Cher (4 page)

“I don’t answer to anyone except myself,” she insists.

I can be very independent if necessary, and most of the time, I am. Basically, I think I’m a lot more moral than most people. I don’t do drugs and I don’t drink—I’ve spoken out against them over and over again—and I think you must have a meaningful relationship with somebody, even if it’s your dog. I don’t think I really care if what I’m doing makes sense to everybody else. If it makes sense to me, that’s all that’s important (6).

Simultaneously, her ex-partner, Sonny Bono, had a post-Cher life that was as event-filled as that of the diva-in-the-making he had once married. He had found stardom with Cher, dressed as a Bohemian hippie in bobcat fur vests in the 1960s, yet by the 1990s he had transformed himself into a conservative Republican congressman in Washington, D.C. He had gone from singer to restaurateur to successful actor in
Hairspray
to become the mayor of Palm Springs, and finally to the halls of Congress. Although they had reunited once in 1988 on network television, Sonny and Cher’s once-inseparable friendship was strained at best. While Cher at first reluctantly embraced their daughter’s lesbianism, it was Sonny who easily accepted the news. Although since the 1970s they had been estranged and combative with each other, Sonny’s life and Cher’s life will forever remain interwoven.

And yet, with all that is known about Cher, there are so many unanswered questions. What was the truth about Cher sleeping with Warren Beatty when she was a teenager? What happened the night Cher saved the life of a drugged-out rock star at a Hollywood party? To what ends did she attempt to get Gregg Allman off of drugs? What role did Jackie Kennedy play in turning Cher into a
Vogue
magazine fashion model? How did Cher react when her daughter Chastity was “outed” by the tabloid newspapers, and then publicly “came out”? How did Cher feel when she heard the news of Sonny Bono’s death—having spoken scathingly of him for years? Why have Cher and Sonny Bono’s widow, Mary Bono, gone from “sisters in sorrow” to bitter enemies? The breakup of Sonny & Cher, who left whom? And, who was having the most extramarital affairs at the time of their top-rated television show? What is the truth about Sonny Bono being on prescription drugs at the time of his fatal skiing accident? Exactly what plastic surgery has Cher had done to herself in a constant race against time and aging? What are Cher’s insecurities? What is behind the obsession with her looks? What was the reason behind Cher’s affair with openly gay record-company executive David Geffen? Did she hope she could make him go straight? In the 1980s, when Cher would have done anything to become a serious movie star, to what ends did she have to go? Which movie directors did Cher
love, and which ones did she hate? Is she a pain in the ass to work with? What drove Cher to appear in those dreadful infomercials in the 1990s, the ones that nearly ruined her career? Cher made her brilliant return to movies in 1999 in
Tea With Mussolini
. What was her big gripe with director Franco Zeffirelli? Was Cher’s eulogy at Sonny Bono’s funeral from her heart, or was it just a brilliant opportunity for her to gain publicity? What went into Cher’s un-“Believe”-able 1990s comeback? This biography will help to explain these mysteries, and the appeal of this one-of-a-kind pop icon.

For Cher, the story of her life, and of her brilliant career, has just begun. She has experienced vast heights of achievement and lived through low points of creative inactivity, but through it all she has remained true to only one person, herself. She is a triumphant survivor in a cutthroat business. She is a clever woman who can be defined by only one word: Cher!

2

CHERILYN SARKISIAN

About ten miles from the Mexican border and nearly a hundred miles east of San Diego lies the decidedly unglamorous little town of El Centro, California. The town is comprised of plain little houses made of stucco, nestled in the heat and dust of the desert—population 19,000. An unlikely spot for the birthplace of one of the most dazzling figures in show business, this is where Cherilyn Sarkisian was born, on May 20, 1946.

The daughter of a teenager named Jackie Jean Crouch and her often absent husband John Sarkisian, Cherilyn was named after Lana Turner’s little girl Cheryl. Jackie Jean, who had aspirations of becoming an actress, later changed her name to Georgia Holt, and to date has been married eight times—three of those marriages were to Cher’s father. According to Cher, “Even though my mother was married a whole bunch of times, I don’t really remember very many times when there was a man in the house” (6).

When Cher was born, her mother could not even afford to take care of her. There was no such thing as daycare for the babies of working mothers, so Cher was placed in an orphanage for several weeks until her mother could save up enough money to support a child. “Honey, I worked in an all-night diner from seven at night until seven in the morning for $3.00,” explained Holt. “I boarded Cher in a Catholic home at the time. I got a singing job in the Manilla Bar & Grill—a real dump—but in 1946 it paid $75.00 a week. That was a lot” (7).

Georgia was later to reveal, “That mother superior was a bitch to me. She wanted me to put Cher up for adoption. I would go over and look
through this little window, and Cher would be standing at her crib crying. I didn’t know how to buck authority them. But now, boy, I’m telling you, I’d go through that woman so fast she wouldn’t know what hit her” (8).

John Sarkisian was not around when Cher was a little girl; in fact, she doesn’t remember meeting him at all until she was eleven years old. “I hated him,” she later recalled of her first encounter with her father. Following a stint in the Coast Guard, Sarkisian worked as a truck driver and became addicted to heroin. Explained Sarkisian, “I really didn’t spend much time with her when she was a kid. I was away from home most of the time hauling produce. I’d only see Cher now and then because her mother, Georgia, was married several times in between all that. And, Georgia always told me that it was better if I stayed away” (9). He eventually ended up serving four prison terms for drug possession. In the 1970s, when Cher was asked about her father, she flippantly replied, “I don’t even know what he’s doing, but it’s probably nothing legal” (10). He unsuccessfully sued her for slandering him, and their relationship rarely changed. He developed lung cancer in the late 1970s, and he and Cher spoke on the phone before he died, but he was more of a transient character in her life than a parent who was actively involved in her life or childhood development.

