler brothers, especially when they were recording backgrounds for Partridge Family records; they would double or triple track their backgrounds because they were approximating a sound made by five or six singers (David Cassidy plus the other five members of the PF).

The best way to tell the difference between double-tracking and the kind of close harmony that produces a similar effect (which you mentioned in your question about ‘Dream Baby’) is to listen to the vocals in a headset; you can tell if a singer is ‘following’ herself by recording a second vocal that mimics the first by whether there are different vocal inflections or she’s singing in a different key (usually a half-step down from the original).

Stan Ross does a fun wall-of-sound trick at the top of ‘Dream Baby’ where he ‘wah-wahs’ Cher’s vocal by moving it quickly back and forth between the left and right channels. Why he doesn’t do this again in this song is beyond me, but it’s a keen kickoff to this record.

It’s interesting to listen to the four primary versions of this song: the original mono mix; the original stereo mix; the 1999 remaster and the later 2005 remaster. I like the original stereo version best.”

Watch Cher lip synch the song on Shivaree badly in 1965.

Cher Space and Time

June 15, 2024 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

While I was working nightshift last week, to stay awake I made a list of scenes, movements and styles Cher has been involved with over the decades. This is kind of a piggy-back to the music legitimacy article I did last week and thinking about prior categories I might have missed. But also thinking beyond music. Here it is:

– Part of the mid-1960s Southern California Pop scene with the Mamas and the Papas, the Byrds, the Beach Boys, the Turtles and the Association

– A member of Phil Spector’s Gold Star Studios circle

– Records made with The Wrecking Crew

– One of the first records made at Muscle Shoals Recording Studio

– A top participant in the Golden Age of Variety Television

– Worked with comedy-television icon, producer George Schlatter and his slate of shows

– First Met Gala fashion Icon

– A Vogue cover girl in the Richard Avedon era

– The Crown Jewel of Bob Mackie

– A hot ticket in Old Las Vegas in the late 1970s (the Sinatra/Barely-Post-Elvis Vegas)

– Part of the Studio 54 scene

– A late-allowed MTV participant but made MTV history with a pretty tame video that was banned from daytime MTV (while in her 40s!)

– Acted under the iconic auteur directors of the 1960s and 1970s: Robert Altman, Mike Nichols, Peter Bogdanovich, Peter Yates, Norman Jewison and Franco Zeffirelli

– Infomercial Queen
Can I just say I still love the infomercials and I may be the only one. In a recent bio-drama, I heard the statement made that Cher had fought so hard for acting respectability and then blew it with these. But did she fight so hard for respectability? I thought that was what the whole thumbing her nose at the Academy with the 1986 dress was about. Why wouldn’t she thumb her nose at them again with infomercials? Unless you only thumb your nose as an outsider? I am totally fine with Cher going off-script with these postmodern delights.

– Auto-tune ground zero (while in her 50s!)

– Spearheading the big circus live show before subsequent fierce divas followed suit (while in her 50s and 60s!)

– Newly sainted and recurring Icon Award recipient (while in her 70s!)

In the bio-drama mentioned above Josiah Howard can be seen talking about how long Cher has been famous and how she has become part of everybody’s cultural memory because, “we remember it all.” She has become time itself.

Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 1

June 15, 2024 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Recently I was sorting through some recipes and I found a copy of the 1960s column Dear Sonny, Dear Cher from 16 Magazine on the back of one of my photocopied recipes for calabacitas tacos. Totally weird but it has inspired me to resurrect “Dear Cher Scholar,” which was a snarky column I used to write for the Cher Zines. (Examples: Zine 1, Zine 2, I don’t have Zine 3 uploaded yet.)

In that Zine feature I had friends and family ask me questions. I would also solicit questions from the Cher news boards of the time. Then, I would answer the questions in the sassy character of Cher Scholar (yes, it was a character back then).

Sonny & Cher really did brand themselves to this 16 Magazine advice column back in the mid-1960s. A good sample can be found on this very informative Sonny & Cher site along with the covers they came with. You can totally tell these responses were not written by Sonny and Cher. Possibly a magazine staff writer composed them or someone in the entourage of Sonny & Cher.

Re-reading them now I can see they are not-terrible responses at all, (a bit canned, tbh). But Cher Scholar feels they are all in need of an update or possibly a happy dose of hindsight. Over time, I’ll try to address as many as I can find, printing both responses, Sonny or Cher’s official response and Cher Scholars revamp.

DO YOU HAVE some personal questions that are crying for an answer? Do you need heartfelt advice from someone who knows and cares? Do you feel that there is no one that you can turn to or trust? If you answer yes to all of these questions, please don’t despair—because Sonny and I are really here and we really are going to help you. Each month, we carefully read your mail and pick out a cross-section of the most important questions that you ask. If your answer is not here in this issue, keep looking—because sooner or later we will get around to you and your problem.

Dear Cher, I have a problem. I am very tall and my boy friend is quite short. When we go to dance together, I think we look funny. My boy friend doesn’t seem to mind at all, but it embarrasses me to the point of tears. Should I find a taller boy friend or give up dancing? Long Tall Sally, Oceanside, Calif.

Cher’s Alleged Response:

Long Tall Sally, It seems to me that your boy friend has done a marvelous job of conquering his self-consciousness about being short. Why not take your cue from him and follow his example. At dances, the couples on the floor pay much more attention to each other than to other couples. I’m sure you are spending the most time worrying about the way you look. Why not forget about how you look and enjoy these dances!

Cher Scholar’s Response:

First of all, that totally doesn’t sound like Cher. So this is a ghost writing fail. But I don’t think it’s a terrible response. I just think it can be worded much more strongly, as such:

LTS, Your boy friend is right. You are wrong. You are acting like a shallow idiot if you believe taller people are better dance partners for you. And if you don’t understand attributes that are really important in intimate relationships between two people (and dance partners), then maybe it is time for Short Guy to leave you on this dance floor and proceed to find another Tall Babe! (Please show him this letter.) Look, you’re talking to Sonny & Cher here. Ixnay on the ortshay ingthay. 1970s-variety-show jokes aside, these things never bothered them or Cher even when she dated Tom Cruise.

