I Found Some Blog...by Cher Scholar

I See Black People!

Here is an interesting peak into Cher's 1980s Egyptian-style house and working with Cher and her team from a photographer's point of view, Anthony Barboza in particular.

Remember that chain mail and jewels look?

But what is the black-people obsession about in this article? Kind of an explosive issue and I thought it should either be eliminated by Barboza or pumped up a bit more. As it was I couldn’t tell what his point was. Did he think Cher's entourage was racist? This is a surprising idea to me. But what do I know? Was Barboza overly sensitive to what was more of a photo lighting issue than a race issue?  Or did he suppose the lighting issues were code for racism?

We’re all tuned in to issues of race right now with the President and the protests, so it’s a timely topic but the article was kind of a tease. How refreshing if he would have just come out and talked about it fully. Because I’m liked a dog with a cocked head, like did I just hear something juicy?

Full story on: http://www.cherworld.com/news/?p=821

His celebrity gallery has a very cool alternate take of Cher from the session described in the article; Cher is surrounded the fur of her white couch: http://www.barbozastudio.com/celebrities/galmain.htm

  

Blogs on Cher's Birthday (And that Accent Thingie)

There were some blogs loving on Cher on her birthday which was last Wednesday.

Cher clips galore can be found on both:

• http://friedababbley.blogspot.com/2009/05/if-i-could-turn-back-time.html
• http://marcharshbarger.blogspot.com/2009/05/groovy-gal-cher.html

The text below was excerpted from the second link:

“Cher has always and forever will be one of the grooviest gals around...Here are 10 Groovy Facts about Cher…”

[These 10 fun-facts seem designed to serve as a Cher mini-biography--or a biography presented as a fun 10-item list. Neato.]

1) She was born Cherilyn Sarkisian on May 20, 1946, in El Centro, California. Her father was an Armenian refugee, while her mother was of Cherokee, English and French descent.

2) She was an introverted young girl with an active imagination, but after watching Disney’s Dumbo at Hollywood’s Grauman’s Chinese Theater, she broke out of her shell and dreamed of becoming a singing and dancing animal.

3) Due to severe, undiagnosed dyslexia, a frustrated Cher quit high school at 16 (she was later diagnosed at age 30). While she was in high school, she had a brief relationship with actor Warren Beatty.

4) In 1962, a 16-year-old Cher met 27-year-old Salvatore "Sonny" Bono, who was an assistant to record producer Phil Spector and offered the runaway a spare bed in his apartment. He assured her that he "didn’t find her attractive in the slightest". They became fast friends and eventually lovers before marrying in Tijuana, Mexico, on October 27, 1964 (they divorced in 1975).

5) Following an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in the fall of 1965 in which Sullivan pronounced her name 'Chur' during their introduction, she began spelling her name with a (misleading) acute accent: Chér (in 1979 she legally changed her name to Cher, with no surname or middle name).

6) Sonny and Cher caught the eye of CBS head of programming Fred Silverman in 1971 while guest-hosting The Merv Griffin Show, and he offered the duo their own variety show, The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, which debuted on August 1, 1971, as a summer replacement series (it ran from 1971-74 and 1976-77).

7) She and Sonny performed together for the last time during their appearance on Late Night With David Letterman on November 13, 1987, in which they sang "I Got You, Babe".

8) Cher auditioned for the role of Bonnie Parker in 1967's Bonnie and Clyde, was offered the part of Thelma in 1991's Thelma & Louise, and wanted to play Morticia in 1991's The Addams Family. And her Oscar-winning role in 1987's Moonstruck was originally intended for Sally Field, who turned it down.

9) "Believe", the Grammy Award-winning title track from her 1998 album, made Cher the oldest woman (at age 52)to have a number one hit in the Hot 100 rock era. It also gave her the distinction of having the longest span of #1 hits (more than 33 years). She is also the only female artist to have solo Top 10 hits in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.

10) Following her rocky relationship with Sonny and before her marriage to Gregg Allman in 1975, Cher turned down a romantic weekend in Las Vegas with Elvis Presley because she was too nervous about spending the night with The King. She still regrets turning him down as well as Marlon Brando, who also asked her out. However, she did have a passionate fling with a 23-year-old Tom Cruise when she was 39.

All the rest of that list is some same-ole-same-ole but the accent thing has been bugging me for decades!!

What was that about? Was it French 'cause it wasn’t proper French. I can see how some pronunciation notation might have been necessary for the likes of Ed Sullivan types but it was needed more to introduce the soft sounding “ch” part of this exotic new name. Maybe there was a fear peeps would pronounce her name like “shear”. Was this Sonny’s idea or Chér's? And honestly, I don’t care how incorrect it was, I LOVED IT. Why did it disappear all of the sudden?

Trivia question for you: can you guess which album her name first appeared naked?

  

Cher Link Zoo

For quite some time there has been a ton of links clogging up my blog to-do list. I’m just gonna throw them all up here now just so I can move on with my life. You can link wherever strikes your fancy. My take for must see items have a star (or two) next to them.