Cher’s exotically dark features come from her varied ethnic background. Her father was Armenian; her mother was part Cherokee Indian. Georgia later married a man named John Southall and had another daughter, Cher’s half-sister Georganne. Explains Holt, “Both Cher and Georganne were adopted by my fifth husband, Gilbert La Piere. He loved the girls. His name, of course, was French. At the time Cher married Sonny, her legal name was Cherilyn La Piere. But I can’t seem to convince Cher we aren’t French” (11).

Both Georgia and Georganne were fair-skinned and blonde, while Cher’s coloring was darker. According to Cher, “My mother once told me something. ‘Don’t ever expect to be the most beautiful, the most talented, or even the youngest one around. But, what you do have is something special. Make that work for you” (12).

According to Georgia, her eldest daughter has been plagued by lifelong insecurity about her looks. “I think Cher felt she was an ugly duckling,” says Holt. “She never believed she was pretty. Of course, I never believed I was, either. My mother was highly critical of me, and even to this day I can’t own beauty. Maybe that’s what it is with Cher. She can’t own it, either” (8).

Georgia Holt (Jackie Jean Crouch) was born in Arkansas, and when her alcoholic father separated from her mother, they headed west for California. Georgia and her father picked up money along their way by performing and passing the hat from town to town. Georgia would sing, and her father would play the guitar. After they arrived in Los Angeles, Georgia found a job as a maid, although she was only thirteen at the time. Energetic and determined to get ahead in life, she managed to hold down the job and attend junior high school.

My father lived long enough to see Cher become a star. We sat together when she appeared at the Hollywood Bowl. He kept telling me, “That’s you up there, Jackie, that’s you!” I loved my father dearly. He had tremendous drive to be a somebody, to accomplish things. He never did. But I always told myself I was somebody—even when I cried myself to sleep as a maid. Since they were youngsters, I have told Cher and Georganne they were princesses, and I was a queen. They believed me. And I believed myself (11).

When she moved with her two daughters back to Los Angeles from El Centro, she changed her name to Georgia Holt and began making the rounds, looking for work as an actress. While she was out meeting casting agents, Cherilyn would baby-sit for her younger sister. Says Cher,

I used to take care of “Gee” [Georganne] when my mother was working. One time I gave her a little toy car and she ate all the wheels off it. My mother came home and beat the hell out of me. I guess our life was strange. It wasn’t like
The Donna Reed Show
or
Father Knows Best
. But my mother was real open and liberated. She was a combination of Auntie Mame and Florence Nightingale (13).

“Cher was very good with Georganne,” her mother recalls, “We always had a lot of fun together when I got home. We moved around a lot, but the girls had birthday parties, nice clothes, and a real home to live in—not an apartment” (14).

According to Cher, her first memories of her childhood date back to when she was four years old. She remembers playing hide and seek with Maria, the Mexican girl who would look after her while Georgia was working. She recalls to this day getting lost one afternoon in the wooded area near their house in Laurel Canyon, and panicking.

It was around that same time that Cher recalls making her first trip to the cinema and into the magical world of the movies that opened up to
her. The first movie she saw was the Disney film
Dumbo
. The theater was the famed Hollywood Boulevard landmark Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Cher claims that she was so entranced that when she had to go to the bathroom, she simply stayed in her seat and wet her pants rather than miss a moment of the movie.

She was hooked on cinema dreams. “That was the first time I ever thought whatever is inside this dark room is really what’s happening. I don’t care that much for what’s outside. It was then and there that I knew what I wanted to be” (15). From that one experience, she became obsessed with the idea of becoming an actress.

Cher also remembers her mother and stepfather arguing. According to her, “My mother hated it when my father drank because it threw everything into turmoil. When they started arguing, I’d get sent to my room, but I could still hear the violent yelling. I hated those fights. They made me a nervous wreck at [the age of] four” (16).

When she was four years old, her grandparents, whom she called Mamaw and Pa, purchased their first television. Cher recalls being fascinated with the images she saw on it. When she was five, her mother got the family’s first TV set, a maple cabinet with a black and white screen, and she recalls being fascinated by the movie
One Million B.C
. She fell head-over-heels in love with the movie’s star, hunky Victor Mature.

Cher’s other set of grandparents, Grandma Lynda and Grandpa Charlie, were her mother’s parents. Grandma Lynda was only thirty-two years old when Cher was born. Grandpa Charlie worked for the Johnson Pie Company, and Cher recalls him bringing home samples from work. She still remembers the chocolate cream pie that he brought home one day as the best she has ever had.

Although Georgia Holt never became a star, she managed to land several small parts in films and on television.

No man ever paid me alimony or child support, so there I was a young mother with two small girls. I began working again in bit parts in television and movies. I worked as a cocktail waitress for a hundred dollars a week and hated it. It was the same feeling I had when I was a maid. But I had to feed my children. I was given a wonderful part in [the movie]
Asphalt Jungle
. My agent called to tell me it was mine. But later he told me a girl named Marilyn Monroe had been given the part. I had leads in the
Ozzie & Harriet
TV show, which was a big deal after doing one-liners on other programs. But I wouldn’t go the casting couch route, so my career never did get rolling (11).

Georgia did several television commercials to make ends meet, and often took Cher and Georganne along with her. “David Janssen used to hold Cher on his lap when she was three—I couldn’t get a babysitter—and when I did the old Ed Winchell/Speidel Watch commercials” (7). Holt remembers getting Cher and Georganne little walk-on parts on TV.