Cher (34 page)

“All of a sudden there seem to be dozens of contenders for the ‘Supporting Actress’ nomination,” Cher commented in January of 1983. “I know a lot of worthy contenders are going to get cheated, and I don’t want to be one of them. The studio has been campaigning to get Sandy Dennis a leading actress nomination for
Jimmy Dean
, but when you think about it, I did have more lines than she did in the movie” (122).

She was quick to give thanks to the whole
Jimmy Dean
project, both onstage and on film. “That gave me professional credibility for the first time in my life. For the first time, I didn’t feel like an industry joke. You can be stupid about your life—and I have been many times—but not stupid enough not to know when you’re considered nothing but a joke” (13). Well, finally in her career, Cher was having the last laugh.

When she was questioned by the press about her desire to win an Oscar for her work in
Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
, Cher commented, “Just a nomination would be enough. I want one so badly, I’d kill for it” (13). Well, she wouldn’t have to go that far to obtain a nomination; she would simply have to wait for a year. For Cher, her greatest glories as an actress were just around the next bend.

9

REMOVING THE MASK

It had been more than twenty years since Cher first met Sonny Bono and became a bell-bottom-clad 1960s recording sensation. In the 1970s she was a glamorous television star. By the 1980s she became what she’d always claimed she wanted to be: a movie star. At the time it seemed like a long shot at best. Although other pop singers in the past had starred in movies—like Petula Clark, Diana Ross, and Olivia Newton-John—none of them made a successful long-term career of it. Yet for Cher, multimedia goddess, it somehow seemed like a logical progression—leaping from medium to medium.

Cher has never been one to take the conventional route to achieve any of her goals. The movie roles that have transformed her from a pop music princess into a bankable film commodity have been far from glamorous. The Cher of 1980s movie screens was drawn largely from the un-chic side of the tracks. Countergirl Sissy in
Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
, unadorned, gay plain-Jane Dolly Pelliker in
Silkwood
, biker mom Rusty Dennis in
Mask
, and pre-transformation Italian “old maid” Loretta in
Moonstruck
, all showed new shadings of Cher’s personality. Where once she used costumes and makeup to become another character in front of TV cameras, now she was digging deep inside herself to bring these women to life on screen.

In the 1980s, she may have been seen in revealing Bob Mackie gowns, but they were worn for public appearances, not in front of movie cameras. Cher did her best to strip away the sequined surface of her former
dazzling diva self and shed the designer skin that made her famous. Step by step, role by role, she was removing the mask she once hid behind.

I prefer not to play glamorous women in movies, because my heroes in film, for the most part, are usually people that you wouldn’t know about unless someone like me brought them to the screen, like everyday kinds of people. If you’re going to do this glamour stuff, which is totally make-believe, you don’t have to be true to anything. That’s what I like about both of the things that I do, because one of them is totally for fun, and it’s superficial, and all about the excitement of the moment. The energy that you’re giving off and the costumes are a great part of all that. The other part of the work that I do is about the reality of people’s lives and getting inside them, and letting you see what’s going on and how much the character is like the person that’s watching. That part doesn’t really leave too much room for costumes in my mind. I’d much rather be unglamorous when I’m making movies (39).

At the time Cher was able to make a fortune by performing for a couple of nights in a Las Vegas or Atlantic City casino showroom, but she temporarily chose to turn her back on glitzy singing gigs and a high income for her cinematic metamorphosis. When she was doing
Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
, Cher griped, “I have no money at all. Going to Broadway to do the play and film cost me a lot, because the pay was nothing, and I had to take my family with me. All in all, I must have spent around $84,000” (52). When she did
Silkwood
, she proclaimed, “They got me for a cottonball” (121). The “cottonball” was $150,000. When she did her third film,
Mask
, her fee was $500,000, plus a 5 percent take of the gross. For one week in Las Vegas, Cher was able to command up to $400,000, performing two shows a night. Las Vegas held no challenge for her. Starring in movies seemed like the ultimate gamble. Her films instantly began bringing her rewards that extended beyond the financial: a Golden Globe nomination for
Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
, a Golden Globe Award for
Silkwood
, a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination for
Silkwood
, and a Cannes Film Festival “Best Actress” Award for
Mask
.

When
Silkwood
was released in 1983, Cher received a whole new crop of praise from amazed critics. The
New York Times
, which is quite conservative in its gushing accolades, heralded her portrayal of Dolly by announcing, “When you take away those wild wigs, there’s an honest, complex screen presence underneath” (123).

The only anchor around her neck was that thirty-one-room Egyptian palace that she built in Benedict Canyon, and could not sell. By the time construction was finished, it ended up costing her more than $4 million, and no one seemed to be grabbing at the—then—$5-million asking price that she was trying to sell it for. “It took me four years to build, and in those four years I decided that I am not very much interested in what’s going on in Los Angeles. I don’t take advantage of whatever it has to offer. I don’t hold parties and I’m kind of reclusive, no matter what you read,” said Cher at the time. Although she found herself to be “cash poor” because of the house, she was quick to stress that she would not compromise her asking price. “I refuse to come down on the price. The price of things are the price of things. . . . my house is certainly worth it,” she claimed (111).