• Cher’s last words on her farewell tour: 
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxoKm81YzeQ&NR=1

• **S&C Bible ad revisited:
  http://www.bay-of-fundie.com/archives/1207/lol-sonny-and-cher (This is actually hilarious. Remember this bible ad from posts back? In this version, people have written in funny comments in S&C's  thought bubbles – don’t skip the comments below either.)

Cher is a Proud Armenian

Dyan Cannon tells Al Pacino in the movie Author, Author:

"You know how you can tell an Armenian? Their name rhymes with Armenian."

And it seems to be true. But on a serious note, what few people know about Cher is that, on her father’s side, her family was Armenian genocide refugees. They survived a World War I era genocide that 1 million other Armenians did not.

This week this note about a Cher interview on Armenian Dish Network TV appeared on the Cher news RSS feeds:

http://www.cherworld.com/news/?p=724

I'm wondering if this is the interview by Lusine Shahbazyan (hey, rhymes with Armenian) re-broadcast from one taped in the spring of 2008 for her Discovery show, the same one detailed in this 2008 Cher cover story in The Armenian Reporter: http://reporter.am/pdfs/C0216.pdf

I really enjoyed this interview written by Paul Chaderjian (again! rhymes with Armenian). Just being a bit worn out with the usual press questions asked of Cher these days, it was good to get something more focused on her heritage.

The articles shows pictures of her 1993 trip to Armenia, the same one covered in People Magazine by Susan Cheever, daughter of John Cheever. Cher traveled with The United Armenian Fund organization on a DC-8 plane full of humanitarian aid. She visited an orphanage, met with president Levon Ter-Petrosyan, and spoke in front of 1,000 students at Yerevan University among other things on a three day trip. What did she talk about to the president? The book "The Fourty Days of Musa Dagh." Cher also visited Echmiadzin, an Armenian Orthodox Church and gardens built AD 301 where she learned to cut Armenian stone.

Cher said the plane was rickety and they had to bring own food. She described the city of Yerevan as barren with impassable roads. Armenians told her to please tell America of their plight andCher replied regretfully, “Nobody in America would care.”

We're a bit self-involved.

Yerevan was once a prosperous city; but in the late 80s it had been taken down by an earthquake,the economic collapse of the Soviet Union, and a war with neighboring Azerbaijan (who had blockaded their borders). They were suffering 85% unemployment at the time, had sporadic electric power, and were starving due to high food costs.

Cher also reportedly visited Ankara in an effort to help lift one of the blockades. She said she felt proud to see Armenian strength and resilience in the face of having nothing.

The articles was also interesting in that it depicted the drama of doing a celebrity interview, from initial inquiry calls to the waiting room before the interview, all in minute detail – and with plenty of name dropping. To steal a security metaphor used at a Culver City party I went to this week: it felt like trying to get through a video game.

Flashbacks: Cermony, Alfie, MWARARS

Ceremony

Chastity's band of the early 90s, here's their video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ucugm3L-X-A

 

 

Alfie

Cher's version of the title song in Alfie trailer:
http://www.jaman.com/movie/Alfie-1966/0utguYlm0LHg/

 

 

 

 

MWARARS

The 45 download of Sonny & Cher's "Mama Was a Rock and Roll Singer"
http://brackattack75.blogspot.com/2009/04/sonny-and-cher-mama-was-rock-and-roll.html

I really don't see why the bother of listening to the "radio edit" of this song. I mean, if you get tired of the opus half way through, just turn it off.

What Cher was thinking when she recorded this rock opera is one of the Cher scholar mysteries of all times.

  

You Make Me Feel Like Interrupting

Over the holiday weekend, we got a lot of wedding stuff done. I think I’ve found dress I like and can afford, we ordered our cake and met another florist. Still have two more florist meetings to go before nailing that down.

In the meantime, I’d like to talk about something that has bothered me since I was a wee child of 7 or 8 years old...as evidenced by the Sonny & Cher Show duet with Sonny & Cher singing "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing." Yes, it’s been something I’ve been harboring for quite a long time but as yet un-uttered.

As giddy as Tinkerbell as I was that S&C were back on the air in 1976 after their divorce, I can barely explain the level of my frustration over the intrusive Laverne and Alvie (or was it Alvin?) sketches that interrupted each opening duet. Grrrrr!! I would think, every time this misforunate thing happened, which was almost every freaking week.

So it was bad enough S&C were not yet re-married and that now on top of that the viewing hour of the new show was past my bedtime due to our family moving from the Mountain to the Central Standard Time Zone which resulted in quite elaborate negotiations with my parents in order for me to have a one-week-exceptionary-later-bed-time-hour, (which would actually come in quite handy the next year when the first Solid Gold special ran late), and I could then still watch the new S&C show, political maneuverings that would impress even our Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, by the way…add to all that the fact that this lame modern saloon skit interrupted the festive and heart-warming opening song every week, like a reminder that paradise was not well and Sonny & Cher were not eternally duetting on stage blissfully but in reality un-married and wasting away in some bleak hotel bar slugging back wiskey sours...and you can see why I turned out the way I did.

Deep breath.

This song is the worst offender that I can recall. Probably I feel this way because when I was 8 years old I loved this song – loved it enough to buy the 45 when I was 15, a 45 that only languished in a shoebox because I grew up to find Leo Sayer grating.

