Gay Icons - The Divas: Cher, part 2 & This Week's Statistics

Hello again! We’ve left Cher in a tough spot: during the mid-70s her hits dried up. But those who were quick to write her off ignored her great resilience and capacity for reinvention.

Cher had always had an affection for gay people.  In a recent interview with GLAAD ahead of the release of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, Cher revealed that she met gay people for the first time when she was 12 years old and living with her mother, Georgia Holt. “I came home from school and there were these two guys in our living room,” Cher recalled. “They were talking to my mom and her best friend, and they were so happy and excited about everything they were talking about, so animated.”

The icon elaborated, saying that their energy and general enthusiasm was so infectious that she began emulating them from that early age. “I thought, ‘These guys are much more fun than the regular men that come over to visit,’” she said. “And I didn’t know that they were gay, but I just thought ‘These guys are great,’ and it all started from then.”

Yes, Cher did love gay people. It’s no surprise then that she would dip her toes in the gay people’s favorite music at the time, disco. Her two albums for the Casablanca label were let down by weak material – the title track of the second, however, is a triumph: Take Me Home is a funky, lushly arranged disco anthem, pitched perfectly between melancholy yearning and sleazy one-night-stand-hunting lust. It gave Cher her first top 10 hit and gold record in the US in 5 years – and became one of the most successful disco songs. Here it is:

The amount of genre-hopping that Cher did would cause lesser artists whiplash, but Cher had no problem. After her disco excursion, she would turn into a rock goddess and duet with Meat Loaf on Jim Steinman’s Dead Ringer For Love (1981), a top 5 hit in the UK and Ireland. This is it:

She followed it up with a flop album that essentially minted the AOR style that would lead to Cher’s resurgence five years later, I Paralyze (1982). The title track is something else entirely – an intriguingly odd collaboration with former Shadow John Farrar, filled with weird chord changes and seasick-sounding brass. This is it:

After the lack of success of I Paralyze, Cher took a five-year hiatus from music. Don’t worry, she didn’t sit at home and mope: as well as being the first and original Cougar, by having high-profile relationships with several younger hot leading men, like Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Richie Sambora, and her long-time lover, Ron Camilletti, she also focused on her film career, which really took off in the 80s.

This time, she did it properly, not banking on her image as a pop star as she did in the 60s. In fact, she debuted on Broadway in Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean - and received rave reviews.

So, when Robert Altman decided to do a movie version of the play, he cast Cher, along with seasoned actresses like Sandy Dennis, Karen Black, and Kathy Bates. Cher managed to stand out. Here is a scene from the film:

A year later came Cher’s big chance: to work with Mike Nichols and Meryl Streep in Silkwood (1983). Her role was that of Meryl’s lesbian best friend. It was a triumph for all three: they all received Oscar nominations. Here’s a scene from the film:

In 1985 she starred in Peter Bogdanovich’s Mask. It is my favorite role of hers. Here’s a scene from the film:

1987 was a great year for Cher: she starred in not one, but three successful movies: first came George Miller’s (of Mad Max fame) The Witches Of Eastwick, a fantasy/horror comedy, in which she starred alongside such superstars as Jack Nicholson, Susan Sarandon, and Michelle Pfeiffer. Here’s the film’s trailer:

Then there was Peter Yates’ courtroom drama Suspect, in which she starred alongside Dennis Quaid and Liam Neeson. Here’s the film’s trailer:

Finally – and most importantly – she starred in Norman Jewison’s romantic comedy Moonstruck, heading a cast that included Nicolas Cage, Vincent Gardenia, Olympia Dukakis, and Danny Aiello. The film was nominated for six Oscars and won three: Best Screenplay, Supporting Actress (Dukakis), and… Cher walked away with the Oscar for Best Actress. Watch her receive the Oscar and pay attention to what she’s wearing. It shocked many at the time – but would eventually be regarded as one of the most memorable Oscar dresses of all time.