Dear Cher, I think you have the most beautiful hair in the world. I ‘d give anything if my hair looked as lovely as yours. I’ve got a real “fright wig.” My hair is dry and bushy, and it looks terrible after every shampoo. Can you give me any suggestions on how I can make it more manageable? Miserable, Atlanta, Ga.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Miserable, I’ve found that a good brushing (with your head down) with a natural bristle (not nylon) every morning and night helps to solve dry hair problems. Try an olive oil or a baby oil massage once a week and then wrap your hair in a towel dipped in very hot water and wrung out. Wash out the oil with a mild shampoo and use a crème rinse afterwards. Try spraying your hair lightly with a lanolin hair spray. Stay away from pronged hair clips and never go swimming without wearing a tight bathing cap. I think it would really serve you well to order 16’s Beauty and Popularity Book. It covers most hair problems in depth. Thank you for the lovely compliment on my hair. Good luck.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

A book plug? Shameless! But I went looking for it anyway on eBay and all I found was The Beauty and the Beast Coloring Book. Surely, I thought, the “popularity guide” is a passé relic of the 1960s. But alas, they’re still publishing them. Criminal.

M, First of all, move. Like to a state without 100% humidity. Second, do not go looking for the Beauty and Popularity Book. That seems like the beginning in decades of self-help heartbreak. There is some latter-day thinking on dry hair (vitamins A and C, biotin, protein supplements, omega-3s and antioxidants, hats, stop shampooing your hair every day, avoid heat styling, colder showers, argan oil and yes, they’re still recommending swimming caps and olive oil). But let’s face it, you will never have Cher-hair because only Cher has Cher-hair. And she will keep changing her hairstyle anyway. In the 1970s, she will even wear frizzy wigs. When the 1980s arrive, she will have big curly wigs and frizzy hair will be fashionable all the sudden. And you won’t have to get a perm like the rest of us did. Wait it out, frizzy. You’re welcome.

Dear Sonny, Could you help me? I like a girl very much, but she tells everyone she likes me as just a “close friend” and no more. I don’t want to be “just a friend.! Can you tell me what to do to make her like me more than a friend? Mike, Centerreach, N.Y.

Sonny’s Response:

Dear Mike, Stick to being “just a friend” for the time being and don’t complain about it. Think how much tougher it would be to win this girl if she didn’t like you at all. Just because your present relationship isn’t all you want it to be doesn’t mean that it won’t change in time. Friendship is just a step away from becoming “more than friends.” Don’t lose your footing—you’ve got one foot in the door.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Again, that isn’t terrible advice. I would just rephrase it for 2024.

Dear Hotpants, Love is a mystery to everybody. If any single love-guru in this love-forsaken universe actually knew the trick to this particular problem, that person would be a zillionaire by now and we’d all still be in a pickle because everyone would be trying it out on everyone else. It would still be a mess because it’s always going to be a mess. But let me say this, a wise man once said that basically the likely wouldn’t even exist without the unlikely happening from time to time. So nothing is ever 100% hopeless. Decide what kind of friend you can be to this person you care about. Friends often turn into lovers as all of us morph over the years into different versions of ourselves. You might be concerned this sounds like a waste of time because you absolutely cannot settle for less than becoming “the one.” But that alone tells you how deep your feelings run for this person if the idea of being their best friend is not an option you’d even want to pursue. It’s also worth remembering here that Cher was infatuated with Sonny in the beginning when he was adamantly only wanting to be friends. So if you want to take a page from the Cher-book, move in with this person on an offer to be chaste and clean their house for them but then be terrible at both of those things and finally maybe they will sleep with you. Here is a study in Cher kissing and pre-kissing people she loves and people she’s only friends with. To help you tell the difference.

: Sonny kissing

: Sonny kissing

: Awww….

: Richard Avedon posed kissing

: Sonny post-divorce kissing

: Gregg kissing

: Rona horning in

: Awww…

: Kissing Cage

: Aww….

: Kissing Steven Tyler just as friends

: Friend kissing Meryl Streep

: More friend kissing

: Kissing Alexander

Dear Sonny, I’m a high school girl who never goes on dates. I’ve been told that I have a good personality, but I’m not very attractive. My problem is that my “good personality” isn’t even real. I act funny and make people laugh, but I don’t really feel like it. It’s all an act. I ‘m afraid to let anyone see the real me, because I don’t feel very interesting at all. Can you tell me a different way to act that might make a boy ask me out on a date once in a while.” Lonely, Minneapolis, Minn. (CS: There is no standardization on these state abbreviations! Is it me?)

Sonny’s Response:

Dear Lonely, Try to forget about acting and settle on being real. Even if you did find a way to act that made the boys interested in you – you would always know that it wasn’t real. No matter how many people you fooled, you’d never fool yourself. It’s a strange thing, but almost everyone can recognize and appreciate the truth when they see it. Be true to yourself—and you’ll never be false to others. You might just find that the real you is really happy—cos happiness and truth walk hand-in-hand.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Since when do truth and happiness walk hand in hand, Sonny? Let me take this.

Dear Typical High School Person, You are not alone. This is mostly the teen human condition. If there is one thing I’ve noticed looking back at people I went to high school with, the popular people did not seem to evolve beyond their high school selves. I don’t know why this is, but the people who had the hardest time in high school, (assuming they survived it; we can’t forget that), turned out to be the most fascinating people as adults. I personally believe this is because the skills that help you fit in when you’re young and don’t know any better suddenly seem milk-toast to the adult world. In other words, what makes you different and excluded in high school will be a valuable skill in adult-landia. Things change. The whole mise-en-scène changes. You get by in high school the best you can. If your gift is funny, don’t discount-rate that gift. You can’t buy funny like you can a makeover. Trust me on this one. High school is four long, seemingly endless years. The rest of your life is so long you won’t even believe it. Cher never felt attractive. Sonny told her she wasn’t attractive. She has always struggled to see herself as beautiful. Isn’t that unbelievable? So, you might not be the best judge of your own beauty at the end of the day. I see it all the time. Not to make this into the ugly-duckling story though because that somehow is too hyper-focused on looks. Adulthood will show you that happiness is attractive. Living outwardly is attractive. Living generously is attractive. This is loveliness you can achieve. Plus, like I told Hotpants up there, life is mysterious. Magic and miracles. Stay tuned and show up.

