Cher (38 page)

I took a studio on lower Broadway in New York and the whole cast worked together for about two weeks. If one of the actors in the film was also doing a play across town then someone else would read their lines while they were gone. At one point, Cher might be reading the dialogue of her mother in the film while someone else would be reading Cher’s lines. In time, everyone knew not only their lines, but the lines of everyone else. This created a family-like atmosphere, which was very important to the film. I wanted to get to the point where all of the members of the cast
talked
alike, because that’s the way families are in real life. . . . I wanted it to look on screen like these people
belonged
together. . . . As you watch the film, you can see the mother’s character in Cher’s character. I must say that it has been a long time since a family of mine really felt like a family (148).

When she first read the script, Cher was not certain if she could convincingly become the character of Loretta. “As much as I liked it, it wasn’t like
Mask
, which I felt I just had to do. I was a little frightened because there seemed to be all kinds of possibilities and all kinds of risks here” (149).

In the film, Loretta goes through a metamorphosis, from ugly duckling to graceful swan. As with her own life, Cher was used to playing the swan. Instead of enjoying portraying the glamorized Loretta the most, she claimed, “But I much prefer playing her ‘before’ than ‘after.’ . . . The freedom is not interesting to me because that’s something I know usually. Yet I don’t think of her as being constrained, exactly. My idea was to play her more as bossy and controlled” (149).

Writer Shanley admitted that he was a bit startled when he first heard that Jewison wanted to cast Cher as Loretta. “Norman talked over his choices with me before any offers were made,” he recalled. “Though I didn’t have her in mind when I was writing the script, Cher couldn’t be more perfect for the role of Loretta. . . . she’s a very game actress and has allowed herself to look dowdy for some of this film.” Before the film was released, he claimed, “The film will look great because the casting is right on the money” (150).

Originally, the character of Ronnie had the last name of Paolo in the script. However, when they were scouting locations in Brooklyn, for the bakery where several key scenes take place, they discovered the real-life Cammareri Bros. Bakery. It was one of the few in New York City that still used a coal-fueled basement oven. The site was too perfect, so rather than paint the bakery a new sign that read “Paolo,” Jewison changed the characters’ last name to Cammareri. While they were filming in the bakery, a real-life patron of the bakery barged in and demanded a loaf of bread. Recounted Jewison, “I said, ‘Were trying to make a movie here,’ and he says, ‘I don’t care what you’re trying to make here! I came all the way from Wall Street and I want my bread!’ I said, ‘Allright, Cher, get the man his bread’ ” (151). By the time they were done shooting the scene, Cher and Jewison sold eight dollars’ worth of fresh-baked bread for the bakery!

In the film, the characters seem to be believably Italian in their accents and their mannerisms. In several cases, this is a sign of good acting,
because two of the principal players didn’t have a drop of Italian blood in their veins. Cher, of course is Armenian/Native American, and Olympia Dukakis is Greek. According to Cher, having been married to Sonny Bono had given her a taste of what traditional Italian American families were like, not only the camaraderie but the conversational banter as well. “It kind of reminded me of Sonny’s family. Everybody eating and talking and shouting, but you have such good times” (149).

One of the reasons that Cher and the other non-Italian actors were so adept and believable with their accents was the help of Julie Bovasso, who acted as dialogue coach on the film. Bovasso was also the actress who played the part of Cher’s aunt, Rita Cappomaggi, in the film.

In the plot of the film, Cher’s character Loretta is proposed to by Johnny Cammareri (Aiello), at the neighborhood Italian restaurant, The Grand Ticino (which is an actual restaurant in Greenwich Village—at 228 Thompson Street between Bleecker and Third Streets. If you go there, you will note that the movie’s exterior shots of the restaurant were not filmed at the actual restaurant, as it does not occupy a corner location). Johnny promises to marry Loretta in exactly one month, as he is about to fly back to Italy to see his dying mother. His parting wish is that Loretta look up his estranged younger brother, Ronny (Cage), and invite him to the wedding. When she shows up at Cammareri’s Bakery to meet him, she finds him impassioned with jealousy and grief.

Much to her surprise, there is instant chemistry between her and Ronny, and they make love in a fit of passion. The following morning the two of them wake up in Ronny’s bed, shocked by what they have done. Ronny professes his love for her, and Cher’s most memorable line comes when she slaps him across the face twice and commands, “Snap out of it!” Of this particular scene, director Jewison explains, “One of the best moments in the picture was ‘Snap out of it!’—where she gives him two slaps. People were doing that [mimicking the film scene] in living rooms. It is the best kinetic moment in the picture, because of the way it’s built” (152).

The next night, when the full moon comes up over Brooklyn, all sorts of lunacy occurs. Loretta’s father takes his girlfriend to the opera, Loretta’s mother flirts with Professor Perry at The Grand Ticino, Loretta’s uncle and aunt rekindle the flame of their romance, and Ronny takes Loretta to the Metropolitan Opera to see
La Bohème
. Obviously smitten by Ronny’s attention, Loretta precludes seeing the opera with a trip to the local beauty parlor for a complete makeover and the department store for a bewitching red dress.

One of the most moving scenes in the film is that in which tears well up in Loretta’s eyes as she sits in the Metropolitan Opera House watching Puccini’s touching
La Bohème
. The opera itself is so emotional that it is easy to imagine Cher watching the opera, reacting to the tragic plot-line, and crying. However, in reality, the scene was shot with Cher, Cage, and a handful of “extras” staring at an empty stage, with director Norman Jewison telling Cher what was happening in the opera and her reacting to his words.