This duet irks me every time I watch it. Here is the video where some kind, agnelic, hero-type has spliced the song together without the skit.

You’d think this would bring me peace after all these years, but somehow it doesn’t.

http://toosweet4rocknroll.wordpress.com/2009/02/16/sonny-and-cher-you-make-me-feel-like-dancing/

  

Cher Interview and Mustangs Sold

The 1966 Sonny & Cher Ford Mustangs sold for $198,000 at the RM Auctions Collector Cars of Ft. Lauderdale last weekend and George Barris himself was there. All auction memorabilia sold for $11,588,100. The top seller was a 1936 Packard Twelve Coupe Roadster that reached $220,000.

More details: http://www.freep.com/article/20090212/BUSINESS01/902120336/1002/rss02

The original auction press release: http://news.prnewswire.com/ViewContent.aspx?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/01-29-2009/0004962985&EDATE=

Cher also gave a short interview recently. Ah, how I yearn for a lengthy People cover.

In the latest, Cher talks about her hopes for Billy the Elephant (freedom), her latest charity work (kids in Africa and Tibet), briefly about her new album (more guitars), and shopping at Target and Michaels to get paintbrushes for the teamsters to paint teapots for their mums.

I’m looking forward to my second trip to see the Vegas show in March.
  

The 1975 S&C Press Conference & the Inauguration of Barak Obama

How do I even compare these two events, you ask? Well, they were both intense periods on an axis of history, a great shift in hope. In one we left (or thought we were leaving) the era of David Geffen and Gregg Allman. In another we left the era of George Bush. In one Sonny & Cher announced they were reuniting (for television) and in our blind desire for a personal reconciliation, there was a media frenzy...and in the other we have a similar (some say blind) desire for a national reconciliation resulting in an Obama media frenzy.

So okay, the Obama thing is bigger. I get that. I was VERY excited when Obama was inaugurated a week ago. I took the day off to experience this important American moment in history and I was none too proud. I gleefully gave Bush my own private heave-ho and I enjoyed seeing all the first-day protocol of the new President. Can’t say how heartening the day was, including the balls.

Was Cher there? With all the people crowded on the National Mall, I didn’t happen to see her. But the press reports she was indeed at one of the evening's celebratory balls, not one of the ones Barack and Michele attended, but the Feeding America party.

(By the way, I say this to anyone who will listen on a daily basis: I LOOVE Michele Obama. Sort of like I imagine my mother loved Eleanor Roosevelt. With absolute adoration.)

Sonny Stuff (Festivals and Stamps)

Sonny Palms Springs Film Festival Vision:
Here's an excellent essay from mydesert.com from Bruce Fessier on The Palm Springs Film Festival highlights through the years,  the celebrity drama, the very immediate impact Sonny's death had on the 1998 festival, and the big successes in showcasing some awesome movies.

I actually forwarded this article to two of my film-buff friends because the more I read the piece the more I realized it was an awesome Netflix list of great foreign and independent films of the last 20 years.

Also, it illustrates how important the festival momentum depended on fiscal management, donors, and gala events with red carpet attendance.

And how many films launched there went on to win Oscars:

"It illustrated how the festival circuit begins at Sundance and ends at Palm Springs just before the Oscar nomination announcements."[Fessier]

http://www.mydesert.com/article/20090104/EVENTS01/901020330/-1/lifestylesfront

The Sonny Stamp

I had a late-Christmas party last night with some friends (we were all too busy over the actual holiday to meet). We met at West Coast Subs in the Palms area of LA for boba and dinner and this is where my friend Christopher informed me that Cher and Mary Bono Mack were joining forces to petition for a Sonny Bono memorial stamp.

Awesome.

Shorenuff, Liz Smith confirms:

Cher, the one and only, tells us that she is lobbying the U.S. Postal Service to commemorate her late ex, Sonny Bono, with his own stamp. 

Cher says she would join forces with Congresswoman Mary Bono-Mack, who was married to Sonny at the time of his death, to make this honor a reality. And the U.S. Postal Service is keen to the idea. One high-up said, “A Sonny Bono stamp would be a lot of fun, especially if Cher would attend the dedication for it.

First of all:  the one and only? – that phrase is dated, pointless and dorkey. By now there are actually many other Chers in the world. I know this because their blog entries clog up my RSS feeds.

Oooh…I’m envisioning sending oodles of mail with Sonny stamps.  Do you think it will be 60s, 70s, 80s or 90s Sonny?

Stamps above from the site Stamp Magnets: http://stampmagnets.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?type=search&search=minor&minor=Entertainers+-+Music&shop=stamp-search&amount=10&num=20

  

Weird Cher Magazine Pages

Two Cher scholars sent me interesting Cher advertisements last year and I thank them.

The first was an article of star "hair-dos" of the month which dates back to the 60s sometime. Anyone want to take a guess at the actual date?

As Aunt Mabel might say, “What in heavens name is that on her head?

The next ad below. Well...I don’t know what to make of it. I’m quite speechless actually. If anyone knows what to make of it, please let me know.

“It’s that kind of book.”