Cher (47 page)

When King asked her, “You’d give up part of your career for this?” Perot replied, “Now don’t do that Cher. But I would love to have your help” (186).

In 1992 Cher was again up on the silver screen, in a major hit motion picture, Robert Altman’s wildly successful
The Player
. Starring Tim Robbins,
The Player
is a refreshingly delightful murder mystery set in Hollywood. While actors like Whoopi Goldberg and Lyle Lovett play detectives trying to solve this intentional death of a screenplay writer, a virtual “who’s who” of real Hollywood celebrities appear as themselves. It became
THE
film to be seen in that year, and Altman’s scene-stealing cameo stars included Burt Reynolds, Steve Allen, Jayne Meadows, Harry Belafonte, Shari Belafonte, Anjelica Huston, Marlee Matlin, Rod Steiger, Jeff Goldblum, Lily Tomlin, Andie MacDowell, David Carradine, Jack Lemmon, Susan Sarandon, Julia Roberts, Bruce Willis, Sally Kirkland, and Cher.

In
The Player
, all of Hollywood has turned out for a gala event calling for everyone to dress in “Black & White Only, Please.” Naturally, it is Cher who, in
Jezebel
-like fashion, is the one star who shows up in flame red. In a low-cut, tattoo revealing, fire-engine-colored, beaded designer gown, she comes sweeping up to the event. Cher is seen three times amid the plotted action at this black & white only event. Cher’s one audible line is uttered to her date that evening, actor Peter Gallagher. She turns to him and says, “Well, are we having fun yet?” In a later scene shot at the same event, Academy Award–nominated actress Sally Kirkland is viewed chatting with Cher.

According to Kirkland,

In that scene from
The Player
, we are seen on camera together, talking at a Hollywood event. During that scene, I took that as an opportunity to congratulate her about the Oscar. That was the first time I had seen her since that big night at the Academy Awards, and it was my moment to congratulate her. While the camera was on us in
The Player
, we were probably talking about holistic or spiritual things, because we both share that in common (70).

In spite of all of her high-profile activity in the United States, at this point Cher had completely cooled off on the record charts. Between the stripped-down “grunge rock” sound coming out of Seattle and the 1990s resurgence of back-to-basics country music, the kind of hard-rocking power ballads that Cher had recorded on her three Geffen Records albums was suddenly passé. However, she was still huge news in Great Britain and Europe. In December of 1992, Geffen Records released her first hits compilation,
Cher’s Greatest Hits 1965–1992
.

The British-only sixteen-song album was such an extraordinary look at Cher’s career that it became one of the most sought-after import albums in the United States. The album featured eight of her biggest hits from her three Geffen Records; her rocking duet with Meatloaf, “Dead Ringer for Love”; two of her biggest hits on MCA, “Dark Lady” and “Gypsys, Tramps and Thieves”; and her trademark Sonny & Cher anthem, “I Got You Babe.” In addition, it contained the biggest European hit of her long career, “The Shoop Shoop Song,” and three previously unreleased songs—each of which went on to become British hit singles during this same period of time. When
Cher’s Greatest Hits 1965–1992
was released in Britain, it debuted at Number 1, echoing the Number 1 chart entry of her 1991
Love Hurts
album. It seemed that in England, Cher could do no wrong.

Not long after “Could’ve Been You” had failed to become a major hit on either side of the Atlantic, Cher and her new manager Frank DiLeo parted company. Unfortunately, he was unable to point her career in an upward direction on the music charts. By the time that
Cher’s Greatest Hits 1965–1992
was released, her long-time business partner Bill Sammeth was credited in the liner notes as being her manager.

The three new songs were “Oh No Not My Baby,” “Whenever You’re Near,” and “Many Rivers to Cross.” “Oh No Not My Baby” had originally been a 1964 hit for Maxine Brown and was written by Carole King during her initial 1960s streak of songwriting magic at the Brill Building in New York City. Cher’s version of the song is the perfect follow-up to “The Shoop Shoop Song.” Cher has always done very well when she is reinterpreting classic songs from the 1960s, particularly those songs that were written and arranged with girl singers or girl groups in mind. Cher has in the past interpreted “Rescue Me,” “It’s a Cryin’ Shame,” “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” and “Baby I’m Yours.” Her single version of “Oh No Not My Baby” went to Number 33 on the British charts. “Many Rivers to Cross,” which was originally written and sung by Jimmy Cliff, was recorded live at the Mirage during her TV special in Las Vegas, and
went to Number 37 on the British charts in January of 1993.
Cher’s Greatest Hits 1965–1992
became the biggest-selling European album of her entire career. According to her, “It came out in Europe. It went, I don’t know, gazillion Platinum. But it also had the biggest song I’ve ever had, ‘The Shoop Shoop Song’ ” (61).