Here’s a scene from the film:

After her Oscar win, Cher decided to return to music. She would still make movies but they would be few and far between. In 1990 she starred in Mermaids, having Bob Hoskins, Winona Ryder, and a very young Christina Ricci as her co-stars:

She had cameo parts in two Robert Altman films: The Player (1992) and Prêt-à-Porter (1994). Here’s a scene from the latter:

Cher was never afraid of being overshadowed by other women: in Franco Zeffirelli’s Tea with Mussolini (1999), she worked alongside such heavyweights as Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Joan Plowright, and Lily Tomlin. Here’s a scene from the film:

In 2010 she starred with Christina Aguilera in Burlesque. Here’s Cher singing You Haven't Seen the Last of Me:

Finally, last year, she re-teamed with her friend Meryl Streep and all the others in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. Here she is, with her very own rendition of Abba’s Fernando, duetting with Andy Garcia:

Back to 1987: Cher returned to the charts with a bang. I Found Someone is a big, irresistible guitar-driven ballad. It made the top 10 in the US, the UK, Ireland, Australia, and #12 in Canada:

She followed it up with We All Sleep Alone, the kind of 80s soft-rock anthem that sounds inexplicably moving when you hear it in the back of a taxi at 3am. The Bon Jovi-penned song confirmed Cher’s musical renaissance, peaking at #14 in the US and at #27 in Canada:

After All, teamed up Cher with former Chicago frontman Peter Cetera. Not as immediately effective as her best power ballads, it still has a certain emotional oomph. It was a big hit, peaking at #6 in the US and at #5 in Canada:

Then came two of her best singles, both in 1989: Diane Warren’s If I Could Turn Back Time is a song built to transcend its booming period production, making it a classic. Plus, the groundbreaking video was filmed on The Queen Mary with hundreds of USNavysailors. She wore a sexy see-through outfit that wooed the public and redefined what a woman in her forties can do. The song was her biggest hit in more than 15 years, peaking at #1 in Australia, #2 in Canada, #3 in the US, #4 in the Netherlands, and #6 in the UK and Ireland.

Her follow-up, Just Like Jesse James, is equally good. It is a restrained single by Cher’s late-80s standards; an extremely well-polished bit of songwriting and a rare air-punch-inducing power ballad that resists the temptation to turn everything up to 11. It was also a huge hit:

In 1990, Heart Of Stone was a mid-table hit:

A few months later, Cher released a remake of the Betty Everett 1964 classic, The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss). It was a mid-table hit in the US and Canada but a really huge hit in Europe (UK: #1, Ireland: #1, Austria: #1, Germany: #3, Switzerland: #4, the Netherlands: #5) and Australia (#4):

Her follow-up, Love and Understanding, was another sizeable hit for Cher:

Her next single, Save Up All Your Tears, previously released by Bonnie Tyler and Robin Beck, did make the top 40 for Cher, both in the US and the UK:

Many of Cher’s singles during the period 1991-1996 were remakes of older hits, some more successful than others. Among the not-so-successful were Boudleaux Bryant’s Love Hurts:

… Carole King’s and Gerry Goffin’s Oh No Not My Baby:

… and Jimmy Cliff’s Many Rivers to Cross:

Among the more successful were the Judds’ Love Can Build A Bridge, on which she shared credit with Chrissie Hynde, Neneh Cherry, and Eric Clapton. The single was a #1 hit in the UK:

… her version of Marc Cohn’s Walking In Memphis was a #11 hit in the UK:

… and her version of Anthony Griffiths’ One By One (a 1990 Irish hit for Johnny Logan) was a #7 hit in the UK:

In the list of improbable pop collaborations, Cher performing a song specially written for her in 1995 by Prefab Sprout’s Paddy McAloon has to rank pretty high. But The Gunman works; a sumptuous, sophisticated ballad, decorated with vocoder backing vocals and early-70s soul touches.

Also in 1995, Cher’s then daughter, Chastity Bono, came out as a lesbian and went on to be the President of GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation).

Recognized as one of the LGBT community’s most vocals advocates, Cher was invited as the keynote speaker for the 1997 national Parents, Families, & Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) convention. She was also honored with a GLAAD Vanguard Award in 1998.

In 1998 came her umpteenth artistic reinvention – this time as a purveyor of pumping electronic dance-pop. In its prominent use of the then-new Auto-Tune audio processor as a vocal effect, Believe also has claim to be one of the most influential singles in modern pop.