Rock and Roll Royalties and Royalty

June 1, 2024 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Rock and Roll Royalties

Cher has won her battle over Sonny & Cher song royalties with Sonny’s widow, Mary Bono. The court ruled that the “terminations rights” section of the Copyright Act does not trump a divorce agreement, which gave Cher 50% of the royalties on Sonny &Cher songs. Mary Bono and her family of heirs still maintain the other 50% of Sonny’s royalties.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the “isn’t Cher rich enough” thing. I think here is where it is important to remember that of all the wealth Sonny & Cher accumulated from 1964-1975, Cher received nothing. In fact, the contracts were written so much in Sonny’s favor that, at the divorce, Cher was forced to pay Sonny millions in “lost future earnings” due to their act breaking up. So for all Cher’s work for ten years, she walked away with their house and primary custody of Chastity, which she ended up sharing with Sonny anyway because, as she said at the time, she wasn’t about to take Chastity’s father away from her.

And although Cher didn’t write the songs, her participation in them made them hits and this divorce settlement can be seen as a reparation of that great abuse of contracts a man made against his own wife.

Rock and Roll Royalty

Paul Grein has written a great article called “12 Reasons Cher Belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame” which was published last December during the Christmas album bruhaha and I completely missed it. To be honest, I got kind of tired of these rock-and-roll hall of fame crusades. And since this article was written, (maybe because this was written), Cher was finally included to the 2024 induction list.

And really this isn’t about a hall of fame. This is about Cher’s legitimacy and credibility in music. That’s what I’ve always been blathering on about. Cher fans are always concerned about her credibility in ways other fans of other artists (working in more respected genres) are not. So I really appreciate this article and I would like to talk about its points because they are the very markers of coolness and legitimacy in rock music.

Grein already points out that the HoF itself has broadened into many sub-genres, like R&B, rap, country. “If ABBA, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston and Dolly Parton are in, what’s the rationale for leaving Cher out?” And here I’d like us to keep focus on the “keeping out” from the idea of legitimacy and credibility every time Grein mentions the HoF, because that is just what a hall of fame sanctions, a pre-existing status of credibility and legitimacy.

Grein pretty much follows the trail of rock legitimacy I’ve been tracking over the last umpteen years. What makes a person worthy of respect in music: is it record sales, is it concert tickets, is it loyal fans (or should we say the more male-coded aficionados?), is it years aboard the show biz, is it good critical reviews, is it influence, is it innovation, is it a stance or posture, did she help define an era or genre?

And…

Yes, She Helped Define an Era or Genre

Sonny & Cher helped define the mid-60s folk-rock and pop-rock era. Grein notes that Sonny wrote three “fine songs” with “I Got You Babe,” “Baby Don’t Go” and “The Beat Goes On.” I would add “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)” to that list and call them strong songs of that era. Grein concedes that S&C were more pop-sounding than The Byrds (or the Mamas and the Papas, I would add), but that “their sound and look” helped define that era.

I would add that any thought of the summer of 1965 necessarily includes Cher singing “I Got You Babe.”

As a subset of this, Cher “was one of the first artists to have a big hit with a Bob Dylan song.” Her version (at #15) trounced the Byrds version at #40). Cher’s hit Bob Dylan song even preceded Dylan’s own first hit by a week (“Like a Rolling Stone”).

Yes, She Defines Rock and Roll Attitude

Grein says Cher has proven to be a risk taker. She gave up a lucrative Vegas career to become an actress. He says the HoF’s focus seems to be a youthful “rule-breaking attitude and spirit.” Grein says Cher telling the HoF to go fuck themselves on National TV was “a pretty rock and roll thing to do.” Grein also notes that, like Willie Nelson, “Cher exhibited an IDGAF attitude long before anyone had coined that acronym.”

Grein calls Cher’s Oscar dress of 1986 “one of the greatest sight-gags in Oscar history.” It was also a f*ck-you to the Academy for their snobbery around her performance outfits, boyfriends and prior status as a music and television star.

Cher: not afraid to say F*ck You.

Yes, She Has Many Hit Records Spanning a Record-Breaking Period of Time

All while multi-talking. “One month before she won the Oscar,” Grein says, “she had a top 10 hit with the rock ballad ‘ Found Someone.’ The very week she won the Oscar, she entered the Hot 100 with the follow-up hit, ‘We All Sleep Alone,’ co-written by Rock Hall members Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora.”

Her albums, Grein says, span53 years from Sonny & Cher’s Look at Us in 1965 to her Christmas album of 2023. Her No. 1 singles on Billboard Hot 100 span 34 years from “I Got You Babe” in 1965 to “Believe” in 1999. Grein also points out that her Grammy for “Believe” spanned 34 years after Sonny & Cher were nominated for best new artist.

Yes, She Has Killed It In Concert Tours

“Cher was among the first female artist to undertake a massively successful solo tour.” She has headlined “seven major concert tours” including her farewell tour which “was one of the top 10 highest-grossing tours of that decade….For the first half of the decade, it was second only to The Rolling Stones’ Licks Tour in total grosses.” At that time it was “the most successful tour ever undertaken by a female headliner. The 236-date tour finally ended in 2005 after having played to more than 3.5 million fans and earning more than $250 million.”

The TV special of that tour earned Cher a Primetime Emmy, joining “an impressive array of women who have won in that category for one-woman concert specials” including Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand and Adele.

Yes, She Has Had and Impactful Influence

Grein also talks about the artists Cher either paved the way for or artists who cite her as an influence: Madonna (the aesthetics of shock), Miley Cyrus, Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Gwen Stefani, Taylor Swift (there’s a Cher quote on the wall that begins the great song, “You Need to Calm Down.“), Cyndi Lauper, Little Big Town, Adam Lambert, P!nk. Tracy Chapman and Chrissie Hynde (who re-recorded “I Got You Babe”) have cited Cher in interviews as well.

Grein quotes Shon Faye to say, “If Madonna and Lady Gaga and Kylie [Minogue] and Cyndi Lauper were playing football, Cher would be the stadium they played on, and the sun that shone down on them.”

Yes, Cher Has Had the Harshest, Meanest Critics but Some Great Critics, Too

As I wrote in 2020, Cher escaped bad reviews from famously harsh reviewers Lester Bangs and John Mendelsohn (who some claimed would have given God a bad review).

