Cher’s Memoir Brings Back Memories for This Life-Long Fan

Cher has been a star for 60 of her 79 years. The living legend’s memoirs covers her life from 1946-1980. Photo by Richard Avedon, from their first collaboration.

 

Virtually all public
figures with a tale to tell, a scandal to sell, have all written a book or been
the subject of a documentary or podcast. Cher, with more stories than
Scheherazade, finally wrote part one
of her memoirs at nearly 80 years old. Cher:
The Memoir begins with her family’s poverty-stricken and dysfunctional
history, taking the singer/actress through 1982, when Cher decided to fulfill
her dream to act. 

Cherilyn Sarkisian, future glamour icon!

As a life-long Cher
fan, I have read everything about the icon’s life and career: the good,
the bad, and the absurd. While some stories that Cher recounts have been told
since the beginning of Sonny and Cher’s stardom, there’s much that I didn’t
know. I was relieved that Cher’s memoir wasn’t a gloss job. Stars can become
protective of their legacy as they grow older. Cher freely admitted this was
not a tell-all, but she tells a lot, and what she writes is candid without
being unkind.

One of Cher’s famous quotes was that her mother Georgia Holt was married multiple times, but hardly remembers a man in the house. Team Georgia, Cher, & Georganne! And later inspired her to make 1990’s “Mermaids.”

What really struck me
was how Cher singles out the people in her life that were important to her,
whether they were famous or not. And unlike some stars, Cher has maintained
long-time friendships and collaborations. I think that Cher, who grew up poor
and with no obvious attributes for stardom, gave her a perspective that she
didn’t lose along the way, unlike some public figures.

I wish I had kept all these magazines to resell for my retirement fund! One of Cher’s  many charms is that she’s always been a funny and candid interview subject.

Cher’s stardom is a
case of the God giving with one hand, and taking with the other, to use one of
her pet expressions. Cher’s fame came to her swiftly (a back-up singer at 17,
her first # 1 record at 19) and Sonny as a protector helped her avoid the
obvious pitfalls of stardom. On that other hand, Cher has been met with
incredible resistance in the show biz world. While Sonny and Cher had
incredible stardom, they were first regarded as a novelty. Their comeback as TV
stars was hard-won, after honing their act on the road. After Cher was done on
TV, many predicted her Las Vegas act would be her final resting place. While
she had a hit disco album, what Cher really wanted was to be taken seriously as
an actress. The story of Cher seeing the trailer for Silkwood with an audience, hearing applause for Meryl Streep and
Kurt Russell’s names, and then laughter at hers, is legendary. Or when Cher
revived her music in the late ’80s, with Aerosmith’s producer John Kalodner
later saying he had never faced such resistance to getting an artist’s music played
by radio stations. The song? I Found
Someone. She ran into the same thing a dozen years later with Believe. It wasn’t played on US radio
until it went #1 around the world.

Cher’s mother Georgia Holt was a struggling starlet during the ’50s. Here she is with  Lucille Ball in a famous “I Love Lucy” episode about fashion!

Lucille Ball later had no-nonsense advice for Cher, about leaving a husband/wife act in exchange for a divorce and solo career!

Cher’s mother was
Georgia Holt, who worked in 1950’s show business, but never made much headway,
despite her beauty, charisma, and a pleasant singing voice. A single starlet
with kids was not the norm in the 1950s, either. Georgia’s other career was
finding Mr. Right. It’s still a family argument about exactly how many times
Georgia married! When Cher met Sonny, he had already struggled, looking for success
as a singer/songwriter. By 1963, Sonny was nearly 30, divorced, with kids. In
the middle of her mother and Sonny’s thwarted show biz dreams was teen-aged
Cher.

Sonny wrote the songs & guided their career; Cher was the singer & made their famous fashion choices. All of which created a craze in the mid-60s.

Cher was already
taking acting lessons with famed Jeff Corey, but Sonny thought she’d make a
good singer. So, a serious acting career for Cher was delayed for two decades. Bono
was the first of several strong men that Cher had an ambivalent attitude about
regarding her life and career.

Within two years, Cher
went from singing backup for Phil Spector on classics like Be My Baby and You’ve Lost
That Loving Feeling to singing hits written mostly by Sonny. Originally,
Cher was supposed to be a solo act, with Sonny as her producer/manager, ala
Ronnie and Phil Spector. This may be hard to believe for younger fans, but
badass Cher was so shy that she was afraid to sing alone, even in the studio
recording booth! So the lights were dimmed, then Sonny joined her to sing
harmony, and the song was Baby, Don’t Go—one
of my favorite Sonny and Cher songs. At one point, they had five songs in the
Top 20 pop charts. But by the late ‘60s, the Bonos seemed square as pop and
rock went psychedelic.