On February 16, 1993, Cher was in London, where she accepted an award for the Artist Formerly Known as Prince, who was named Best International Solo Artist at the twelfth annual BRITS Awards. The event was held at Alexandria Palace. On March 6, her single “Whenever You’re Near” made it to Number 72 on the British pop charts.

With all of her radio and record sales success in England, Cher’s career had drastically shifted. Instead of being looked at as a classy Academy Award–winning actress, she was seen as more of a living tabloid soap opera star. Stories like “Cher Stricken by Terrifying Mysterious Illness” (
National Enquirer
, July 4, 1989), “Cher Finally Finds Lover Her Own Age—Rock Star Eric Clapton” (
Star
, August 13, 1991), and “Cher Bounces Back from Devastating Disease” (
National Enquirer
, August 13, 1991) seemed to define her public career more than her music or her acting. This is all without even mentioning the headlines that her daughter, Chastity, was creating during this era. Headlines like “Cher’s Lesbian Daughter Chastity in Late-Night Catfights with Gal-Pal Roommate” (
Star
, December 11, 1990) presented a whole new angle for keeping Cher’s name on tabloid covers.

It was also impossible not to notice the excessive plastic surgery and appearance-altering work she consistently had done to herself during this era, including an increasing number of tattoos. One couldn’t help but notice that the face and the image of Cher began to evolve in the early 1990s. Thankfully, she didn’t become a grotesque-looking clown, like Michael Jackson, but her work on her body seemed to be veering out of control. In 1989 she had admitted, “I had my nose done. I had my tits done. I wore braces. I’m not embarrassed to say stuff that I’ve had done, because I don’t care what people think about it” (119). However, it didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to discover that she didn’t just stop there.

Whenever she was questioned about her plastic surgery, however, Cher tended to become very defensive—as though, like the tale of “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” no one was supposed to notice that she had spent the last ten years acquiring a brand new face. “I don’t know why people are preoccupied with my cosmetic surgery,” she said in amazement in 1990.

I really don’t. It mystifies me that people would care what I do to my body. I remember when I was young, all the people that were popular—Sandra Dee and Doris Day—were people I really couldn’t identify with. So then you feel inhibited and you feel ashamed, or you feel less good because you don’t look in style, so I think what you have to do is create your own style (8).

In the early 1990s Cher had her teeth capped, which drastically changed the shape of her mouth. Then, to top it off, she began to have her lips puffed up via the current new fad with Hollywood actresses, collagen injections. An entire generation of her fans, who had grown up loving her unique jagged-tooth smile, were suddenly seeing Cher as someone entirely different than the woman American television audiences had once fallen in love with.

And then there were her tattoos, which everyone had ample opportunities to see through the skin-revealing fashions she wore. Most prominent on Cher’s body was a large tattoo on her left upper arm. It was an artist’s drawing of a necklace with a heart-shaped pendant, which was tattooed on to look like it was draped on her arm in a nonconcentric fashion.

According to Cher, her favorite tattoo parlor at the time was one called Red Devil. It is an all-female “inking” salon, located on La Brea, in Los Angeles. “I don’t know why I like tattoos so much,” she said at the time. “I know it’s crazy. I can’t defend them. I’ve had some of my tattoos for 20 years. I love getting them. The women at Red Devil do piercing too. Now, I’m really frightened of piercing. That seems so extreme—like noses and lips and belly buttons and nipples and tongues” (8).

In 1992 and 1993, the physically revised Cher embarked on one of her most ill-timed and ill-chosen career moves, that of TV product spokeswoman. First of all, there was her print and television advertising campaign. Sunday newspaper coupon supplements were full of photos of the puffy-lipped new-nosed Cher selling a sugar substitute. “There’s Sugar, the Pink Stuff and Equal. I Choose Equal” said the headline of the coupon-bearing advertisements. (“The Pink Stuff” refers to Equal’s sugar-substitute competitor and manufacturer, Sweet & Low.)

