When I last left off in my Cher blog, it was the end of the 70s. She was twice divorced and her record career had stalled. So, what do you do when you aren’t selling records? You reinvent yourself as an actress. At the age of 36 (often considered “old” in Hollywood), Cher starred in the Broadway production of Com Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. She received critical praise and later starred in the film version. She appeared in Silkwood as unglamorous lesbian – showing us a completely different side of Cher. For the role, she received her first Oscar nomination and won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress that year.
Oscar rumors started again when Cher as the biker mom of a severely disfigured boy in the film Mask. She held her own in The Witches of Eastwick alongside acting heavyweights Jack Nicholson, Susan Sarandon, and Michelle Pfeiffer. But, it would be a romantic film with Nicholas Cage that would finally win her an Oscar. Cher won the 1988 Best Actress award for her role in one of my favorite movies, Moonstruck.
By the late 80s, Cher had decided to get her music career back on track and made a comeback with the hits “I Found Someone, “We All Sleep Alone,” “If I Could Turn Back Time,” and “Just like Jesse James.” At the age of 43, Cher found one of her videos almost banned on MTV due to her revealing, see-through outfit.
Outside of a few hits in 1990, Cher laid low for much of the early 90s. She reportedly had the Epstein-Barr virus, which caused her to take time off. She released an album of covers in 1995 and starred in Faitful with Ryan O’Neal in 1996. She served as the co-executive of a groundbreaking HBO show about abortion called “If These Walls Could Talk.” In 1998, she lost the man she called “the most unforgettable character I’ve ever met,” Sonny Bono. By 1998, Cher was on top of the charts again with her hit “Believe.” The same year, she wrote her first memoir “The First Time.”
By 2003, Cher had decided to go on her farewell tour. The only problem is the Living Proof tour lasted so long because it was such as success that it later became known as the Never Can Say Goodbye Tour. It ran from June 2002 until April 2005, eventually grossed almost $200 million dollars being made into a television special.
After a long farewell tour, did you really think Cher was giving up? In February 2008, she announced that she would be performing over 200 shows a year Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Since the show opened in May 2008, it has gotten enthusiastic reviews and appeared at #2 on Billboards Top Grossing Concerts Chart.
So, like I said, many of today’s singers/actresses owe a lot to Cher, a woman who has had a successful music career through five decades and won many awards for her acting, including an Oscar.