A classic Sonny & Cher moment, proof that they had arrived, singing “I Got You Babe” on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in September, 1965,

During their down
time, Sonny and Cher became seasoned performers and personalities with night
club gigs and variety and talk show appearances, and developed their personas.
Fred Silverman of CBS caught the duo on The
Merv Griffin Show, gave them a
summer TV series in 1971, which was a hit with audiences, including 12 year old
me! Whether together, divorced, or reunited, Cher was a fixture on television
through the ‘70s.

“The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour” was one of the last hit weekly variety shows. Their show was in the Top Ten when CBS cancelled, because like Lucy & Desi Arnaz’ last series, they were getting divorced!

Bob Mackie first designed for Cher on a 1967 “Carol Burnett Show” episode. Once  Sonny & Cher’s summer series became a hit, Bob made Cher into a ’70s glamour girl!

One of the most fun segments of Sonny & Cher’s show was the V-A-M-P skits!

The stories of family and friends, with
personal pictures, give Cher’s memoir resonance. Cher is very even-handed in
recounting her marriages to Sonny Bono and Gregg Allman, considering that she
got the short end of the stick in both cases, in my opinion. Sonny had great
belief in Sonny and Cher and he did most of the heavy lifting behind the
scenes. Cher has always given him
credit for this, no matter how pissed she was at him personally. After their
divorce, Sonny gradually became very dismissive of Cher’s contributions to
Sonny and Cher, which in turn, antagonized Cher toward him. How sad that it was
Sonny’s sudden death in 1998 that provided closure for Cher.

Cher’s Time magazine cover coincided with her solo TV series. The infamous dress, designed by Bob Mackie & worn by Cher at the 1974 Met Gala. Photo by Richard Avedon.

A highlight of Cher’s solo series was the big costume reveal of her opening numbers.  Bob Mackie commented that Cher wore her gorgeous gowns like they were jeans. In other words, Cher wore the gowns, they didn’t wear her!

Sonny’s memoir And the Beat Goes On was published in
1991. While Sonny was certainly entitled to tell his side of the Sonny and Cher
saga, but his need to always be seen as the nice guy skewed the book’s
credibility. Cher has admitted that she’s not always been a ray of sunshine,
but the near-total focus of Bono’s book was how no matter what he did for Cher,
she was rarely grateful.
Some of the reasons why came out at the time of
their divorce. In her book, Cher
cites Sonny’s charm as to why it was hard to stay mad at him, but Bono wasn’t as
lovable off-camera. Sonny’s stint as Phil Spector’s gofer seemed to inspire his
style as a star maker. Also, the fact that Sonny’s stardom, followed by a
hard-won comeback, seemed to make him a control freak. Terri Garr recalled Bono
referring to Sonny and Cher show regulars as “atmosphere” and
assigning favored cast and crew jackets, with his emblazoned with “El
Primo.” Cher never wore her jacket! 

Basically, Sonny
treated Cher in a more humane version of how Phil Spector imprisoned his muse and wife, Ronnie. Sonny the
warden had many rules. Cher was not allowed to play music or wear perfume inside
the house. Sonny had the final say where Cher could go, and never alone. He opposed
Cher taking tennis lessons and burned her tennis clothes when he found out
there were men at there. She was not allowed to hang out with their tour band. When
Cher went to a therapist of Sonny’s suggestion, he got transcripts from the doc
of their sessions! Of course, none of this is mentioned in Son’s book. Sonny
admits to being unfaithful to Cher once.
Well, that’s the first time he got caught. When Cher was no longer sleeping with
Sonny, she expressed romantic interest in a band member. Sonny’s response was
to sleep with the guy’s girlfriend first, as revenge. There’s a way to woo your
estranged wife back! What Sonny and Cher’s relationship had come down to was
work, with Cher having no say about anything. 

Sonny & Cher AFTER their divorce, making up some gigs committed to before  breaking up. What amazed me was that they were separated, while living in a house divided, & performing on “The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour” for the last two seasons! And Sonny still tried to control Cher–which wasn’t working anymore!

When Cher officially
wanted out, after living War of the Roses-style
in their mansion, Sonny pulls all the classic bully husband lines: Everyone
will hate you. You can’t make it without me, etc. Here’s the real clincher: Cher
finds out that “Cher Enterprises” is comprised of Sonny Bono as president, his lawyer as vice-president, and Cher
as… a salaried employee! When Cher confronted Sonny as to why he would do this,
this was his revealing response: “Because I always knew that you would
leave me.”

