Cher (58 page)

Sonny’s widow Mary Bono also found herself in the spotlight right after his death. While Cher was still in Palm Springs for the funeral, after it was all over, the two women reportedly reminisced about Sonny for an hour and a half. According to Mary, “We talked about how we both realized Sonny’s strength.” When she asked Cher what she thought about her running for Sonny’s vacated congressional seat, Cher replied, “If this is something you need to do, you do it” (215). The
National Enquirer
quoted Mary as stating, “Cher has been unbelievable. She has given me the strength to go on. I look at her as more of a sister than my husband’s ex-wife. I couldn’t have gotten through this without her” (216).

In mid-January, Mary and their two children appeared on
The Larry King Show
, where she announced that she would indeed be running for her late husband’s congressional seat. She also told King that she was planning on taking her young children skiing again very soon. “It’s sort of like getting back in an airplane after a crash,” she explained. “But, I think it’s important. I also think it’s very important to talk with the children about everything. There is no question my children can ask that I would not answer” (217).

On Tuesday, January 27, 1998, President Bill Clinton, in his annual State of the Union address, eulogized Sonny Bono at the top of his speech. While Cher had spoken of the singer and songwriter she had married and loved, Clinton spoke glowingly of the congressman whom Washington had grown attached to over the past couple of years. Mary Bono was in the audience during the speech, and was shown on camera during the network telecast of the event.

With her hat in the ring, Mary Bono became the Republican candidate running to fill her husband’s vacated seat in Congress. Oddly enough, her Democratic competitor was also a show business veteran, Ralph Waite, who was best known to TV fans as “Pa” on
The Waltons
. Mary shared many of the same political views as her late husband Sonny. She believed that the government was wastefully bloated, and spent too much money on itself, and she was dead set against the so-called “free trade” agreements with Mexico, as it took jobs away from the farm workers in her own home district.

Speaking of her campaign tactics, the
New York Times
found that, like Cher, Mary had her own sense of style. According to that newspaper, “On the campaign trail, Bono wears stylish Norma Kamali suits and matching Ferragamo pumps” (218).

Although Cher may have given a thumbs-up to her fashion sense, Mary claimed to be opposed to government funding for legal abortions. This was only the beginning of their differences in opinion. On April 7, 1998, when the special election was held to fill Sonny’s vacated congressional seat, Mary Bono successfully won.

Within Mary Bono’s first year in office, she made several well-meaning statements about Sonny, which totally pissed Cher off. The most notable allegation was the fact that she claimed Sonny was in the habit of abusing prescription drugs, particularly painkillers. She went so far as to imply that if Sonny hadn’t been under the influence of such drugs, he may never have slammed into a tree that fateful day in January.

The feud got started when Mary Bono gave a press interview regarding
the pain pills, claiming that occasionally Sonny had taken up to twenty a day. It became a big issue when her comments were published in
TV Guide
. In that publication, Mary claimed she was “100 percent convinced” that the pills contributed to his collision with the tree. She went on to say, “What he did showed absolute lack of judgment . . . that’s what these pills do” (219).

That was all it took for Sonny’s mother, Jean Bono, to get into the fray. In a
Star
newspaper article entitled, “Mystery of Autopsy Report Who Killed Sonny Bono” (December 8, 1998), Jean was quoted as saying, “What Mary has done is despicable. She has blackened my son’s name in front of his children, his family and his friends when he’s not around to defend himself. She says my son abused all these prescription drugs and that his behavior was erratic. But the autopsy report plainly states there were only minute traces of drugs” (219). Mama Bono wasn’t the only one upset.

Cher was not only mad at the press for thinking that she was using Sonny’s funeral for her own self-promotion, she was especially mad at Mary Bono for opening her mouth about this issue, whether it was true and accurate or not. Said a bristlingly frosty Cher, “You know what? Fuck everybody! I don’t care what anyone thought about my motives at the eulogy. I don’t really care what anybody says about me. But there’s a rule. I’m not Sicilian, but I lived with Sonny long enough to know that some things belong in the family. Some things stay in the family. And she broke that rule” (144).