According to him, “The opera itself on stage we shot much later, and in another country [Toronto, Canada], in a different theater. So, I actually talked them [Cher and Cage] through the opera when they were reacting to it. In other words, I said, ‘He’s reaching out and he’s going to take her hand,’ and I played the opera in the background. . . . It was like shooting a silent movie” (152).

Said Cher of this most famous of Italian operas,

And, of course, Nicky knew it really well, and Norman knew it really well, and me not knowing anything. Me being the cultural deficient that I am, I didn’t know it. And we sit down, and the music starts playing and Norman starts explaining it, and he was doing such a great job of explaining it and the music was so fabulous that the scene really worked. I couldn’t help from crying. I really like the way I cried in it, too. I think that it is my best work. And then, when we were finished, Norman was crying. So, I figured, “Well that must be pretty good.” And that was a complete instance where if you look at Nicky, in that he is totally playing it close-to-the-vest. There’s no overacting there (152).

Some of the other magical moments in the film are provided by the character players who surround the center action. Included on this list are the crazy old lady at Kennedy Airport who puts a curse on her sister’s airplane and Loretta’s grandfather (Feodor Chaliapin) and his dogs. Ironically, on screen Cher’s character of Loretta was having an affair with Ronnie, the Italian baker. Amidst filming, every night she would go back to her apartment, to Robert, her Italian bagel baker. It was still another case of life imitating art, imitating life!

When
Moonstruck
was released, Cher volunteered to do anything she could to drum up publicity for the film. She was confident that this movie represented some of her finest work on camera, and she gave interview after interview to let people know about the film. “When we did
Moonstruck
,” she was later to say, “MGM wasn’t behind it 100 percent. And
so I did everything I could put my hands on. I don’t think I’ll ever do as many interviews again. I don’t feel like being violated. I just feel everyone knows enough about you” (119).

In between filming
Witches of Eastwick
and beginning work on
Moonstruck
, Cher had only one day off. Her third of three consecutive films in a row came with the courtroom drama
Suspect
. She had only one week off between filming
Moonstruck
and filming
Suspect
. This film had another well-known Australian director, Peter Yates, who is best known for his work with Steve McQueen in the detective action drama
Bullitt
. Her asking price for working on this film reportedly exceeded a million dollars.

Yates was well aware of Cher’s dual personality: her need to be appreciated as a “serious actress” and her public persona as a human mannequin. According to him,

Anyone who could be a personality and wear those clothes and who is also a serious actress has to be schizophrenic. I suppose [she has] a great need to be looked upon as a personality. But I just don’t think she wants to take on the look of a serious actress in private life if she doesn’t feel like it. It would be phony. And Cher has a strong detection against the phony (22).

Again Cher found herself in a film with an impressive cast, including Liam Neeson, Dennis Quaid, Joe Mantegna, and
Moonstruck
alumnus John Mahoney. Mahoney later found widespread fame in the 1990s as Kelsey Grammer’s grumpy father in the TV series
Frasier
.

The role of Washington, D.C., defense attorney Kathleen Riley was a stretch for Cher. The film called for her to really rein in many of her natural instincts. Kathleen was neither bawdy, kooky, nor eccentric. She was a very straight and narrow, serious lawyer on a murder case. This was not the kind of role that one would naturally think of as a “Cher” role, which was obviously part of the appeal of accepting it.

Cher’s character Riley is defending a mute homeless person (Neeson) who is suspected of murder. Against her own better judgment, she begins a personal relationship with one of the jurors, Eddie Sanger (Quaid). It seems that Sanger has evidence pertinent to the case, and Kathleen is torn between the likelihood of being disbarred for even associating with him, let alone sleeping with him. The plot thickens further when Kathleen discovers that the judge on the case has a strong personal motive for obstructing the truth about the case.

The director was thrilled with Cher’s instincts for truly connecting with the character she was playing. According to Yates, “For instance, in the interrogation scene when she’s facing Liam Neeson’s character, the way that speech starts softly, builds, holds that long pause. A lot of people would have gone on without a pause. With Cher’s ‘Kathleen,’ she is fighting an emotion, and it feels more honest. That is really what people do” (22).

He was also very impressed with her professionalism on the movie set. “She has a wonderful memory,” Peter Yates claimed. “I’m dyslexic too, and I understand the enormous compensation that goes on with it. When you play in a courtroom drama, you have very long scenes. When other actors blow it, they typically blame the lighting, their costume, whatever. When she blew it, she’d just scream, ‘Come on Cher! What the hell do you think you’re doing’ ” (22).

When
Suspect
was released, it was the most un-Cher performance of her film career. It was a fascinating stretch for her to behave like a very focused defense attorney, on a case that could bring her triumph or ruin her entire legal career. She delivered a very believable and focused performance. However, she was the one who was the most disappointed with the results. She was later to complain, “It was disappointing. In my effort to be really real, I was really boring. I wasn’t embarrassed but I wanted it to be more” (119).

Cher was later to state of this era, “You know I’ve covered the whole world in the last couple of years. I made three movies back to back” (115). Indeed, she had done exactly that—a trio of the best films in her career—in one year. Not since the 1930s and the old Hollywood star system had an actress made so many important career-making films in such a short period of time. As each of these three films was prepared for 1987 release, Cher’s career was about to launch itself into the stratosphere.

11

MOONSTRUCK

In the time that Cher had been busy establishing herself as an actress, Sonny Bono had branched out a bit too. Since the end of their last television show together,
The Sonny & Cher Show
in 1977, he had taken several different acting roles on television and in movies. He sold a series idea to NBC-TV, called
Murder in Music City
. However, after the pilot was shot and run, the plug was pulled on the actual series. He acted in a miniseries called
Top of the Hill
and made appearances on shows like
The Love Boat
and
Fantasy Island
.