It amazes me that Cher
ever wanted to speak to Sonny again. Ultimately, Sonny and Cher had a bond that
endured beyond all the bad stuff. They later reunited professionally on
occasion and Cher always gave him credit as a good father and cited him as
great fun to work with. Also, Sonny’s death seemed to surprise Cher as to the
depth of her feelings for him that she still had.

When Sonny & Cher appeared on David Letterman’s show in ’87, Cher was clearly not pleased at Dave egging them on to sing “I Got You Babe.” They did do their classic duet and the emotional moment was a bit of show biz history.

As for Gregg Allman,
Cher has often said he was the sweetest man in the world when sober and a
complete mess when on drugs and alcohol. Gregg’s addictions were common
knowledge, but Cher took most of the flack when their marriage failed, due to
her notorious Hollywood image. Despite
the reality that Gregg married six times, had children all over the place, made
11 trips to rehab, and didn’t sober up until 1996. Allman later wrote his
self-rationalizing memoir, aptly titled My
Cross to Bear. Cher and Gregg mended their fences; ultimately, Cher and
their son Elijah Blue travelled to Georgia for Allman’s funeral in 2017.

Gregg Allman & Cher on their Las Vegas wedding day. Flanked by her sis Georgeanne & Cher’s BFF of over 50 years, Paulette. The only gap in their friendship was when Paulette married Dickey Betts after The Allman Brothers broke up. When the women’s marriages to the guys broke up, they resumed their friendship. Fun fact: a bellhop named Tom Hanks carried the Allmans’ luggage up to their room!

Luck has played a
great role in Cher’s career. Cher got to fill in as a back-up singer because
Darlene Love had car trouble one day, which opened Phil Spector’s
eyes to Cher. Or when Sonny and Cher’s straight arrow costumes didn’t
arrive for a gig and forced them to go out in their funky clothes, which caused
a stir with audiences. Or Cher’s mom Georgia, as pals with Robert Altman’s wife,
and mistakenly calling Bob instead of Cher, who was in New York
studying acting. This led an intrigued Bob to eventually cast Cher in Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy
Dean on Broadway. Luck, along
with hard work and persistence, have been Cher’s life-long calling cards.

“Cher: The Memoir” ends when Cher is about to go to New York City to study acting and find work. This was the result and led to Cher’s film career.

It’s interesting
watching Cher today on her various 70’s TV shows when all this chaos was going
on in the background. What a trouper Cher was to carry on. As Cher has
commented, what other TV star has hosted a show with an ex-husband, while
carrying the baby of her current husband? (And while hashing out divorce
details with the former, and financially supporting the current spouse, after
Allman’s band split over a FBI drug sting!) Thankfully, there wasn’t TMZ
then! 

It’s extremely ironic
that Cher, who has long had a notorious reputation, was not into drugs or
alcohol, and was not a swinger as the tabloids suggested, but a serial
monogamist. Cher stayed better friends with exes like David Geffen, Gene
Simmons, Val Kilmer, and Rob Camilletti, than the mercurial connections with ex-husbands
Sonny and Gregg.

Cher fans will love
her take on behind the scenes in her music career and TV shows. Cher has a
memory like her beloved elephants and offers typically succinct impressions.
Another fun thing about Cher is she enjoys being a star but also is a fan of
other stars. Cher has mostly great memories of everyone from Bob Dylan, Phil
Spector, The Rolling Stones, Joni Mitchell to Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett,
Elton John, Tina Turner, The Jackson 5, Ronald Reagan, Kate Smith, etc. etc.
etc. Cher has worked with practically everybody in her music, TV, and movie
career.

Dolly Parton appeared with Cher on one of the latter’s TV specials. Two classic baby boomers and showbiz survivors, who did it their own way.

As of this writing,
Cher has been a star for 60 years, despite every decade bringing new naysayers
predicting her diva demise. As Cher recently said, “I’ve seen them come,
and I’ve seen them go…”  To
paraphrase Sondheim, “And Cher, my dears, is still here!”

Here’s my take on
Cher, in her Oscar-winning Moonstruck:
https://ricksrealreel.blogspot.com/2021/05/cher-shines-in-modern-classic.html

Here’s an on-screen
and off-screen look at Lucille Ball’s TV stardom, with a comparison to Cher’s
similar challenges as part of a beloved husband and wife act that’s come to an
end: https://ricksrealreel.blogspot.com/2021/12/id-rather-love-real-lucy.html 

When it was suggested that Cher be a “What Becomes a Legend Most?” model in the ’70s, Blackglama boss Peter Rogers dismissed her as a flash in the pan.  So, when he approached her as actress Cher in the ’80s, she agreed. And wore her Oscars headdress with the fur, worn upside down!