by Matteo Persivale
Interview with the singer, who has been at the top of the best-selling record charts for decades: «I had so much anger against my father, who left. Work in Italy? Sounds like fun”
You’re so busy living your life that you don’t realize whether what you’re doing in that moment is that good, the level you’ve reached as an artist. You work, you move forward, one day at a time. In the studio, on the road, at concerts. Then you look back, and only then – later: in my case, much later – do you understand what happened, how much you influenced what was around you.”
Talking to Cher is an experience similar to watching the waves of the Pacific crashing on the beach a few meters from her villa in Malibu, where the far west of America and the world begins: the calm tone, of inevitability, a Zen serenity that reveals, even before asking him, his Buddhist faith.
Talk about “Phillip” (i.e. Phil Spector) and “Brian” (Wilson, the heart and mind of the Beach Boys, the American Gershwin) because you don’t add surnames to the names of your old friends, before world fame they were “two boys, like me” and of them he remembers “Phillip’s talent, incandescent, evident at first sight” and “Brian’s tranquility, who never got upset and always thought about his very special melodies”.
Now that he’s written a book (Dear – He remembers. Parte prima560 pages, Harper Collins), the publisher decided that “such an immense life” could not be contained in a single volume. And so here is only the first half of a career and a life out of the ordinary like the talent of Cherilyn Sarkisian LaPierre born in 1946 in El Centro, California, at the top of the charts of best-selling records for seven decades (a record). The second volume will be released in a year and this leaves us halfway through, when her friend Francis Ford Coppola suggests she go into cinema, thus opening the second part of her career.
There are many painful things in this book – the very poor childhood and the drunkard father who abandons her and her mother, the orphanage, the loneliness, and when success arrives, it arrives with her partner who mistreats her and robs her – «but There is no anger in me, much less a sense of bitterness. For years I have harbored a lot of anger towards my father, enough is enough. Was I angry? Certain. Not now. For this book I had to be the archaeologist of my life, and perhaps it helped me to be born in a house of women – my mother, my sister – who knew that life was not easy for anyone but women had obstacles more. Did you know that until the 1970s in America a woman couldn’t have a bank account or a credit card without someone – a man – vouching for her? I say this to the girls of 2025 and it seems like science fiction but that’s how it is, that was the world: it was a mess. What you were was defined on the basis of the husband you had, you were Mrs Taldeitali. Shocking, when you think about it.”
«WORK IN ITALY? IT LOOKS LIKE FUN. LIKE THAT VLTA DURING THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP WITH ZEFFIRELLI”
Bono forces her to sign a noose contract to perform in Las Vegas and get out of the swamp of that incredible bankruptcy. She writes in the book: “The realization that my husband would always put business before me and my feelings took my breath away. Suddenly I was angry, scared and felt completely trapped.”
Music – even hers – contributed to changing things, however, also for women in those ’60s. “True, but I didn’t realize it at the time, there was too much going on at once.” The portrait he paints of Sonny Bono, husband and mentor and author of many songs and half of the duo Sonny & Cher (him always first), is not flattering: he made all the money disappear, at the top of the charts Cher found herself with a son in I arrive and no money. «If I look back I don’t see Sonny as a bad man, in the book I told the truth without filters but he was my friend, my colleague, and he gave me a son. He just stole all my money, that’s it. I’m still arguing with his widow (he died 26 years ago, ed.). How much money is it? An astronomical figure, 11 million dollars at the time, I don’t even want to think about how much money it would be today (he made calculation 7: around 120 million dollars, ed.). Does he know that I finally asked him, why did he steal everything from me? Because I knew you would leave me, he replied.”
At least Bono gave her songs, a son, friendship. The record industry?
«Those are good, now the internet has arrived and has dug the grave for us artists, streaming services pay a pittance. Now for me digital is just a platform for doing new concerts, the money is there now, other than streaming.”
One thing we don’t know about her?
“Going on stage scared me, I had stage fright.” The consolation of the years of declining popularity, before the cinema and the Oscar revived her career? «The gays. When the rest of the audience had abandoned me, they stayed with me. I don’t know the reason, perhaps they perceived that I was an outsider, like them. But I haven’t forgotten this: they have always been there for me.”
What does 2025 look like to you?
“It seems to me that we all need someone else’s support, a sense of community, so that we are not alone.”
Any previews of the second volume?
«It still needs to be put down in black and white, but you know that Bewitched by the moon that relaunched me came out by miracle? To the producers it seemed terrible: what is this stuff they asked the director, poor Norman Jewison who was really very good instead. To me it seemed like a special film, Nicolas Cage who at the time was not yet the star that he later became seemed to me every day on the set to be of absolute skill and intensity: Nicolas is a genius, write it, and I don’t use this word easily. Yet the studio that produced the film wanted to trash it, it seemed pointless to send it to theaters. It went out by mistake, because they had nothing else there that month and so they used it to plug a hole.”
She likes cinema for the sense of family, of complicity that is created on the set: «You Italians are my compatriots, I have always felt close to you. Working with you and with you is always a spectacle, work doesn’t feel like work but becomes fun. Do you know what time I had the most fun on set? In Italy, during the processing of One has Mussolini by Franco Zeffirelli. We did everything you don’t do on a Hollywood set: we laughed, we joked, we had very long and delicious lunches, where the wine flowed freely. It’s a beautiful film that wasn’t appreciated as much as it deserved, it needs to be rediscovered, Franco was very keen on it because it was very autobiographical: with me there were Maggie Smith, Joan Plowright, Judi Dench and Lily Tomlin. And when does a cast like this happen again? Fabulous actresses. But do you know what the most beautiful, unforgettable thing was? There was the World Cup that summer and Franco, who was crazy about football, one day said enough, let’s close everything and go watch TV, Italy is playing. So, in complete tranquility, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. With Maggie, Joan, Judi and Lily we looked at each other in amazement and started laughing, laughing, laughing.”
WHO IS’
LIFE
Aka Cheryl Sarkisian, Cher was born in El Centro, California on May 20, 1946. Her father was an Armenian refugee who worked as a truck driver. When her parents divorce, Cher experiences a period of great economic difficulty with her mother.
THE CAREER
Together with Sonny (Salvatore Bono), he released his debut album Look at Us in August 1965, which achieved enormous success. Despite mixed fortunes, their career continues, also enriching itself with participation in television shows. Meanwhile, Cher begins her solo career.
AT THE TOP
With over 100 million records sold, Cher is a pop culture icon. She received two Oscar nominations, winning for Actress in a Leading Role for Moonstruck (1987). She can boast at least one song at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in six different decades, from the 1960s to 2010. Her Believe is the best-selling single by a female singer in England
January 13, 2025
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