Oscar Profile #415: Cher

Born May 20, 1946 in El Centro, California, Cherilyn Sarkisian, known professionally as Cher, has been a star in multiple mediums for over five decades. The daughter of a truck driver and a housewife, she left school at 16, had a brief relationship with Warren Beatty and met future husband Sonny Bono that same year.

Sonny and Cher’s music career took off with the number one hit song “I Got You Babe” in 1965. Cher made her acting debut in a 1967 episode of TV’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and appeared on screen for the first time in an unbilled appearance in that year’s Good Times. Married in 1969, the couple had one child, Chastity, now Chaz, born that year. That same year Cher starred in a film called Chastity written by Bono. They had a hit TV series with The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour that ran for three years from 1971-1974. It was nominated for Emmys for Outstanding Musical Series in all three years.

Sonny and Cher divorced in 1974. Cher married rocker Gregg Allman the day after the divorce was final. Their son Elijah Blue was born in 1976. In 1977, she legally changed her name to Cher. Her marriage to Allman ended in 1979. From 1979 to 1972 she was in residence at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.

Cher was taken seriously as an actress for the first time with Robert Altman’s 1982 Broadway production of Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean in a role she reprised for the film version later that year. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her performance, but it didn’t lead to an Oscar nomination. She had better luck with the following year’s Silkwood which brought her another Golden Globe nod and her first Oscar nomination.

A surprise winner for Best Actress at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival for Mask, Cher was again nominated for a Golden Globe but once again failed to receive an Oscar nomination. With three strong performances in 1987 in The Witches of Eastwick, Suspect and Moonstruck, she was once again nominated for a Golden Globe, this time winning. She was also nominated for an Oscar which she also won.

Having conquered the film world, Cher returned to touring as singer while playing just one on-screen starring role in the early 1990s in Mermaids. She then made cameo appearances in Altman’s The Player in 1992 and Ready to Wear in 1994 and her directing debut with TV’s If These Walls Could Talk in 1996. She was part of the all-star cast in 1999’s Tea with Mussolini and starred in her first screen musical, Burlesque in 2010. She had two additional periods of musical residency in Las Vegas from 2008-2011 at Caesars Palace and from 2017-2019 in a show that she also performs in Atlantic City.

Cher made an indelible impression on screen once again in 2018’s Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again and will next be seen in Artist in Residence now in pre-production.

Cher remains a cultural phenomenon at an age defying 72.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

SILKWOOD (1983), directed by Mike Nichols

Cher is completely deglamorized as Meryl Streep and Kurt Russell’s lesbian roommate in this biopic of nuclear power plant technician and labor union activist Karen Silkwood who was murdered in 1974. Forced to wash her face and hair and let it dry naturally, she was not permitted to wear makeup and given a wardrobe consisting of dowdy men’s clothes. Nervous about meeting Streep, the two became fast friends. Streep, fresh from winning her second Oscar for Sophie’s Choice, earned her fifth career nomination for this, director Nichols his third and Cher her first.

MASK (1985), directed by Peter Bogdanovich

Cher, who won the 1985 Cannes Film Festival award for Best Actress for her performance, has long considered her portrayal of the biker mom of the teenager with a massive facial deformity to be her favorite role. She later became the national spokesperson for the Children’s Craniofacial Association, the disease her character’s son (Eric Stoltz) suffered from. Although she would win the Oscar two years later, she long held resentment that she wasn’t nominated for her performance here. Bruce Springsteen’s music, not heard in the film’s initial release due to a contract dispute with his record label, was reinstated for the film’s 1994 rerelease.

MOONSTRUCK (1987), directed by Norman Jewison

Cher almost turned down the role for which won her Oscar, tired from having just completed The Witches of Eastwick and Suspect back to back and feeling that she wouldn’t be believable as a bookkeeper given her own lavish spending habits. She really didn’t think she was giving a good performance despite assurances to the contrary from director Jewison and her fellow cast members. Nicolas Cage was cast as her lover at her insistence even though he was 31 years younger than Danny Aiello who plays his brother. Olympia Dukakis, who also won an Oscar as her mother, was only 15 years her senior.

TEA WITH MUSSOLINI (1999), directed by Franco Zeffirelli

Cher made her singing debut in a non-concert film singing “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” in Zeffirelli’s autobiographical film of his upbringing by a group of elderly British expatriate women in Italy during World War II. Although billed first due to alphabetical order, she and Lily Tomlin have smaller parts than Brits Joan Plowright, Maggie Smith and Judi Dench. Vanessa Redgrave and Angels Lansbury were Zeffirelli’s first choices for the roles played by Smith and Dench, but Cher was his only choice for his portrayal of Smith’s nemesis, the wealthy American who turns out to be a philanthropic Jew.

MAMMA MIA! HERE WE GO AGAIN (2018), directed by Ol Parker

Cher is a total delight in her all too brief role as Amanda Seyfried’s grandmother in this superior sequel to the 2008 hit, which makes her, yes, Meryl Streep’s mother! Although she doesn’t have any scenes as Streep’s mother per se, she does appear in a pew in the church at the christening of her great-granddaughter as Streep’s character makes a beautifully done guest appearance as a singing ghost at the baptismal font. Cher’s singing of “Fernando” is one of the film’s highlights in this total charmer featuring delightful performances by Lily James, Hugh Skinner, Josh Dylan and Jeremy Irvine as the younger versions of Streep and Seyfried’s three fathers.