Lester Bangs reviewing All I Ever Need Is You in 1972:

John & Yoko. Grace & Paul. Paul & Linda. Sonny & Cher had the formula down years before any of those melodious romances hit the stage and were a hell of a lot more appealing too., although that may not be particularly significant—the same thing could be said for Louis Prima and Keely Smith. And let us not forget Paul and Paula. The reason that Sonny & Cher are so much nicer to think about than the aforementioned crew of dilettantes, barterers and their wives is that Sonny & Cher don’t put on the same kind of airs. How you feel about them at this point pretty much depends on how you feel about showbiz in general. If you think that Johnny Carson is a honk and the Copa just a hangout for alcoholics, if you cannot abide the sigh of black ties and/or tiaras between you and your artist-heroes, then you probably don’t like Sonny & Cher; I have seen reviews of their recent albums by earnest 17-year old rock critics lambasting the devoted duo entirely in terms of “us” versus “them.” And at the recent MCA convention in Burbank, when Sonny & Cher played a long, slick supperclub set climaxing with their eight-minute histrionic orgy on “Hey Jude,” I observed people all around me set their faces in that grimace they never pulled out for bluejeaned mediocrities. And those that thought themselves too hip for this schmaltz would make remarks later about the “tastelessness” of it. Why? Because Cher tells Sonny she’s not gonna ball him after the show, and drops innuendos about the size of his dong? Well, I’ll settle for Sonny & Cher being just blue enough for them poor old farts and fraus in the belly of the beast, because I like slick supperclub music, I like glittery Las Vegas-style entertainment without one iota of artistic aspiration. I’ll even put on a tie. Maybe I’m just getting old but I would rather see Sonny & Cher with a bourbon and water in front of me anytime than squat sweating in another concert hall while another rock group runs through amplified oatmeal highlights from the last big album it took them eight months of overdubs to produce.

John Mendelsohn reviewing Sonny & Cher Live in 1972:

Granted that they’ve gone through some heavy changes since they practically single-handedly insinuated folk-rock into the American musical consciousness,

….what Sonny & Cher’s detractors always fail to mention is that the couple have matured into such sensitive interpreters that they can transform even the most over familiar material into searingly soulful expressions, as witness Cher’s fiery treatment of “Danny Boy.” Truly Cher has developed into one of our most inspiring ladies of song, capable of evoking emotions that not even a Nancy Sinatra or Marcia Strassman can deal with without some evidence of strain..

Grein lists some other great Cher reviews I had never seen before. like Rob Sheffield from Rolling Stone in 2019:

…there are no other careers remotely like hers, [particularly] in the history of pop music” and he referred to Cher as “the one-woman embodiment of the whole gaudy story of pop music.”

James Reed from The Boston Globe in 2014:

Along with David Bowie, she is one of the original chameleons in pop music, constantly in flux and challenging our perceptions of her.”

Joe Lynch in Billboard from 2017:

It seems odd to say anyone as famous as Cher is under-appreciated: the woman has five No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, an Oscar for best actress and has remained a household name for half a century. even so, Cher’s impact as a musical force is unfairly disregarded or minimized…Years before David Bowie toyed with gender-bending, Cher brought her deep contralto voice to the top of the Billboard Hot 100…

James Dunn in Rolling Stone in 1996:

Cher is the coolest woman who ever stood in shoes. Why? Because her motto is, ‘I don’t give a shit what you think, I’m going to wear this multicolored wig.”

Alec Mapa in The Advocate from 2003:

Cher embodies an unapologetic freedom and fearlessness that some of us can only aspire to.

It just occurred to me all of the above are men. Some of the womens in rock criticism need to say something methinks. Besides me.

As Grein points out, right now the HoF is 25% women. If there are only 25% of women in rock music right now, that would be a fair amount. How many women are there in rock music since the dawn of rock and roll? Someone else please do the math.

Yes, She Is An Innovator

Like or despise auto-tune, it had a huge impact on Rap music. She also innovated many rock and roll “looks” including popularizing bell bottoms, long straight hair (she had girls using irons on their hair!) and inspiring the term “Giving Cher” for innovating the biggest kind of iconic attitude.

In fact, in fashion Cher is both an influencer and an innovator. With Bob Mackie, she invented the scene-stealing red-carpet look. Grein says that her Met Gala dress from 1974 is still being imitated “40 years later.”

And Bonus Yes, She Loyally Supports the Cause

Grein also says she “brought a rock sensibility to prime-time” television all through the 1970s variety series solos numbers and guest spots. This, he feels, (as does Cher scholar Robrt Pela), was Cher’s “biggest hurdle to being taken seriously…the smash success” of those shows. The shows “gave airtime to a lot of rock artists.” He mentions this includes Linda Ronstadt, Ike & Tina Turner, David Bowie (in his U.S. television debut), The Jackson 5 and Patti Labelle (among many others: The Spinners, The Supremes, Fanny, early Rick Springfield and Elton John). The shows also showcased original rock and roll artists in tribute shows, including Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis,

And most of all, Cher has been loyal to Sonny, (even after he tricked her out of a decade of earnings). Years of fake-snipping aside, years of mutual-real-snipping aside. Cher time and time again has given Sonny his due (as well as fair criticism, most recently calling him truthfully, “a mixed bag.”) She has tried to support their legacy together, despite the lack of respect he continues to receive (disrespect even), and there is not a thing more rock and roll than that.

Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion

May 26, 2024 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

I was very fortunate to be able able to attend the premiere showing of the documentary Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion in Los Angeles on May 13 with my friends Julie and Dave. When Julie sent me the email about the lineup of the after-movie discussion panel, I thought this is my dream panel! It’s got Cher, to begin with, and Bob Mackie and Carol Burnett (who, if I had a life to live over again…I would try to be a Carol Burnett) and Ru Paul (who is one of my previously claimed spirit animals!). Pink! was not advertised to attend (see below) but showed up as a nice surprise.

Here are some news reports on the red carpet of the event:

…and some press shots of the red carpet. Cher arrived in the “We All Sleep Alone” outfit from the 1999 Believe Tour (without the pirate hat and with a new cool sash belt). She didn’t keep this outfit on for the Q&A. This was just the red-carpet-fit.

The movie began with director Matthew Miele talking about Bob Mackie’s optimism, his spectacle and glamour and how all the real stars wore Back Mackie. I don’t remember who said it but someone added that the biggest stars wore Mackie because he “made them look like the superstars they were.”

The movie made the differentiation between other fashion houses and what Bob Mackie does, which is performance clothing. Mackie does not design for the spring line, haute couture or everyday wear. He builds a character for performers and outfits. He “picks up on somebody’s essence” in order to help them “project who they are in [performing] moments.” He does it for live shows; he did it when creating costumes for skits on variety shows, solo numbers or for characters in musicals and movies.

Law Roach commented that “every superhero has a costume” and many of the contributors talked about the psychology of the outfit and the confidence that arises when you wear certain clothes.

Carol Burnett first came to Bob Mackie through admiration of the Mitzi Gaynor, “Let’s Go” outfit. Gaynor herself talked about that outfit’s “brilliant construction.” How it moved.

