Cher (43 page)

When she was done giggling and stumbling through her thank you’s, Cher went backstage to be greeted and interviewed by the press. Arriving backstage she ran into Audrey Hepburn, who had been her idol ever since she first saw
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
. Hepburn smiled and said to Cher, “I’m so glad you won—I wanted you to win.” According to Cher, that encounter with Hepburn was worth just as much to her as the trophy itself!

As officials from the Academy attempted to take Cher’s trophy from her, in order to add the engraved plaque with her name on it, she refused to give it up for one minute. This night was a dream come true for Cher, and she was bound and determined to enjoy every minute of it.

True to Cher form, the outfit that she wore that night was eye-popping to say the least. The amount of skin on her body that was covered by anything opaque was about the size of a tiny bikini. In another Bob Mackie creation of lace and gauze, as she posed with her trophy that night, she was about as close to being stark naked as you could get and still be considered dressed. The black “shawl” she had wrapped around her wrists and looped behind her, covered more of her forearms than any of her shapely body parts. With a few sewn-on sequins, and some dangling bugle beads, curly-haired Cher was beaming a genuine smile the whole evening in her bare-as-you-dare creation.

With regard to Cher taking the Oscar that night, Sally Kirkland says jokingly, “If it had been anyone else who won, I might have been upset!” She then explained,

Actually I am friendly with all of the women I was nominated with that night. Cher I knew before the Oscars. Holly Hunter and I know each other. I met Meryl Streep at Raul Julia’s memorial, and I have met Glenn Close. To be nominated in the same category as all these great women, was an honor. I will never forget that outrageous outfit Cher wore that night. She has to be years and years ahead of her time. And, she always makes certain that she is going to remain youthful and accessible to the rock & roll world. On one level I was devastated, and on another level I was not. How could I not remain friends with Cher? She went from Broadway to
Silkwood
to
Mask
—and everything she had done was such a 180 degree turn from where she had been, and what people expected from her.
Moonstruck
was such a perfect film for Cher, and I was happy for her victory (70).

Several days later, the horrific gaffe of having not thanked either Norman Jewison or the man who wrote the words that she spoke—John Patrick Shanley—sank in finally. To make amends for her glaring omission, Cher took out a full page ad in the legendary show business newspaper
Variety
, to properly thank them for helping her obtain her ultimate dream of winning an Academy Award for her acting.

It was an incredible month for Sonny & Cher fans. Not only was it a magical time for Cher, but—to the amazement of many—Sonny Bono was elected mayor of the city of Palm Springs, California. While Cher was reveling in her Oscar glory, Sonny and his fourth wife, Mary, were celebrating his electoral victory. The truly ironic thing about Sonny winning his mayoral race is the fact that prior to this time, he had never before registered to vote!

After winning the Oscar, Cher seemed to be taking inventory of her life from the vantage point of this new personal and professional plateau she found herself upon. She was in one of those rarefied places in life where she seemed to hold all of the cards, and control all of the variables. The role she claimed in the mid-1980s to want to portray next on the screen was that of famed American painter Georgia O’Keeffe. On the other hand there was also talk about a musical with David Bowie. She had yet to launch production on her own version of
The Enchanted Cottage
, but whenever she was asked what her dream projects were, she always mentioned it with fondness.

In the movie realm, Cher was far from finished stretching out into new horizons. Even at this point she was telling everyone who would listen that she wanted to produce and direct films. According to her, “I know it sounds incredibly pompous, but I’d like to direct a film. I don’t know that I have any talent in that area, but I have a hunch that I might because I have ideas about film that I don’t see other people exploring” (169).

At the time she was very secure in her relationship with Robert. She said at the time, “You know it never mattered that he was making bagels or bartending. Everybody asked me how we deal with our relationship, so I asked him, and he said, ‘Tell them we deal with it fine. You’re 41, and I’m 23, and I’m madly in love with you and you love me, and we have a great life. If other people have a problem with us, then they have to work it out alone’ ” (115). When she was asked by
New Woman
magazine if their relationship was serious or not, in her own inimitable fashion, no-bullshit Cher replied, “Oh, hey, we’re just fucking around, that’s all, sixteen months of fucking around” (115).

In fulfilling her burning desire to establish herself as an actress who was respected in Hollywood, she had more than proven her talent and her worth. She was at an age where she was truly comfortable in her own skin, perhaps for the first time ever. “I thought 40 was a bitch and I wasn’t too thrilled with that, but here I am, 41, and I’m pretty happy. I can say I am an actress now. I’m doing all the things I want to do,” she claimed (115). Finally, after over twenty years in show business, Cher was finally admitting to herself that she had “arrived.”

13

LOVE HURTS

Having won the Academy Award for
Moonstruck
and scored a huge comeback album, in 1988 Cher was on top of the world. She was happily experiencing the highest point in a long and enduring career that consists of huge peaks and valleys. She had worked long and hard to be taken seriously as an actress of style and substance. She had also struggled in the music business to be seen as a full-fledged rock and roll star. With 1987’s
Cher
album she had done just that. From this vantage point, it seemed that there was no stopping her career momentum, or her appeal.

Fueled by her movie and TV fame, during the year 1988, Cher continued to keep a strong public presence through her hit records. In June of that year, her latest single, “We All Sleep Alone” made it to the Top 20. On September 7, 1988, Cher performed at the fifth annual MTV Awards, which was staged at Universal Amphitheater in Universal City, California.

During 1988 Cher seemed to be interviewed by every magazine under the sun. The only two she seemed to have missed were
Popular Mechanics
and
National Geographic
. She continued to spout her views about everything from drugs to motherhood. This was truly her year, and she wasn’t about to miss out on a minute of it—every headline-grabbing moment of it.