Believe reached number one in countries including Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States. It earned Cher a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest female solo artist to top the Billboard Hot 100 chart and became the highest-selling single by a solo female artist in the United Kingdom. It is one of the bestselling singles, with sales of over 11 million copies worldwide. It also earned Cher a Grammy.

The follow-up, Strong Enough, riding on the coattails of Believe, also achieved big success:

The next two singles followed the law of diminishing returns. They were mid-table hits in Europe. There was All Or Nothing:

… then came Dov'è L'amore:

Not.com.mercial (2000) is an anomaly in Cher’s catalog: an album of self-penned rock songs, from which a tribute to Kurt Cobain called (The Fall) Kurt's Blues comes. She delivers it all with a conviction suggesting that, when it comes to the isolating effects of fame, she knows of what she speaks.

In 2001 she collaborated with Eros Ramazzotti in Più Che Puoi:

Also in 2001, The Music's No Good Without You was a top 10 hit in the UK and in Canada:

In 2002, Song For The Lonely was a lesser hit:

In 2003 she duetted with Rod Stewart, covering the evergreen Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered:

We have already mentioned some of Cher’s romantic partners. The list also includes Warren Beatty, Eric Clapton, Les Dudek, KISS frontman Gene Simmons, New York Rangers’ Ron Duguay, Josh Donen, and Hell’s Angel Tim Medvetz.

By the end of the decade, while Cher was enjoying her second successful Las Vegas residency at Caesar’s Palace, her child underwent female-to-male gender transition. In May 2010, he legally changed his gender and name (to Chaz Bono), a decision Cher supported wholeheartedly and publicly.

“Cher truly out-gayed herself with this one,” offered one LGBT website of Take It Like a Man’s delightfully double-entendre-laden, robot-voiced Euro-disco stomp with guest vocals from Scissor Sisters’ Jake Shears. It was a #2 dance hit in the US:

Also in 2013, Cher released Dressed To Kill, a distorted bit of Daft Punk-y pop-house that really works:

After her successful appearance in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, Cher decided to further her relationship with Abba: she released a critically and commercially successful album of Abba covers called Dancing Queen (2018). It’s easy to speak of this album as a calculated ultra-camp gag by a gay icon, but her version of One of Us is anything but calculated. She digs into the song’s dark heart, stripping away the original’s bouncy rhythm to produce an anguished depiction of romantic despair.

As an epilogue to the story of an artist that is still very active after all these years, here are a few of her numerous awards: Cher has won a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, an Academy Award, three Golden Globe Awards, a Cannes Film Festival Award, a special CFDA Fashion Award, and a Kennedy Center Honors prize, GLAAD Media Vanguard Award, Billboard Music Artist Achievement Award, Billboard Icon Award, Blockbuster Entertainment Award, and the People’s Choice Award. The end of this story is yet unwritten. Hopefully, there will be much more to come.

Finally, these are our statistics; It was a good week, even though the visits were slightly fewer than those of the previous week. The new stories did OK but it’s the older stories that you all love to read. I rather like that.

As far as countries are concerned, most major players kept their percentages stable. Minor gains for the United States and Ukraine and minor losses for France. Otherwise, no changes.

Here are this week's Top 10 countries:

1. the United States

2. Russia

3. the United Kingdom

4. Australia

5. Germany

6. Canada

7. France

8. Ukraine

9. Greece

10. Italy

Here are the other countries that graced us with their presence since our last statistics (alphabetically): Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, Ghana, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Malaysia, Martinique, Mexico, Myanmar (Burma), the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Rwanda, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Trinidad & Tobago, Turkey, Uganda, the United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe. Happy to have you all!

And here's the all-time Top 10:

1. the United States = 33.8%

2. France = 16.2%

3. the United Kingdom = 11.3%

4. Greece = 7.6%

5. Russia = 2.8%

6. Canada = 2.0%

7. Germany = 1.99%

8. Australia = 0.95%

9. Italy = 0.87%

10. Cyprus = 0.77%

That's all for today, folks. Till the next one!