According to Russ Klettke of NutraSweet, the company approached Cher about doing the ads. Cher had used Equal in one of the recipes in her 1991 book with Robert Haas,
Forever Fit
. “We read about it in a review in
People
magazine,” he revealed. “She’s known to speak her mind. What she says, people basically believe it. And when you’re working with a celebrity, you want people to believe it” (187).

Bill Reishtein of the advertising agency Oglivy & Mather explained that the agency had passed on the idea of having Cher sing in the ad. Instead they took the plain-talk approach. What television audiences didn’t see on camera was professional reporter Jeanne Wolf of TV’s
Current Affair
interviewing Cher and prompting her straight talk. Of not getting to see Cher sing or act in the ad, Reishtein said at the time, “People see that all the time. They know she does those things. What they don’t get to see is her being a real person talking. That’s the most interesting part of the commercial” (187).

Time and time again, in the beginning of 1990s, Cher’s energy was zapped by the effects of the Epstein-Barr virus. She found that her glands were swollen and that her immune system was shot. She was on a regimen of antibiotics, and for a two-year period, she was up and down with exhaustion. Still, she kept dragging herself out of bed and launched herself into project after project. When offers, like the Equal non-sugar sweetener campaign came around, Cher viewed them as easy, quick, and painless ways to make large chunks of money.

In the fall of 1992, while all sorts of celebrities were seen selling cosmetics and other items on stations like QVC and the Home Shopping Network, Cher too tossed her hat into that ring. She was seen over and over again on television selling her own line of Lonely Hearts jewelry, based on her new necklace tattoo.

With the spread of cable and satellite television feeds in the 1990s, there were more TV stations than ever before. Television programming known as “infomercials” started gaining popularity, and programming frequency. In the early 1990s American television audiences were suddenly bombarded by several celebrity-driven half-hour- or hour-long television commercials made to look like informational variety shows. Dionne Warwick reportedly made a huge amount of money on her phone-in fortune-tellers hotline
The Psychic Friends Network
. Victoria Principal of TV’s
Dallas
made a huge income selling her Principal Secret cosmetics. Ali MacGraw, Meredith Baxter, and Lisa Hartman sold Victoria Jackson cosmetics. Mary Wilson of the Supremes and Davy Jones of the Monkees teamed up to sell CDs of 1960s pop music. It was only a matter of time before Cher became involved.

Cher has a friend in Los Angeles who is a hairdresser, Lori Davis. Davis was getting ready to launch her own line of shampoos, hair conditioners, and hairsprays, and she had the money to film an infomercial. With several celebrity clients in Los Angeles, Davis asked Cher if she
would be the celebrity hostess on an infomercial produced to sell her hair-care products.

Cher’s agent, Ronnie Meyer, tried to talk Cher out of doing the commercial, as it might hurt her career to suddenly be selling shampoo on late-night TV. Cher rationalized that it was a quick, easy way to collect a paycheck, and so she agreed to do it. On the infomercial, in a living room setting, Cher conducted a “girls talk” session with Lori Davis and two of her best friends. In the context of the infomercial, Cher would ask Lori about different hair-care problems, and—naturally—Lori had some expensive product in her hair-care line to address just that problem.

In Cher’s mind, it seemed quite simple. After all, she had done TV commercials for health spas, what difference could this make? Unfortunately, she didn’t realize that these infomercials were going to be run on several television stations, over and over and over. One minute Cher was a hard-rocking, Oscar-winning superstar. The next minute she was hawking shampoo on late-night TV.

David Letterman razzed her mercilessly on his TV program.
Saturday Night Live
especially skewered her in a comedy skit parodying the Lori Davis Hair Products infomercial. Their version featured late comedian Chris Farley, in full drag and a wig, as the rotund Davis. In an instant of poor judgment, Cher had suddenly turned her career into a joke. Her credibility was suddenly shot. The movie offers came to a screeching halt.

Cher was later to look back on this period of her life as though she’d broken a mirror for bad luck. She was officially amid seven years of career bad luck. She made jokes about how she should have tried selling something more “meaningful” than shampoo on TV, something substantial like the Planet Hollywood theme restaurants. “Well there wouldn’t have been a problem had I not done the infomercial,” she said.