Mary had her own say on the topic as well. She was especially frosty regarding the fact that Cher had made peace with Sonny via famed psychic James Van Praagh and then announced the fact in a cover story in
People
magazine. Being a no-nonsense kind of gal, Mary thought that the whole notion of using a medium was absurd. “Why couldn’t she say he was a good man before he died?” Mary proclaimed. “To say that Sonny has forgiven her is just ridiculous! She’s just promoting herself. Cher’s always been the best at self-promotion. She’s the ultimate spinmeister” (220).

To put a public sense of closure to her grieving for Sonny Bono, on May 20, 1998, CBS-TV broadcast the hour-long special,
Sonny & Me . . . Cher Remembers
. According to her at the time, she willingly went down memory lane to put her life back into perspective. “I couldn’t wait not to be Sonny & Cher,” she said about the special, “But I don’t mind going back. It’s my choice now” (171).

For her, it was the greatest loss of her adult life. She felt like she lost “my father, my husband, my brother, the father of my child, my partner, and my best friend” (16). Although they had rarely seen each other since the 1970s, she had always felt some sort of strange connection with Sonny. “Most of the time, I just don’t think of him as dead,” she claimed.

I don’t remember to talk about him in the past tense. Even though I know he’s dead, I feel somehow closer to him now than I’ve felt in a long time. He somehow has more relevance to me now. It took a long time to get over my anger. But we had the strangest relationship. I mean, [when we divorced] he had me in court trying to prove I was an unfit mother. And on the day he lost the case he walked out and grabbed me and kissed me on the lips. Kissed me hard. I was really angry, but we were like kids. We just let things go. We ended up laughing hysterically. We had just spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in court, but it was like a joke. It was always a game with us (144).

In 1998, Cher finally released what was supposed to be her own in-depth autobiography. However, when
The First Time
hit bookstores, fans and critics were disappointed to find that it wasn’t the full story they were anticipating, but a compilation of short vignettes including “My First Solo Recording” and “My First Shopping Spree.” Unfortunately, the book left huge gaps in time completely unexplained. Cher also left out anything she didn’t care to discuss, from boyfriends to plastic surgery.

Cher’s 1998 to 2000 comeback was nothing short of miraculous. In true Cher form, it was a complete multimedia sweep: the biggest album of her career, the biggest single of her career, a critically acclaimed movie, a starring role in the VH1
Divas ’99
television special, a sold-out international tour, and—finally—her first Grammy Award.

The key to the whole tidal wave of success that struck for Cher was her
Believe
album. It was the LP’s executive producer, Rob Dickens, who talked her into turning her back on arty rock and roll this time around and devoting an entire album to dance music. Not since the golden days of 1970s “disco” had this been done by a major artist of the stature of Cher.

According to Dickens, “I thought, every gay guy I know is a huge Cher fan. They just love her as an icon. She has this huge gay following and they love High-NRG dance records. So the idea was to repay their faith and loyalty to her over the years, to make a record for them” (144). This was not exactly what Cher had in mind. She was reluctant to agree at first, but he finally talked her into it. What the hell, what did she have to lose?
Regarding her relationship with Dickens during the recording of the ten cuts contained on
Believe
, the diva herself confirms, “We argued the whole way through” (144).

It was the title cut that was to become the cornerstone of her new wave of success. There were already six writers credited with having written the song “Believe,” so why not add her own pen to the task? Explained Cher, “I was singing in the bathtub, and it seemed to me the second verse was too whiny. It kind of pissed me off, so I changed it. I toughened it up a bit. I wrote the lyrics, ‘It takes time to move on, it takes love to be strong/I’ve had time to think it through and maybe I’m too good for you.” (144). It was also Cher’s idea to take the chorus and put her own voice through a synthesizer to come up with the audio effects that make this cut so memorable.

Only three of the songs were written by people she had worked with before, including Diane Warren and Desmond Child. Cher chose Warren’s composition “Takin’ Back My Heart,” which was cut as an up-tempo ballad. And producer Todd Terry had her rerecord one of her trademark songs, Warren and Child’s “We All Sleep Alone,” redone as a High-NRG dance number. Mark Jordan, who had written the song “The Same Mistake” on her
It’s a Man’s World
album, contributed the catchy and pulsating “Taxi, Taxi” to the
Believe
disk.