However, her closest friends all realized that Cher had no money sense. She was also a self-admitted shopaholic. After the completion of
Silkwood
, Cher and Meryl Streep socialized together in New York City. Meryl recalls a short walk with Cher to pick up Meryl’s son Henry at school one afternoon. “Not a long walk,” said Streep. “Four blocks. And Cher spent two hundred dollars in four blocks, on a sweater, shoes, something else. I was horrified! I can’t listen to her complain about money problems. She doesn’t seem to realize that not having enough is the same problem as spending too much” (120).

Hollywood had been the home of much of Cher’s outlandish behavior on and off camera. Her fights with the CBS censors about her exposed navel, her highly publicized attempts to wean Gregg Allman off drugs, and her flings with rock stars did not do much to endear her to the voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. When it was announced in February 1984 that Cher was nominated for an Oscar for her work in the box-office hit
Silkwood
, it was not only a triumph for her as an actress, it was also a huge compliment from the conservative voting members of the Academy. Whether or not she won the award, just to be taken seriously by the old guard of Hollywood was a priceless honor for Cher, and she knew it.

It was in 1984 that Cher took her first acting prize, as Dolly Pelliker. The Foreign Press Association awarded her with a Golden Globe for her work in
Silkwood
—the first major award in her long career. At last she had validation that she had found her niche—as an actress.

Now that she was a film star, Cher began to attend all of the international cinema events. In the spring of 1984, she was one of celebrities
present in London at the British Academy Awards. Grinning a wide smile for the cameras that night, Cher revealed that she had a mouth full of dental braces. She was on her way to a whole new look. Quoted in
People
magazine on her new “heavy metal” tooth look, Cher’s only comment was “They won’t be on for long” (124).

Straightening her teeth was just another step in Cher’s on-going physical evolution. According to her in the early 1980s, “I believe in face lifts and nips and tucks and all that. If I need to have something done, I’ll do it. I’ve had three breast lifts—one after each pregnancy, and one other” (125).

She was already plotting her next big comeback. According to her, “I’ve already been disposed of, so I want to bounce back. I’m like some of that trash that just won’t go away” (126).

Cher’s next film role represented another significant leap forward for her. It had originally been announced that she was to star in
Grandview U.S.A
., the story of a girl who inherits an automobile demolition derby. One of the most alluring aspects of starring in
Grandview, U.S.A
. was that it would have paid her $650,000. With her extravagant lifestyle, she was in quite a financial mess. Accepting the role would have effectively erased her concurrent debt. However, when the shooting schedule was suddenly moved up—“before the cherry blossoms came off or something like that,” recalls Cher, she backed out. According to her, if she went ahead and made the film, it would have broken one of her cardinal rules. “The one thing I said I could never do, which was to make movies just for the money” (22).

When Cher decided to pass on
Grandview, U.S.A
., Jamie Lee Curtis ended up playing the part. The film went nowhere, so Cher didn’t miss out on anything big. The film that she instead chose was
Mask
.

The plot of the film is bizarre, and just offbeat enough for Cher to really stretch out with her acting.
Mask
is about a strange real-life relationship between a mother and her teenage son. Neither character could be accused of being your average parent or child. Cher played Rusty Dennis, a motorcycle mama with a Hell’s Angels–like troupe, who loves to get stoned out of her mind for recreation, or whenever the pressures in her life get to be too much for her to handle—which is quite often. Rusty’s son, the real Rocky Dennis, died in 1978 of a rare congenital affliction known as craniodiaphysical dysplasia. The condition causes calcium deposits to form on the skull, resulting in an enlarged head and massive degrees of disfiguration. The victims usually succumb to the added pressure on the brain and spinal column.

Screenplay writer Anna Hamilton Phelan claims to have written
Mask
with an 8 × 10 photograph of Cher in front of her for inspiration. When director Peter Bogdanovich was signed for the project, he agreed with Phelan’s idea of casting Cher. According to Bogdanovich, “I felt Cher’s persona—or at least the persona people think is Cher—fit the character exactly. The woman had to be free, outspoken, tough . . . but also a lot more vulnerable than she lets on, which I think is also true of Cher” (67).

Cher received Phelan’s completed version of
Mask
in December 1983.

I got the script along with this really wonderful letter from [producer] Marty Starger saying that they [Starger and Bogdanovich] wanted me for the movie and they hoped I liked the script as much as they did. So I went upstairs and started to read it and when I got about halfway through I was so upset that I went right to the ending, and I was a mess. Then I went back to the middle, finished it, and I mean, I was hysterical. I cried and I cried and I cried. From the moment I read it, it just seemed very real (3).

Director Peter Bogdanovich was also very excited about the prospect of working with Cher. According to him, “What Cher has that immediately makes her a movie star are those extraordinarily soulful and penetrating eyes. When you move into a close-up with her, it doesn’t matter if she’s saying the line right. You think, ‘With eyes like that, how could anyone not be saying the truth’ ” (22).

When the contracts were all signed, sealed, and delivered, one of the first things that Cher did to prepare for her challenging new role was to meet the real-life Rusty Dennis, the woman whom she was about to portray. According to Cher, “When I met Rusty, I really didn’t ask her about who she was because I think that the best way to find out about someone is to ask them how they feel about everything else. She’s just like one big dichotomy, and a real strange combination. She’s taken a lot of drugs and she hangs out with bikers, but yet she’s very metaphysical” (3). She adds, “She is tough but she has an edge of softness about her. She laughs a lot. She’s soft-spoken and very warm, with a metaphysical side to her about finding her way through life. She is also quite a beautiful woman, even though, when she speaks, you hear those biker expressions” (127).