Miele said something interesting that I feel matches my own experience, that your taste for beauty is formed in your childhood and early adolescence. He said his love of visual beauty came from variety shows like Cher’s shows. RuPaul quips, “Let’s face it…Cher!” He called her a gorgeous creature. The documentary talked about Mackie and Cher being family at this point and how they “are both shy but express themselves as larger than life.”

Mackie himself noted Cher’s charisma, how he was fascinated with her from the beginning and how she inhabits clothes like jeans, with a casual flair. Cher said Macke could create “what my personality feels like.”

Vicky Lawrence noted that during Cher’s big number, all the Carol Burnett show cast would run over through the ladies bathroom at CBS (the big studio doors were closed) to see what Cher was wearing. Cher said her life changed when Bob came into it. They pushed each other.

You can see how this confidence-through-clothing might have changed Cher in the early 1970s, along with the storylines of empowered women in the writing of the variety show skits, how those two things could be of-a-piece.

They talked about Cher’s 58^th Academy Awards gown. Mackie noted that Cher was playing “down and dirty characters” at that time and “people hadn’t seen her dress up in a while.” They talked about how that outfit was assembled between the two of them, Mackie and Cher. Mackie admits people were horrified [by the outfit], “That’s not fashion!” But Cher insists “He makes art. Costuming is art.”

Mackie was often called, a bit disparagingly the “King of Camp” for his “ta da,” his humor and razzle dazzle. Bernadette Peters notes that many haute couture designers have been forced to admit, “we’ve been stealing from you for years.” The head of CFDA (Council of Fashion Designers of America) also admitted, “fashion is snobby” and Mackie was seen as “a showman,” as not having the appropriate level of taste. Reviews have changed, however, because “Time tells the truth.”

The movie covers Mackie’s inspirations, his early work with Judy Garland, his connection to the Marilyn Monroe birthday dress, his love of “costumes that appeal to you emotionally.” While the progresses, we see how Cher’s blue ABBA dress was drawn and assembled at the helm of an Armenian woman named Elizabeth (who’s last name I did not catch). Elizabeth gets a lot of screen time and Mackie calls her his hero. She says, “He’s the only one.” She doesn’t intend to offend all her other designers she works with “but they know,” she says. She means Mackie does it old-school, hand-beaded and sewn, no factories. His is detail oriented and precise. The director prompts Elizabeth to say all the women behind the beautiful outfits…” and she answers, “are Armenian.” (This includes the women who sew the dresses and, of course, the woman who wears them so famously.

By the way, seeing the Cher and Tina duets on the big screen was fabulous. It was fabulous! Seeing the documentary in a theater is worth it for that alone.

George Schlatter says these women were not just singers, actors and dancers. “These women are events. Cher, Judy, Carol.”

Mackie, Burnett figured, made 17,000 costumes for The Carol Burnett Show over 11 years, an average of 65 per week. She remarked about how versatile he was, how he helped shaped the characters and comedy, the best example being the Gone with the Wind skit’s big moment.

Here and in other recent interviews, Burnett has been talking about the Miss Wiggins outfit. Here is another example of Mackie’s genius. Burnett says Tim Conway originally designed the character of Miss Wiggins as a dotty old lady. Mackie insisted the show had been doing too many of those old ladies lately and he designed a ditzy blonde secretary outfit instead. Burnett complained that her butt wasn’t big enough to fill out the skirt and Mackie instructed her to stick her butt back into the skirt. Burnett says the character came to her at that moment when she had to learn to walk with her butt projecting back into the skirt.

To me this is brilliant because the design was basically broken. Mackie designed an outfit that didn’t fit, all to create a character. It’s amazing and it reminds me of the fruits of failure, how many amazing things can happen when wrong turns are taken. Seeking perfection sometimes is misguided.

They movie ends with a discussion of Cher’s infamous “Turn Back Time” video outfit, alternatively called “vulgar” (by Mackie), and disparagingly called a duct-tape outfit and basically a seat belt.

I’ve read a few books about Mackie, including Unmistakable Mackie: The Fashion and the Fantasy of Bob Mackie by Frank DeCarlo and The Art of Bob Mackie by Frank Vlastnik and Laura Ross, (which Burnett and Cher both contributed forwards and afterwards to). But this documentary, five years in the making, digs deeper into Mackie’s childhood, his relationship with his parents, his relationship with his ex-wife, his coming out and the tragic loss of his son. We also meet his grandchildren. This is a much more personal account of his life.

There’s no trailer out yet but here’s an extended clip of part of Cher’s interview from the movie.

After the movie, it was time for the Q&A. A big one it would be, too. Cher was very charming when she came out and seemed very happy to be there.

The lineup included, starting from the left, Joe McFate, Mackie’s longtime Director of Design, Ru Paul, Carol Burnett, Bob Mackie, Cher Pink! and the director, Matthew Miele. The moderator to the far right is Dave Karger.

Cher talked about “trying to build a character like Edith Bunker” using Lucille Ball hair and a leopard leotard. This turned out to the Laverne character. She said Mackie “helped you make your character complete.”

RuPaul talked about Mackie’s “hutzpah” and that he is the “benchmark in splash.” Pink! said if she was wearing Bob Mackie, “I’m gonna win!”

Asked what the common denominator of all the women on the panel, Mackie said they were all open to looking terrible and that they were comfortable in his clothes. They could “pull it off.” Mackie called Carol Burnett “the quickest changer I’ve ever met.”

Cher referenced the First Nine Months Are The Hardest special as her first time meeting Mackie but he corrected her to say that it was the Sonny & Cher appearance on the Carol Burnett show. Probably this 1967 one. Cher defended herself by joking, “Well, in my world where I live…”

Mackie said at the time he was expecting a “hulking goth girl” from what he saw of Cher on music TV shows like Hullabaloo. Cher appeared instead to him “like Audrey Hepburn on vacation. This is gonna be better than I thought.”

Miele emphasizes that Bob Mackie draws all the patterns. There’s no factory and that what he does is a dying art.

Cher talks about how grateful she is to be living her childhood dream like what Bob Mackie describes in the documentary and that at five years of age she was singing into a hairbrush. [How high tech. I was singing into a jump rope.]

Pink! talked about the wear and tear performance outfits take and how they need to accommodate the wireless mic packs that are very hard to hide, how at the end of shows she’s out there picking up beads from the stage.

