Cher (48 page)

I mean, the infomercial was possibly the stupidest thing I ever did. But, O.K., so I did a stupid thing, so kill me! Let’s negate my entire career and let’s look back on all my work and say it was a fluke or I’m just tacky. I paid a really stiff penalty for the crime. I could have killed somebody and gotten away with less. But the truth is, it’s all about how things appear. The reason I said Planet Hollywood is because the press that’s done for Planet Hollywood makes it look like these celebrities are not just selling a product. The fact is they are out there selling a product, it just looks cool. But, in our society, it’s much more important how things look instead of how they really are. I was stupid; I chose the wrong thing (23).

In the United States, the laughably dreadful Lori Davis hair-care infomercial ads proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back in the public’s eye. The nonstop TV deluge of these continually broadcast ads wrote the book on overexposure. “I became a joke on
Letterman
and
Saturday Night Live
. My career took a huge nosedive, went right in the toilet. I couldn’t have been dumber. It was a huge, devastating misjudgment of what people would accept from me” (171). Even the
New York Times
referred to her Lori Davis debacle as “an embarrassing interlude as an infomercial queen” (24).

It had been a long, wild ride for Cher the last couple of years, starting with her phenomenal 1987–88 streak of success on film, on record, and in her personal life. It had taken her five high-activity years for her coast downward from the top.
Moonstruck
had made her into a movie star, but between the Equal ads, the Lonely Hearts jewelry, and the Lori Davis hair products, it was as though Cher had transformed herself into something akin to a fashionably dressed used-car salesman. After a downward spiral that began in 1991, for the next seven years things would continue to be decidedly hit and miss for Cher.

14

CHASTITY’S SONG

While a flurry of activity was going on in Cher’s life, the two people she is still most closely associated with—Sonny and Chastity Bono—were living their own soap opera lives. In addition to all of the tabloid coverage that Cher was receiving, regarding her health, her boyfriends, her plastic surgery, and her new career as a merchandise spokeswoman, she was also linked to her ex-husband’s blossoming political career and to revelations about her daughter’s awakening sexuality.

As a high-profile politician, amid his four-year elected term as the mayor of Palm Springs, Sonny not only made friends and allies, he also found himself to be the political enemy of many others. But, such was the thankless lot of a career in politics.

Among the things he was able to accomplish while in office was establishing the Palm Springs International Film Festival as an annual event. He is also responsible for outlawing thong bikinis in public places. In the middle of his term as mayor, in 1989, he successfully fended off a political recall vote whose organizers hoped to have him deposed from office. According to
Time
magazine, the point of contention was that Sonny had failed to significantly bolster the languishing downtown area of his sleepy little desert town. One conflict arose when he deposed three of the members of the Palm Springs Visitors & Promotion Board, all of whom were amongst his detractors.
Time
also referred to him as “Mayor Bonehead” (181). This threat to his budding political career blew over, and Sonny
emerged successful and proved himself a worthy leader who was concerned about his community.

In July of 1991, when a horrible bus crash occurred in his town, Mayor Bono was at the scene of the accident, tending to the victims. The accident involved a busload of Girl Scouts and ended up claiming the lives of six people. On November 4th of that year, Bono was honored by the National Disaster Conference for personally heading to the scene of the crash and assisting in rescuing several of the victims. In addition, Sonny reportedly donated a full year’s worth of his $15,000 mayoral salary to the Palm Springs Police Department’s antidrug program.

In August of 1991, Sonny published his autobiography,
And the Beat Goes On
. The memoir gave him the chance to tell his side of the story with regard to his musical career, his marriage to Cher, his divorce from Cher, and the accusations and rude comments that his ex-wife—Cher—was still hurling in his direction. Sonny painted Cher as someone who was so ego-driven that she was often cold, calculating, and ungrateful. Of their initial breakup, Sonny was to state, “She resented me. She hated sharing the spotlight. She really wanted to be bigger than Dylan and Jagger. Only she wanted that fame and attention and adulation all for herself” (35).

In 1992, Sonny unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate. Bob Dole was quoted as saying at the time, “When I first heard he was running, I thought, ‘Gee, they must be kidding’ ” (188). He may have lost that particular political bid, but Sonny Bono’s political career was far from over.

Nearly thirty years since it was originally recorded, in 1993, the Sonny & Cher recording of “I Got You Babe” was prominently featured in the Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell comedy film
Groundhog Day
. Based on the success of the film, the song was once again released as a single in England and made it to Number 66 on the UK music charts.

In 1994, Sonny again found himself in a political race, for the post of congressman in California’s forty-fourth district. Republican candidate Bono defeated Democrat Steve Clute, 56 percent to 38 percent, to win the congressional seat in the United States House of Representatives. It was time for the next chapter of his life: Mr. Bono goes to Washington.

That was the end of him putting his attention toward the Palm Springs edition of Bono’s restaurant; he had bigger things to do. Cher wasn’t the only half of Sonny & Cher with a knack for reinventing herself. In his own
more low-keyed way, Sonny too was a brilliant survivor. His 1990s tenure in Congress was another high point in a career that had many successful phases.

Cher used this as an opportunity to further zap her ex-husband. She was quoted in the
Washington Post
as stating, “Politicians don’t work for the people; the system works for the politicians. It’s a huge crime to be so greedy and to let the people down and the country fall apart. Politicians are one step below used car salesmen” (189). This comment was coming from a woman who was concurrently using her vast talents, fame, beauty, and creative energy to sell overpriced designer shampoo on television.

