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One of the best-loved and most enduring entertainers of the past three decades has written stories about some of her "first time" experiences in THE FIRST TIME (Simon & Schuster; November 20, 1998; $25.00). Having lived through many incarnations, including star-struck Valley girl, pop music sensation, television comedian, Las Vegas diva, Academy Award-winning actress, and blossoming film director, Cher offers a series of frank, funny, and poignant stories about many of the notable firsts in her life-from her first memory to her first encounter with Sonny Bono to her first acceptance as an actress.
Born Cherilyn Sarkisian, Cher grew up in Los Angeles where her mother found employment playing small roles in movies and on television (including I Love Lucy). Probably as a result, Cher caught the show-business bug early on. As a young girl, she showed a growing passion for music and theater, making her first public performance in a fifth-grade production of Oklahoma, which she also directed. And since one of her earliest memories was of seeing her first movie (Dumbo), it's not surprising that films helped to shape her life. In fact, she says that her first role model was Audrey Hepburn-simply because she wasn't a blonde.
Having inherited her Armenian father's dark, exotic looks, Cher admits that she often felt like an outsider. Also contributing to this feeling was the fact that she had difficulties with her schoolwork, trouble that stemmed from her undiagnosed dyslexia; it wasn't until years later, when her own daughter, Chastity, began having problems in school, that Cher's own condition was recognized.
Those personal conditions became less of a problem later, of course-especially after she met Sonny Bono, the person who was to be such a great influence in her life. She first met him at age sixteen, in a coffee shop where radio people hung out. About that first encounter, Cher writes: "I ...thought, 'That's the strangest man I've ever seen in my life,' because Sonny was Sonny long before we were Sonny and Cher. He had this weird hairstyle, somewhere between Caesar and Napoleon. He was wearing a mustard-colored shirt with white collar and cuffs, a mustard tie, tight black mohair pants, and black Cuban-heeled boots. I was fascinated by anything different, and I was fascinated by Sonny from the moment he walked through the door. And I actually thought to myself, 'Something is different now. You're never going to be the same.'"
Within a few weeks of this first meeting, Cher moved in with Sonny, and at first it was strictly a business arrangement: she lived with him rent-free in exchange for cleaning his apartment. Sonny even told her, "I don't find you terribly attractive." The relationship between them gradually changed, and as soon as she turned eighteen, they performed their own wedding ceremony in the bathroom of their home, telling everyone they'd gone to Tijuana to get married. Acting as her mentor, he introduced her to the famous record producer Phil Spector, who gave her the chance to cut her first records. (She was a back-up singer on Be My Baby as recorded by the Ronettes, and on You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling by the Righteous Brothers.) By 1965, Sonny and Cher were a popular act on the West Coast, known for their outrageous fashions-most of them designed by Cher-as well as for their renditions of Sonny's original songs. Cher says that at first she was so nervous that she couldn't face the audience, and would sing while looking directly at Sonny.
They enjoyed their first taste of success when I Got You Babe became a best-selling record. After a trip to England to promote the record-so successful that I Got You Babe knocked the Beatles off the top of the British charts-Cher returned to the United States to experience her 'first fifteen minutes of fame.' It lasted slightly longer than that, but within a few years, she and Sonny were considered old fogies and experienced their first fall from grace. Having to perform in third-rate clubs, out of desperation they developed the comedy routines that eventually led to their first television show, The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, which quickly became an enormous hit.
When Sonny and Cher split as a couple, they continued the show for a while, before Cher finally struck off on her own. She began a troubled relationship with 'bad boy' Gregg Allman, a rock musician, and eventually they married-although Cher says that she knew the marriage was a mistake right after the ceremony. When the marriage ended, Cher found herself now a single mother with two children and a load of debt, and out of necessity she created a solo show for Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, where she was a huge hit. But she grew frustrated with her status as a 'celebrity,' and decided to go for broke as an actress.
She moved to New York, where a chance phone call by her mother to director Robert Altman led to a role in the Broadway production Come Back to the Five & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. After director Mike Nichols caught her performance, she was offered a part in the film Silkwood, playing opposite Meryl Streep, for which she received an Oscar nomination as best supporting actress. She quickly graduated to starring roles in such films as Mask (for which she won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival), The Witches of Eastwick, Suspect, and Moonstruck, and it was for this last performance that she won an Academy Award as best actress. It was around this time that Cher began dating Rob Camiletti, a young man from Queens. Not only did she find him attractive ("He had the most handsome face I'd ever seen."), but she says that in addition, "He was the most well-adjusted person I'd ever met. He was just healthy and normal, like a 1940's man."
In recent years, Cher has continued to face new challenges. Always a supporter of women's rights, she recently directed one segment of a three-part film about abortion called If These Walls Could Talk, which got the highest ratings ever for an original HBO movie. Writing of this first-time experience, Cher says, "It was so exciting for me-there was an unbelievable amount of satisfaction. Whenever you try something new, there's always the chance that you're going to be embarrassing. But I was better than I thought I'd be. Not as good as I'd like to be, but I'm on my way."
For Cher, life continues to be a matter of 'firsts,' and in THE FIRST TIME she allows the many people who have followed her climb up the various ladders of success to see what the view was like from her side. The stories she tells are frank, funny, surprising, occasionally outrageous, sometimes sad, and always completely honest-just like Cher herself.