Carol Burnett, Cher and Bob Mackie seemed genuinely mutual fans of each other. Ru Paul was pretty low key, not talking much. Pink! seemed thrilled to be there.

There is no word yet on release date. It looks like no distribution deal has been reached yet.

Compilation of some Cher moments.

Cher Scholar Catches Up

April 28, 2024 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

I’m woefully behind. I feel like I’ve been through something in the past few months.

Here’s what we’ve missed in Cherlandia.

Cher TV

I’ve kept working despite a LOT of drama, including but not limited to, losing one of my two dogs and twice, almost losing my mother. As a coping activity, I spent a day or two adding information and links to the Cher TV page in the TV Appearances and Interviews section: https://www.cherscholar.com/tv/. I’m not finished. I keep finding more. So far we’re up to 332 TV appearances but I’m not trying to list every Entertainment Tonight appearance or local interview. Just indicative ones.

Cher Documentary

I came across a recent YouTube documentary, Cher, In Her Own Words. I think artist documentaries are sometimes great for fans but sometimes not great for the kind of fan who finds a lot of errors or don’t understand why certain things are covered and not other things. Or how they don’t get anywhere near the core of the person.

I’ve never seen a Cher documentary I’ve liked. Ever. And this is no exception. I’ve actually lost my notes about it in the mayhem that was my spring. But it has a cheesy voice over and all the same images in the wrong decade buckets. It’s filled with inane, unrelated footage to fill in the space.

But it was interesting in that it had footage from recent interviews where Cher did seem to focus more on her ideas about her own career. And there was new footage of stuff, like behind-the-scenes filming of Good Times I had never seen. I also noticed that some of the same interview footage was used for the Cher reel at the I Heart Music Awards in April. Here’s the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvBojJMeXdo

Deaths of Peripherals

The director of Moonstruck, Norman Jewison, died in January. She tweeted a nice message about it. I read in April that actor Ryan O’Neal also passed in December and I wondered how I missed it, maybe in all the Christmas album bruhaha. I was never a fan of Ryan O’Neal but he did star in the movie Faithful with Cher, probably a fan and critic least-favorite movie. Actually, one of the things I didn’t like most about it was Ryan O’Neal who played an all-too believable schmuck.

Court Cases

Two depressing court cases slogged involving discomforting personal family-drama stuff:

Cher’s attempt to prevent Mary Bono from terminating Cher’s Sonny & Cher royalties looks promising as the judge seemed to side with Cher. A friend of mine recently asked me, “doesn’t Cher already have enough money?” to which the logic seemed to be the richest party should always lose, acceptance of which would cause a legal run on the rich people. But in any case, I have to side with Cher on this one. She was already hornswaggled by Sonny for all their earnings. This was his mea culpa or at least a legal agreement to avoid spousal support. Mary Bono has two of Sonny’s children to think about but there are two other children of Sonny’s out there as well. Mary Bono also had her own congressional career and was not left high and dry when Sonny died.

And Cher’s bid for conservatorship over her son, Elijah Allman, continues (along with its unfortunate timing after the emancipation of Britney Spears). It seems Allman has reunited with his wife in the meantime and he appears to be back on the wagon. I do believe Cher is working out of motherly concern and not out of greed. It’s a tricky situation because Elijah is an adult. I’m not a mother so I’m not going to do any further speculating.

Dinner at Cher’s House

For months, Cher was promoting a charity event (which took place this weekend) in support of Free the Wild. Both the top bidder and a selected-fan would win a dinner party at Cher’s Malibu manse. I would love to hear more about the dinner. What food was served? Did the promised witty conversation occur? I wasn’t in any position to attend such a thing myself but I did want to donate to the good cause. If you are so inclined, you can too: https://www.freethewild.org/.

Cher Feting

Cher had a spring of accolades. She won the Equal Justice Icon Award on 29 March. She was given the Icon award at the I Heart Music Awards on 1 April with Meryl Streep doing the introduction and dueting with Jennifer Hudson. Cher’s speech was a bit of a ramble but that’s kind of her speech style. I love Meryl Streep but her speech was no great shakes either, especially compared to Beyonce’s great speech that night.

There was a bit of controversy about Hudson out-singing Cher during the duet but I think the bigger story is how much support from the black community Cher is receiving right now. It was evident in the night’s show and Hudson’s comments at the end of the duet. Cher will also be part of the Amfar Gala on 23 May.

And so now we proceed to the accolade that many fans have long been waiting for. That Hall of Fame.

Before we get into that I want to say a few things. I’ve been criticized off and on all my life for things I’ve liked. It hasn’t bothered me much. I have no guilty pleasures. We’re all on our own journey, after all. But last night I watched Who Done It, a fan documentary about the movie Clue.

Now I was there to see this movie in the theaters. I can’t remember who’s idea it was to go see it but my friends and I immediately became convinced this was an amazing movie: the level of talent, the perfect but also unusual casting, the tight comedic timing, the comedic range of the script, the creativity, writing, directing, all of it.

But the movie flopped when it opened. It was the Office Space of its decade (another movie I was on board with in theaters). Looking back, the movie was ill-timed amongst the suburban realism and super-gravitas of the 1980s. Compare the movie to Ghostbusters to see what I mean. This unpolished but competent documentary explained how Clue was an homage to not only a thread of camp in Agatha Christie (a writer who was also very uncool in the 1980s), but to the pacing of His Girl Friday (1940). This was a decade where camp was pretty much on the downlow from the mainstream (outside of John Waters movies). The 80s took themselves very seriously. Plus the movie had no megastar, the reviews were mixed and there was that confusing idea of multiple endings which were not packaged together in one viewing experience (until cable and home rental). The movie really was a gem under a cheesy pretense.

And many of these things were lost on my high-school self, to be fair. But my friends and I were obsessed with the movie in a way our other classmates were not. It was part of our oddball identity. We memorized the lines and watched it on cable and then as a VHS rental over and over again. We loved Tim Curry, not just for Rocky Horror but for Clue. We idolized him just as much for Clue. His work in the movie musical Annie was similarly overlooked, that being another movie that tanked with critics and moviegoers when it was in theaters but later found respect.

And until yesterday I thought Clue was just another odd-ball misfit that I loved and defended. But no. It has become a bonafide cult hit with younger generations. And as I was watching this documentary I was like yeah, another thing I was onboard with years before it was cool or understood.

I would say I have a taste for the underdog but I really don’t think that’s what it is. I like good things. Things I like are great. I mean not everything they do might be great. (I think we can all agree this is not great. But this is fucking great.)