While all of this high-profile drama was going on in her parents’ lives, Chastity was having her own personal struggle—with her sexual identity. “I was conscious as a very young child that I was different from other girls, different from the person my Mom expected me to be,” recalls Chastity (16).

When Chastity was a little girl, Cher loved to dress her up in frilly, girly outfits. When she was old enough to voice her own opinion, she preferred more tomboy-like outfits. Sonny didn’t care if she felt more comfortable in more boyish clothes. Cher however, protested. “She criticized my baggy pants, T-shirts and boy’s sneakers. I was hurt and angry that she didn’t accept me for who I was,” claimed Chastity. “I first realized I was gay around my 13th birthday, when I saw a lesbian love scene in the [1982] movie
Personal Best
. But I was still hesitant to explore my sexuality and terrified of sharing my discovery with my mother” (16).

Then there was Cher’s role as Meryl Streep’s gay roommate in the film,
Silkwood
. According to Chastity, “My mother was playing a lesbian in
Silkwood
at the time, and I remember reading over and over the scene where they’re out on the swing talking together. I had a big crush on Meryl. It’s hard not to” (64).

According to Chastity, she felt pressured into her first attempts at having sex with men. “The only time I ever slept with a man, I was 16,” she reveals.

I did it because I was sick of everybody saying, “How do you know you’re gay if you’ve never slept with a man” so I could say, “Well, I did it, so now I know.” He was a marine, which is the most hysterical thing. I get shit from every woman I’ve ever been with: “The one guy you fucked was a
marine?
” I went on one other date with a guy after that, in Palm Springs. I was totally in love with this girl at school, but she was not comfortable with the whole lesbian thing. I met this guy who was the son of one of the people who worked in my Dad’s restaurant. He was an arts student, good-looking, bohemian, long hair, gentle. I thought, “Well, if I could be attracted to a guy, this would probably be the kind of guy—he’s not rough and rugged.” We went to see some movie, and I thought about this girl from high school the whole time. It put me in a really bad mood, and I just wanted to go home. I thought, “You know what? I gave it another shot, and it’s just not happening” (64).

By the time she was sixteen years old, she began to act on her gay sexual urges. “Mom and I were staying at Tom Cruise’s house, and he had two lofts,” Chastity recalls.

Mom slept in the one, and I slept in the one with the kitchen. Mom came in to get something to drink, and this girl and I were on the pull-out sofa bed making out. Instead of rolling away from each other and pretending that we were just sitting there talking, we both jumped up like dorks. Mom walked in, saw us jump up, and went right back out. She never confronted me about it, but the girl with me told her, “Oh, we fell asleep, and you scared us.’ My Mom’s always hated her, because she knew something was up (64).

“Two weeks later, on my 17th birthday, she picked a fight with me, probably about my clothes, and then told me she wasn’t going to my party. It wasn’t until years later that she finally admitted that the real reason was that she was devastated after walking in on me” (16).

This episode was to drive a wedge between Cher and her daughter. Sonny was the first of Chastity’s parents to know that she was gay. “He was the first one in my family to know,” she was to reveal. “I was reading this lesbian book, and he saw it in my room. He picked it up and said to me, ‘Is there something that you want to talk to me about?’ So I told him, and he was like, ‘Oh, I knew.’ He was really great about it” (64).

Still, Chastity couldn’t seem to confront her mother on the issue. “She didn’t understand it,” Chastity explains. “Actually, Mom took me to a shrink at one point because she was worried about my being gay. I was spending all of this time with [lesbian family friends] Joan and Scotty. Of course I knew I was gay at that point, but I didn’t tell her, and I didn’t tell the shrink because I knew that would be a bad idea” (64).

Much to everyone’s surprise, when Cher did find out, she completely freaked out. Chastity was in New York City at the time, and Cher was in
California. In a heated telephone conversation, Cher screamed at her daughter, “How could you do this to me? Why didn’t you tell me what was going on? I had to find out from your father!” Finally she commanded, “I want you to leave the apartment right now” (16). Chastity packed a suitcase and moved in with a group of her friends.

It took Cher about a week to cool down and get things in perspective. What seemed to hurt her the most is that everyone else around her knew before she herself did. Part of the problem was Cher’s own self-absorbed denial. She realized that her daughter was a bit of a tomboy, but she was not anywhere near being emotionally ready for this revelation.

While Chastity was off on her own in the late 1980s, she put together a band, which evolved into the short-lived rock group known as Ceremony. They were eventually signed to Geffen Records, Cher’s label, and released one unsuccessful album.

While she was in New York City pursuing her own recording career, and attending New York University, Chastity would hang out at several Greenwich Village gay and lesbian bars. Although her mother and father were world-famous, she didn’t think that anyone was paying attention to her whereabouts. Before long, Chastity dropped out of school to devote her full attention to her rock group, and her affair with her first girlfriend.

According to Chastity, both of her parents strongly disliked her first girlfriend, Heidi.

Mom hated my girlfriend before Joan. At one point she wouldn’t let her in the house. Later Mom told me, “I couldn’t understand why she treated you the way she did, and your taking it was just too difficult for me to watch.” My Dad felt the same about her. He never forbade her to come in his house—that’s not his style—but he didn’t like her. Nobody liked her. She treated me like shit. I was basically her glorified slave (64).

Said Cher of Heidi “I didn’t think she was very nice to Chastity. She didn’t show her any respect” (61).

Unfortunately for twenty-year-old Chastity, this exact era was one in which several self-appointed media representatives began “outing” celebrities for being gay or lesbian. This forced several singers and actors to declare their sexuality. Among them were Elton John, Melissa Etheridge, the Indigo Girls, and Janis Ian.