“I don’t believe in drugs,” she proclaimed in
New Woman
magazine that year, “They’re a big waste of time. I’ve seen lots of people do drugs and I’ve never seen one person benefit from it, not one iota. It didn’t
make them happier, more creative, it didn’t make them anything. Life is all your have, and if you ruin it in the beginning, how tragic” (115).

With regard to her role as the mother of two teenagers, Cher explained, “Let’s face it, I’m not around constantly. But I try, really try, to make up the time whenever I can. And I’ve never abused my children. I think I spanked Chastity once, and though I could kill Elijah sometimes, the one time I slapped him I rushed to my room afterward, sat there, and thought, ‘This is impossible.’ I’ve never lost control again” (115).

Cher continued to speak her mind, right off of the cuff. Concerning her own honesty, she told
Premiere
magazine in 1988, “If I don’t want to tell you something, I’ll tell you why, but I won’t lie. Even though I have lied in my life. I don’t remember when. But I try not to do it, because it doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s kind of hard to tell a reporter, ‘This is none of your business.’ I mean, I do. Actually, I do a lot” (22).

The middle 1980s were chic and glitzy years. Top-rated TV shows like the opulent prime-time soap operas
Dynasty
and
Dallas
flooded the airwaves with women in huge, puffy-shouldered designer gowns. After years and years of Hollywood stars slumming it in blue jeans, glamour was back in a big way. Even men were wearing rhinestone lapel pins and more ostentatious jewelry. In cities like Manhattan and Hollywood, women were dressing more chicly and elegantly than they had in decades. It was also the era of celebrity-endorsed perfumes. Elizabeth Taylor reportedly made more money in the 1980s from her line of Passion perfume, eau de toilette, lotion, and perfumed dusting powder than she had from her movie career. Every fashion diva—from Paloma Picasso to Cher—quickly got into the act. Cher’s line of perfume was aptly called Uninhibited. The elaborate bottle featured Cher’s name written in script on a metallic front plate. The screw top to the bottle was a jewel-encrusted crescent moon pointing upward and holding a metallic disk in its points. Cher looked great on the cosmetic pages of Sunday newspaper supplements, and suddenly everything seem to be blossoming with the scent of the ever-uninhibited Cher.

To assure the proper launch of her perfume line, Cher held a New York City press conference, which Bob Mackie created a special costume for. When Cher arrived at her Trump Tower press event, she was dressed as Egyptian queen Cleopatra, with a jewel-encrusted ancient Egyptian wig and see-through harem pants. Although it was already autumn in New York, Cher was again captured by photographers wearing a costume that cost thousands, yet presented her as nearly nude.

In the
New York Times
, Cher’s perfume was presented for sale, with the sales pitch, “Discover Uninhibited at Macy’s: Only Cher could inspire a fragrance this provocative, this prophetic. A futuristic flagon, filled with the very essence of adventure. Of risk-taking. Everything that Cher is about. And, just maybe everything your special lady’s about too. There’s only one way to find out” (170). However, finding out what “Uninhibited by Cher” smelled like was not for the budget-conscious. One-half a fluid ounce of the perfume sold for $65, an ounce for $175, and 1.7 ounces. for $300! The eau de toilette spray went for $30 and $45. The eau de toilette pour presented three ounces for $42.50.

It was also an era with more celebrities than ever before hawking goods and services in television commercials and print ads. Cher enthusiastically got on the bandwagon in 1988 when she was the star of TV and print ads advertising Jack La Lanne/Holiday Spas. In the TV commercial, Cher was seen extolling, “If it came in a bottle, everyone would have a good body” (115).

Since she was on an exhibitionist bent, it would seem that this would be a perfect time for Cher to up her price for performing, and book herself for either a concert tour or a Las Vegas engagement. However, in 1988 she announced to the press that booking herself at a casino was the furthest thing from her mind. “I didn’t want to play Vegas for another twenty years,” she claimed, “even though I was making fabulous money. I didn’t want people to tell me I wasn’t capable of more. Nothing in life is easy, O.K., but I had people, even people who supposedly loved me, come out with, ‘Cher, can’t you be satisfied with being rich and famous’ ” (115). Obviously not.

After the incredibly successful year she had lived through in 1988, Cher had big plans to begin a new album and a new movie. However, she found that she was so wiped out that she could barely get up every morning. “I was so sick I thought I was going to die. I went to doctor after doctor,” Cher claimed (8).

Finally she did have her ailment defined as being the Epstein-Barr virus, which mysteriously saps your energy. Cher was later to report,

The [next] record took much longer because I got really, really sick for the first two months of 1989. I was really sick and couldn’t even get out of bed. So they had to postpone the movie I was doing, we had to put off the record. Finally, everything started coming together. About a year and a half ago, when I did a record, three movies, everything worked well. This year, it was a little more difficult. Now, I’m putting together the live show and I’m starting to have meetings with movie people. But I can’t find a moment to have those meetings. Everyone’s kinda angry with me because everyone thinks I’m fucking off. The truth is I don’t have a moment to “take a shower.”. . . if we were friends I would have said, “take a shit” (164).

According to Cher, she was startled to have suddenly lost her vitality. “I was constantly sick and had no energy. I was someone who went full-tilt boogie when others were dropping like flies. But I should have figured out another way” (171).

After two months of rest, Cher directed her recharged energy into her next movie role, and her next record album,
Heart of Stone
, which was released in June of 1989. “Once I actually started the album, I stayed with it,” Cher explained at the time.