Last night I felt something that was not quite smugness, but definitely a better assurance about my barometers. I don’t like bad things. I’m usually on to something.

And I have been proselytizing about Cher all my life. Like since I was five in whatever rudimentary way I could. And I’ve also been questioning what is it that gives something value, which includes challenging the status quo because when you start poking around, popularity is usually on shaky ground: is it record, concert and swag sales, is it criticism, is it influence on younger generations, is it breaking records, working with the best people (musicians and directors)?

Or is it a cabal deciding? Because that is the least rational of the things. Which is what bothers me about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the trumped up scarcity (that is really ceaseless marketing) and its cabal of judges.

The RnR HoF takes itself very seriously. Which is why Spinal Tap is so great. It’s also why Clue is so great. And that very seriousness undercuts its own blind-spot valuations by over-valuating personal taste.

And yet, I also can’t pretend Cher’s 2024 induction is not significant in any way. The fans are very happy. This is a good thing. They have wanted this for a long time. She did very well in the pre-selection fan voting (as the top woman, if that’s the bar we must watch).

Cher was included in the final roster for induction in October in Cleveland, Ohio. I have been making the case for Cher’s credibility for so long, it does feel like a small vindication. Her rise to respect has been slow and ongoing. I track its origins to the 1990s when VH1 started airing old Cher show episodes on Tuesday nights and also when her Behind the Music episode ran for an hour and a half instead of the typically alloted hour.

Slowly since then a new generation of cultural critics and performers like Pink! and Perry Ferrell of Jane’s Addiction have been making the case as well. In the last five to ten years she’s been almost revered with an iconic status. This was not the reality for fans in the 1970s when she was a fashion joke akin to Paris Hilton. Or in the 1980s when she was given acting credibility but still withheld from any kind of music credibility, although her music output far outweighs her acting output.

Allegedly Cher wanted to be inducted as Sonny & Cher, which is another amazing facet of this story, how loyal Cher is to Sonny at the end of the day and after all these years and how she clearly and repeatedly states that her entire music career was Sonny’s dream. Which is why Cher’s induction is Sonny’s accolade as much as it is Cher’s. Sonny is vindicated here as much if not more than all the fans are. And Sonny deserves a great amount of credit. Cher was his discovery and his insistence. He is a crucial piece of Cher as she stands today.

But we also have to realize that it is Cher who has broken the big records. Her solo records, her longevity, her continued stance of rebellion, her own Cherness. So it seems fully logical that she would be the inductee. Sonny was like the rocket launcher. An impossibly strong and brilliant one. As Cher states in the aforementioned documentary, there was nothing about Cher early on that screamed movie star or rock star. But Sonny saw it.

I still feel the same way about the HofF, even now that Cher is “in.” But I do acknowledge the acknowledgement. The complaint that “Cher is not rock” can still be heard out there in the complainosphere? To which I would say exactly, she is much bigger. Rock and roll is nothing but all those many things that prop it up: blues, gospel, folk, punk, torch, country, showtunes, jazz, dance, rap, metal, the infinitely-alternative everything, the hairdos, clothes and mythology…it’s a posture more than a quantifiable genre.

Cher has recorded in many of those styles and her influence is proliferating as we speak. She is an entertainment Wonder Woman. An ongoing vaudevillian Viking.

Yes, I have been making the case for Cher, like I said, since I was in the single digits and I’m gonna keep doing it. Because I know I’m on to something. The HoF feels like a hard-won concession at this point.

But the things I like are much bigger than that.

How Perry Ferrell of Jane’s Addiction encouraged votes for Cher in the RnR HoF

The Cher Autobiography and Biography in Interviews

February 18, 2024 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

So I continue to think about Cher’s in-progress autobiography, in both its book and movie form.

Just to note: cherscholar.com does have a Cher biography reference page. There have been only a few good Cher books despite the span of seven decades. The best writers have been J. Randy Taraborrelli, Mark Bego and Josiah Howard, although there have been some really great fan-created books as well. Check out the full list: https://www.cherscholar.com/books-2/.

After we last left this topic, Cher scholar Toby recommended I watch the Bob Dylan biography I Am Not There. And I should have watched it sooner because I really loved Cate Blanchett in Manifesto (it was very literary). And experimental biography is what I most liked about Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life.

But I guess you can have too many experiments going on because then it’s hard to evaluate the results of any single one. It’s like the scientific maxim to keep your hypothesis simple. Maybe this is true of art as well.

And due to too many experiments working their way through I Am Not There, to coin a Gertrude Stein phrase, there becomes no there there. But they were all interesting experiments individually, so let’s discuss them one by one.

(Let me know if I’m missing any.)

Experiment 1:

Biopics of music artists often suffer from impersonations instead of interpretations. This was the great failure of the one biopic of Cher we have already seen, And the Beat Goes On: The Sonny & Cher Story. It would be difficult to put on the skin of any iconic performer, but nearly impossible for the inimitable ones.

Why not experiment with multiples? Christian Bale and Kate Blanchette were my favorite Bob Dylans in I’m Not There. The deployment of multiple Dylans seemed like a genius solution to the problem of finding one actor who can hit all the different eras. Cher has already borrowed on this idea with her Broadway show and three Chers co-habituating and communicating throughout the entire story, albeit those Chers without name-brand interpreters.

And collectively, maybe multiple actors gets to the same point that a really good deep-layer interpreter would get to anyway, something beyond the surface level of looks and mimicry, something that can live above and apart from the person described.

I think Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita is a good example of this. And as I’ve said, the Fanny Brice musicals. Another actor can come in and embody the spirit without our fretting about lookalike and soundalike-ness.

To me that all seems like a red-herring at the end of the day (or the end of the soul, as it were) and so it makes the idea of multiples a moot point. Yeah, we’re all comprised of separate people. But we’re all also one person too.

Experiment 2:

I love the idea of entangling the myth of a life with its facts, myths created by iconic images and I’m Not There did that really well. And like with multiple actorly embodiments, this experiment plays on the idea of there being no “I” there or “no there there” as Gertrude Stein would have it.

And I think this dilemma is baked into the whole Bob Dylan thing so this experiment was not only the most interesting to me but felt very pertinent to its subject.

I think the very same issues play similarly into the Cher story, (most ideas formed about Cher are based on a few iconic images), so this would be an interesting experiment to borrow from.

