By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
February 20, 2002
If she could turn back time, she still would come back as Cher. And why not? She’s absolutely fabulous. Besides, she’s the only female recording artist to score a Top 10 hit every decade for the past 40 years. And unlike the multitasking singers who’ve attempted and then failed at acting careers, Cher has won rave reviews for her work in theater, television and film. She even has an Oscar for “Moonstruck” (1987) to prove it.
Add her own Mattel doll–which was giddily showed off on an episode of “Will and Grace”–and you’ve got a faboo resume.
Being Cher, she takes it all in stride.
“I didn’t always make the smartest choices, but I also wasn’t afraid to fail,” she says, phoning from her Los Angeles home a few days before her latest album, “Living Proof” (Warner Bros.), hits stores next Tuesday. “If you make a mistake, you pick yourself up and move ahead. If I didn’t do that, I’d be crawled up in a ball on my sofa for the rest of my life.”
It’s that kind of attitude that has spurred Cher to survive and, often times, thrive in a cutthroat industry famous for looking for the biggest, brightest and youngest.
Cher, who’ll celebrate her 56th birthday in May, isn’t having any of it. Sure, she may have to work out a little harder these days to compete for MTV time with the likes of Britney and Christina, but let’s see where those former Disneyites are when they’ve hit their 30s.
“The night I turned 40, I was at a club in New York with my friends,” Cher says. “The clock struck midnight, and I was expecting something to happen so I would know I was 40. I was looking at everyone dancing and I thought, ‘This isn’t bad. This doesn’t suck. I don’t feel any different.’ Being older now is different from previous generations, when you have to go and be a mother or grandmother and put things in jars.”
Back when she was Cherilyn Sarkisian LaPierre, a shy, skinny California teenager infatuated with her husband, Sonny Bono, Cher didn’t think so much about the future. She wanted to become an actress, but Bono–11 years her senior–persuaded her to give music a shot.
If the hit singles “I Got You, Babe” and “The Beat Goes On” introduced Sonny and Cher to the public in the mid-’60s, then the TV series “The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour” (1971-74) made them household names. But it was her exotic look and whippet-thin figure, exaggerated by Bob Mackie’s barely there creations, that made Cher a star.
After her split from Bono in 1974, she capitalized on her fame, eventually settling into a second career as an actress.
Though critics at times had accused Bono of trying to control Cher, she maintained close ties to her former spouse. She was inconsolable when he died four years ago in a skiing accident.
At a concert last week honoring another Bono–U2 frontman Bono, that is–Cher joined R.E.M. onstage to perform “I Got You, Babe.” “I have never done that song without my Bono,” she said to the crowd. “So this one is for you, Bono.”
Cher and R.E.M.? It was just the latest surprise in her totally unpredictable music career.
“When I was starting out, the music business was much more naive,” Cher says. “I think I was a much younger 17 year old than these kids are today. The pop music business was still in its infancy, because businessmen hadn’t really caught on to how big it could be and how much money could be made, so they left us alone.
“It wasn’t like there was a choreographer and a stylist to create an image for you. You were on your own. It’s a much bigger deal now with all these handlers and things and endorsements. It’s such a huge business.”
Just when momentum seemed to be on her side, she made an infamous informercial endorsing a friend’s line of hair-care products.
“Doing something uncool is the one thing people can’t forgive you for,” she says. “Someone was asking me about it the other day and I said, ‘So ——- shoot me. I did it. Does that cancel out everything I’ve done for 30 years?’ Of course it was a terrible career move. But it wasn’t the worst thing I could’ve possibly done. I didn’t kill anybody. I didn’t molest anyone. I didn’t beat up on my children. Maybe it would’ve been better if I went to a drug clinic or got over heroin or something. Maybe that would’ve seemed cool.”
As for being cool, a song that she never thought would be a hit helped to bring her back into the limelight. In 1998, she recorded “Believe,” which initially was targeted for the European market. The jaunty dance number with the Cherbot chorus topped the United Kingdom’s pop charts for almost two months and went on to become the biggest-selling song by a female artist in England. In March 1999, the song topped the U.S. charts.
“I never thought it would be such a big hit,” Cher says, laughing. “I thought it’d come out, I’d go on tour and then I’d make another movie. It took about three years for it to settle down, and I was on the road forever. But I must say I never had audiences that compared to the ones I had on that tour. A lot of times I thought they didn’t even need me to be there. They were having that much fun.”
Her show incorporated all her greatest hits with stunning costumes, aerialists and acrobats. In other words, Cirque du Cher. She promises all this and more on her upcoming tour to promote “Living Proof.”
These days, she’s comfortable with her status as a pop culture icon. She is used to seeing female impersonators try to out-Cher her and acknowledges that at least one has.
“His name is Elgin [Kenna],” she says. “I’m terrible with last names, because I only have one name. Anyhow, I saw him on TV on one of those daytime talk shows, and when he came on, I couldn’t believe it. There I was! I never saw anybody so great in my life, so I called him and asked him to come on the road with me.”
During one bit, she would run offstage for a costume change, and he would immediately make his entrance, which would confuse the audience at how quickly she had changed outfits.
“While he was on, I would come back on and we would do the rest of the number together,” she recalls. “We would mirror each other, but sometimes I would look over and watch him and actually forget what I was supposed to do. He was that brilliant. When you have me confused about which one is the real Cher, then you know he’s done a great job.”