Judging by the results of
Believe
, the three sets of producers had a blast making this, the ultimate Cher dance album. Junior Vasquez produced “The Power,” and Todd Terry was responsible for the songs “Taxi, Taxi,” “Love Is the Groove,” and “We All Sleep Alone.” The rest of this brilliantly executed album was produced by Mark Taylor and Brian Rawling. In addition to the infectiously catchy title cut, the Spanish guitar-driven “Dov’è L’Amore,” the defiantly bold “Strong Enough,” and the techno blast of “Runway” made this a true 1990s classic.

As they did for her album
It’s a Man’s World
, Warner Brothers/ Reprise Records chose to release
Believe
globally before bringing it out in America. It proved to be a stroke of marketing genius. Rather than even give
Believe
a chance to fail in America and ruin everything, it came to the United States last, and arrived as a bona fide worldwide smash.

Released in autumn of 1998, both the album and single versions of
Believe
instantly hit Number 1 in England. But that was only the beginning. The song was to hit Number 1 in twenty-three countries around the globe. And the album was to be certified a Gold or Platinum smash in thirty-nine separate countries. The list is nothing short of astonishing: Argentina—Platinum,
Australia—Double Platinum, Austria—Double Platinum, Belgium—Platinum, Brazil—Gold, Canada—Septuple Platinum, Chile—Gold, Colombia—Gold, Czech Republic—Gold, Denmark—Quintuple Platinum, Finland—Gold, France—Platinum, Germany—Double Platinum, Greece—Gold, Hong Kong—Gold, Hungary—Platinum, Indonesia—Platinum, Ireland—Triple Platinum, Israel—Gold, Italy—Triple Platinum, Japan—Gold, Korea—Platinum, Malaysia—Gold, Mexico—Double Gold, Netherlands—Gold, New Zealand—Double Platinum, Norway—Platinum, Poland—Platinum, Portugal—Double Platinum, Singapore—Gold, South Africa—Double Platinum, Spain—Quadruple Platinum, Sweden—Double Platinum, Switzerland—Double Platinum, Taiwan—Gold, Thailand—Gold, Turkey—Triple Platinum, United Kingdom—Double Platinum. Cher was back—in a big way!

It was already an around-the-world hit by October of 1998. When it was released in America the following month, no one was quite certain what would happen. Well, Cher hit the jackpot again, when in the beginning of 1999 “Believe” became the Number 1 song in the United States, and in fact,
Billboard
magazine was later to tally it as the Number 1 song of the entire year! To top it all off, the single “Believe” was Number 1 for twenty-one weeks on the Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Single list. In America alone, the
Believe
album peaked at Number 4, sold over four million copies, and remained on the charts for a year and a half.

Was Cher excited and surprised by this feat? You had better
believe
she was! “Well, yeah!” she proclaimed.

When the song came out in Europe, it went to Number One immediately, and I wouldn’t have expected that either. But when we came to the U.S., and stations didn’t even want to play it, that made it really hard. And also the song was released in November [1998], which is a really awful and competitive time to come out, so we knew that it was either going to be a miracle or we were totally screwed. And I would say it’s kind of on the miracle side (23).

Not since 1984, when Tina Turner went from “nowhere” to “everywhere” with her triumphant
Private Dancer
album, had there been such a massive worldwide comeback. According to Cher, “I remember when Tina did the same thing, around 12 years ago. Every once in a while it happens. I think it happens more for the Rolling Stones and Aerosmith. I’m sure it happens a lot more with male artists” (23).

Well it was certainly her turn now. The Cher global assault of the
senses continued throughout the year 1999. In January she gave American television audiences a delicious dose of the song “Believe” when she performed it on the American Music Awards telecast. That same month, Cher was seen on America’s traditionally top-rated broadcast event of the year, football’s Super Bowl game. In 1999 it was Cher who sang the national anthem; millions and millions of football fans (and die-hard Cher fans) watched and listened to her sing “Oh say can you see. . . .” at the kick-off of the game. Although it appears that the music and singing at the Super Bowl is being performed “live,” it never is, as it is always prerecorded. Fearing mechanical glitches, on a program where every second costs a fortune, Cher’s vocal tracks—like everyone else’s before her—were lip-synched to tape. Any singer will tell you that “The Star-Spangled Banner” is notoriously one of the most difficult songs to sing—in any key. Well, she sure sounded and looked great on the football field that day!