Experiment 3:

The different Bob Dylans were also embodying Dylan’s own iconic mentors in somewhat interesting mashups: Dylan with Woody Guthrie or Billy the Kid or Arthur Rimbaud and this was probably one of the least interesting experiments for me. How much of you is what you love and admire? Maybe that’s its own movie right there. Because this is one experiment that requires more finesse than there is time for as one experiment of many. It just came across as too surface-level for me. One of my favorite quotes is from Charles de Gualle, “Don’t ask me who’s influenced me. A lion is made up of the lambs he’s digested, and I’ve been reading all my life.” It’s so complicated.

We all put on uniforms to walk through the world and we often borrow the clothes of those we admire. But what then? There’s a lot more to explore there.

Experiment 4:

Time shifts, which are interesting in any other postmodern depiction, but here they just felt too tangled up in all the other experiments, different times interspersed with different Dylans.

Experiment 5:

Let’s make it a musical, but just barely.

That all said I actually liked the movie. All the competing experiments just made the film extremely self-conscious as a biopic. That’s not a crime though. There were beautiful and interesting shots (which could save any flawed Cher biopic, by the way).

On a related note, I’m making my way ever-so-slowly through a bathroom stack of New Yorkers. My friend Kalisha recently gave me a more modern issue from July of 2023 because there was a short story in it that reminded her of Haruki Murakami, a writer we both like. In the same issue there was an essay by Parul Sehgal, “Tell No Tales,” about how storytelling has pervaded areas where it shouldn’t, like politics, office PowerPoints, religious screeds.

But also biographies. Sehgal says,

“The American poet Maggie Smith, in her new book, ‘You Could Make This Place Beautiful,’ notes wryly, ‘It’s a mistake to think of my life as plot, but isn’t this what I’m tasked with now—making sense of what happened by telling it as a story?’ She goes on, ‘At any given moment, I wonder: Is this the rising action? Has the climax already happened or are we not even there yet?’ It’s not just the unruliness of life that is ill-served by story and its corrective resolution.”

Cher only had one long-form interview last year while promoting her Christmas album on the 60-minute BBC special “Cher Meets Rylan.” It’s the last interview we have to talk about from that blitzkrieg of publicity and it’s relevant to our topic today because Cher had a few new biographical stories to tell in it.

Ryland calls Cher a s diva, icon, goddess, a pioneer in fashion. The fact that Rylan is so young he came to Cher from the song “Believe” sill seems incredible to me. Therefore the majority of the retrospective Cher reels were from the 1980s and beyond.

They talk about how much she loves London and how some of her outfits are on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum. They talk about her Christmas album and Cher says that because the songs didn’t really go together, she worried people wouldn’t “get it.”

She tells a story about her mother Georgia getting up on the roof of her house and nailing her shingles back on as an example of how kick-ass she was. Cher also said Georgia was talented, hysterical and Cher said she died so she could be herself again.

They talk about the dyslexia, the Cher sayings (“If it doesn’t matter in five years,” borrowed from her mother, and “I am a rich man.”)

Cher has been wearing fingerless hand-gloves for all of these interviews for some reason.

She tells a new story about running away at nine-years old with her friend Anita, first on a horse and then on a train. This has to be in the biopic. And it’s eerily similar to Dylan’s young train mashup-moment in I’m Not There.

She talks about playing all the boy parts in a backyard-like production of Oklahoma when she was in grade school. She covers her jobs at Robinson’s department store and the candy store with the old ladies. She talks about meeting Sonny in the coffee shop below the popular radio station, Sonny’s smile and how he wanted to make her a singer but that she was just loose energy at the time, not focused and really shy.

She notes that Sonny & Cher had five songs in the top 40 at the same time, some songs which were prior-nonhits re-released when “I Got You Babe” became a summer phenomenon.

Steaming has confused statistics like these. My friend Christopher recently gave me a phone lecture on the way the charts worked before and after streaming and how Taylor Swift just scored 26 songs at once on the Top 100.

Cher talks about how she used to make clothes with her friends and how Sonny was so game to wear whatever she came up with. “We thought we were beautiful. People thought we were grungy.”

And then strangely, we skip to 1979 to talk about Studio 54. The new shocking story there is how Cher once took Al Pacino to Studio 54.

It was hard for me to wrap my head around the idea of Cher and Al Pacino on an outing together (just like it is for me to get my head around Sonny & Cher singing late 1970s rock ballads).

Al Pacino was working on a Broadway play. A quick scan of his Wikipedia page and knowing the span of Studio 54 was 1977-1986, the play was either “The Basic Training of Pavlo,” “Richard III” or “American Buffalo.”

Anyway, after Cher invited him, he brought the whole cast, Cher says, and everyone had a great time except for Al Pacino who looked uncomfortable the whole night. Oh dear. Not surprising but quite an embarrassing Cher-date-fail for Al Pacino.

Cher talks about her acting in “Jimmy Dean” and how the actresses were great. She talks about being pen pals with her idol Audrey Hepburn. She says she doesn’t work for the accolades, that “you do work for the work” and the awards are a bonus. She calls Meryl Streep Mary Louise.

She again says she was dropped from two record companies and that the song “Believe” took a lot of people because the verses were not good. Rylan reminds us that “Believe” is still the UK’s biggest selling single by a woman artist.

Cher talks about her former place in Wapping where she was living at the time of recording “Believe,” that it was an old rum warehouse. Ryland says the song was crucial for a gay boy to hear, how he believed “this is the world I’m gonna grow up in now.” (That was actually very moving.) He talks about the song’s impact on the music industry. Cher says AI pisses her off.

So the technology thing is complicated.

Cher talks about how for her 1970s-era variety shows, she would meet with Bob Mackie for three hours each Wednesday and how Mackie was making one amazing thing after another. She still goes out in jeans. She’s still a jeans person. But she also loves wigs.

She says she met Elton John the first time he came to America and she found him adorable. They were all friends: Elton, Diana Ross and Bette Midler and she tells of a time they all went shopping in New York.

She says she’s lived a thousand lives, (she calls herself “older than dirt”) and that this is a biography problem. Rylan asks her if she’s had a fav Chera. She says she’s been written off in so many eras and accused of reinventing herself. She says she wasn’t reinventing; she was just out of work.

I Found Some Blog

Page 3 of 107

Kiss-and-Tell Autobiographies

I like Cher in June, How ‘Bout You?

Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 2

Technology’s Manipulation of Cher’s Voice

Cher Space and Time

Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 1

Rock and Roll Royalties and Royalty

Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion

Cher Scholar Catches Up

The Cher Autobiography and Biography in Interviews

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