Cher

Pop Goes The Wor ld

At a recent concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of “Saturday Night Live,” there was one performer in particular who brought the stars tudded crowd to its feet. And she wasn’t some flashon- the-pan T i k T o k personality who will be forgotten in 10 years. The singer who made many men in the audience visibly captivated by her performance was a woman who rose to fame decades before the current cast members of SNL were not even thought of.

That singer was Cherilyn Sarkisian LaPierre, known to the world as Cher.

The 78-year-old entertainer wore a bedazzled black bodysuit, similar to the one she wore in the music video for “If I Could Turn Back Time,” which is the song she chose to sing at the anniversary concert. The video was so scandalous at the time it was released in 1989, it was only played during certain hours on MTV. In the video, Cher cavorted with sailors on board the USS Missouri, straddled a cannon, and showed off her tattooed buttocks, all in view of her 12-year-old son, Elijah Blue Allman, who is seen playing guitar.

Though she may not have the moves she had 36 years ago, she certainly looked like she had indeed turned back the clock. Of course, Cher has been tinkering with her face and figure for many years and owes most of her well-preserved looks to a squadron of plastic surgeons. Her famous contralto doesn’t have the same resonance it had during the pinnacle of her pop stardom, but she can still belt out her hits with reasonable finesse.

I have been a Cher fan since I was just a little girl. I envied her long black hair and would sometimes put tights on my head and pretend I had long, cascading locks like Cher. To the embarrassment of my family, I chose to do this outside in the yard for all the neighborhood to see.

Cher rose to fame as one half of the singing duo Sonny & Cher. Cher was married to Sonny Bono for 11 years. They scored many hits in the ‘60s, made one movie together, and eventually became stars of their own TV variety series. When Cher divorced Sonny, accusing him of “mental slavery,” she was worried that she would be forgotten. When she expressed her fears to her friend, Lucille Ball, Ball told her that she was the one with all the talent.

In the years following the divorce, Cher became known for her fleeting relationships, most notably to musician Greg Allman, whom she married in 1975, mere months after her divorce from Sonny Bono. True to Lucille Ball’s words, Cher’s star rose while Sonny Bono’s began to fade. While Sonny was making appearances on shows like “Murder, She Wrote” and “Love Boat,” Cher was making serious attempts at establishing herself as a respected actress. In 1982, she appeared in the Robert Altman film, “Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean.” A year later she starred with Meryl Streep in “Silkwood.” She received serious Oscar buzz for her role as the mother of child with a severe genetic facial deformity in “Mask” and when she wasn’t nominated for best actress, she showed up at the ceremony in a towering black feathered headdress and a two-piece black ensemble by Bob Mackie that showed off her well-toned abs. In 1988 she won the Oscar for her role as Loretta Castorini in “Moonstruck.” Again, she chose a skin-revealing beaded black gown by Mackie for the ceremony. I remember calling my friend Jamie and the two of us squealing, “Our girl won! Our girl won!”

All the while, Cher was maintaining her career in music, and had a monster hit on her hands with her 1989 album “Heart of Stone.” She was in her mid-40s then and some may have considered her a relic of another era. The album sold 4 million copies worldwide. At this time Cher was dating Rob Camilletti, a man 20 years her junior who was dubbed “Bagel Boy” by the tabloids because he worked at a bagel shop when Cher met him. She dedicated the album to him and he appeared in the music video for the song “We All Sleep Alone.”

For a period in the early 1990s, Cher appeared in paid advertisements on TV promoting hair care products, and became somewhat of a joke on late night talk shows. In the 1995 film “Clueless,” the main character, Cher, and her best friend, Dionne, are “named after famous singers from the past who now do infomercials.” (At the time, singer Dionne Warwick was the paid spokesperson for the Psychic Friends Network.)

Defying all odds, Cher autotuned her way back up the charts in 1998 with the song “Believe,” which topped the charts in 23 countries.

In 2003, Cher embarked on a “farewell tour,” and my friend Stephanie and I caught her show at the Roanoke Civic Center that year. It was a visually stunning and loud concert in which the then 59-year-old singer kept the sold-out crowd entertained for two hours without any signs of fatigue. I’m 54 and I’m so tired after an hour-long shopping excursion at Walmart, I need a solid two-hour nap afterward.

No one has ever called an upcoming performer “the next Cher,” because Cher is her own unique entity who will never be duplicated. She will never languish in obscurity because she always has a second act up the sleeve of her beaded black mesh Bob Mackie designed gown.