Cher admits she only got into acting as she 'couldn't get a job singing'
Cher is struggling to write her book. She’s been trying for a long while, but sighs: “It’s so impossible because I’ve lived too long and done too much.”
Producers are also trying to make a movie of her life, but they just can’t “squish it all in”. This is not a great surprise. At 77, with a six-decade career behind her, the Grammy-winning singer and Emmy-winning actress is still reinventing herself after her many comebacks. She says: “I’ve been written off in so many eras and then come back. And people always go ‘you always reinvented yourself’. And I thought ‘no I haven’t, I’ve just been out of work and then come back!’ But who’d have thought I’d have this album now. I’m older than dirt, so it doesn’t seem that this would be my time to shine. But in every decade there’s been a big hit record.”
Cher has just released her first ever festive album, titled Christmas, something she never thought she would do. Her 27th studio album, it includes catchy dance track, DJ Play A Christmas Song – which she says is determinedly “not Silent Night”.
Cher chats to super fan Rylan (BBC Studios/Andy Heathcote)Cher, who reveals she had her vocals whipped back into shape by her 96-year-old singing teacher, says: “It’s not your mother’s Christmas album. But I thought ‘What if people don’t get it? What if they just want Silent Night?’.”
It is not the first risk Cher has taken and for the mother of reinvention, it’s just another venture in the pursuit of fun. Cher is talking to megafan Rylan Clark in a BBC Two special, Cher Meets Rylan, to be screened tomorrow night. While shopping together in London, the presenter asks if she’s ever gone out in disguise. “Sure, I’ve had so many hair colours, I still go out in my jeans. I love wigs,” she says. But how much of Cher is the little girl who wanted to be a star and how much is the persona?
Cher, 76, holds hands with boyfriend Alexander, 36, as they head to dinner in LA
Cher poses in the 1970s (Getty Images)“I think they’re one and the same,” she admits, saying she was “Cher” from the age of five. She’s always loved the wardrobe, for sure. “We were poor growing up, so for me it was just amazing every time I’d go in for a [dress] fitting,” she says.
Born in El Centro, California, in 1946, Cher grew up with her Armenian-American trucker dad John Sarkisian and her former model and actress mother Georgia Holt. Cher had a rocky relationship with Georgia, who died aged 96 last December. When it comes to her grief, she is focusing on the positive.
“I wasn’t sad because she wouldn’t have wanted to be the way she was,” Cher says. “Sometimes it’s so weird, I go ‘oh I got to call mum’.... but I’m so happy that she can be herself again. My mum sang. My grandfather sang and played guitar. There was always music in our house. So she loves the album. Wherever she is, I know she loves it.”
Cher with actors Susan Sarandon, Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer on the set of The Witches of Eastwick (Corbis via Getty Images)Cher adds: “You know my mum was just an amazing, kick-ass woman, funny and talented, a crazy woman.”
Born Cherilyn, the singer admits both being two strong women sometimes caused “difficult times” between them. She says: “I ran away from home when I was nine. I took a horse with a friend. We saw this horse in a pasture so we got on and rode him for as long as the pasture lasted. And then I saw a train. I jumped in and I pulled my friend up. We kept going and then when it started to get dark, my friend Anita started crying. So I called my mum. ‘Mum, I’m in San Bernardino’ and she went ‘huh?’.”
She adds: “My mum had a five-year rule. ‘If it doesn’t matter in five years, it doesn’t matter’.
Cher and friend Elton John (Matt Baron/BEI/REX/Shutterstock)Cher believes her mother did instil good values, except for one old-fashioned piece of advice. “My mum said, ‘honey, why don’t you marry a rich man?’ and I went ‘Mum, I am a rich man’.” It was 1965’s hit I Got You Babe that made her a superstar as one half of Sonny & Cher. But she certainly never needed a man to succeed. She is now one of the world’s bestselling solo artists, as well as movie star, known for roles in Moonstruck (for which she won an Oscar for Best Actress), Mermaids and The Witches of Eastwick.
Yet Cher cannot look back on her life without talking about the aforementioned ex-husband Sonny Bono. She says: “I went to work at a candy store. I’m with my friends and somebody walks in and everybody goes ‘Hey Son, Son, Sonny – come and sit with us.’ I’m thinking ‘Who is this guy that everyone wants to sit with?’ And... I saw him. Everybody else kind of drifted away and I just thought – ‘he’s the most interesting person I have ever seen’.”
They married in 1964 and divorced in 1975, having one son Chaz Bono together. Cher has another son Elijah Blue with her second husband, rocker Gregg Allman, whom she married in 1975 before splitting in 1979. Cher’s relationship with Sonny was famously complicated, but she credits his help, during her BBC special. She says: “Without Sonny there just couldn’t have been Cher because I was like this loose energy, not focused, just a wild child. And I was also really shy.” She went on to get a cabinet full of accolades and a black book of celebrity friends, including Elton John and Meryl Streep.
Cher in one of her iconic daring stage outfits (ullstein bild via Getty Images)Cher says: “Once I was with Meryl Streep and she wanted ice cream and we were between Little Italy and Chinatown in New York. I said ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit dangerous here?’ “She said ‘oh it’s fine’. Then we see this big guy, and he’s attacking this girl. So Meryl just runs towards them, and the guy sees us. He turns around and he starts running towards us and I thought ‘oh we are gonna get killed!’. But we split up and he ran between us and we got the girl. He wanted her purse but she wasn’t giving it up and so he had ripped her blouse.”
Cher and partner 'not talking marriage' despite him gifting her big diamond ring
Her tale of saving people from New York muggers is just one in a life well lived. This is not a woman that needs to Turn Back Time to fix her regrets. But her success has not come without knockbacks along the way. She twice found herself dropped by record companies – and so took up acting... and won her Oscar.
Cher with Sonny in the 60s (Mondadori via Getty Images)“I got into acting because I couldn’t get a job singing.” she says, humbly. “Nobody wanted to know me. I’ve been dropped from two record companies. I always think of myself as a bumper car and when I hit the wall I just back up and go somewhere else.” Perhaps it is this ability to Believe in herself that has made her such a global treasure.
- Cher Meets Rylan, BBC Two and BBC iPlayer, tomorrow at 9pm.
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