| SONNY AND
CHER (ARTIST BIOGRAPHY)
Sonny & Cher
were an American rock and roll duo, made up of husband and wife team
Sonny Bono and Cher in the 1960s and 1970s. They were among the
first hippie personas with mainstream appeal.
Cher first met Sonny Bono in a Los Angeles coffee shop in November
1962, when she was sixteen. Sonny was already twenty-seven and
working for record producer Phil Spector at Gold Star Studios in
Hollywood. The two became fast friends, eventual lovers, and later,
husband and wife. Through Sonny, Cher (as she was called early on
for short) eventually got to sing back-up on several of Spector’s
classic recordings, including the monumental “Be My Baby” by the
Ronettes.
With Sonny continuing to write, arrange and produce the songs, Sonny
and Cher’s first incarnation was as the duo “Caesar and Cleo”. They
received little attention. They later re-emerged as “Sonny and Cher”,
and released their first album Look at Us in the summer of 1965.
This album contained the overnight smash and eventual number-one
single “I Got You Babe” (1965). Cher was nineteen years old. Several
more top forty hits would follow, most famously “Baby, Don’t Go” and
“The Beat Goes On.”
The two became a quick sensation, travelling and performing around
the world. Periodic solo releases continued during the Sonny & Cher
days, including a major success with “Bang Bang” for Cher in 1966.
They did become briefly controversial in Los Angeles for siding with
the young people being harassed on the Sunset Strip; as a result,
they were removed from their promised position of honor in the
Tournament of Roses Parade in January of 1967[1].
In an attempt to capitalize on the duo’s success, Sonny penned their
first feature film (themed similarly to The Beatles’ Yellow
Submarine) Good Times in 1967, in which the duo starred. The film
was a flop.
Sonny and Cher’s career had stalled by 1968, as album sales quickly
dried up. Their gentle, easy-listening pop sound and drug-free life
had become unpopular in an era becoming increasingly consumed with
the psychedelic rock that came with the overall evolutionary change
in the landscape of American pop culture during the late 1960s.
Sonny and Cher also welcomed their first child, Chastity Bono, born
on March 4, 1969. The duo made another unsuccessful foray into film
later in 1969 with Bono writing and producing the film Chastity,
intended as a dramatic debut for Cher as an actress. That film (directed
by first and only-time director Alessio De Paulo) was also a
commercial failure.
In 1970, Sonny and Cher starred in their first television special,
The Sonny and Cher Nitty Gritty Hour. A mixture of slapstick comedy,
skits and live music, the show was a critical success, which led to
numerous guest spots on other early 70’s hit television shows.
Sonny and Cher caught the eye of CBS head of programming Fred
Silverman while guest-hosting on The Merv Griffin Show, and
Silverman offered the duo their own variety show. The Sonny and Cher
Comedy Hour debuted in 1971 as a summer replacement series. It
returned to primetime later that year and was an immediate hit,
quickly reaching the top ten. The show received numerous Emmy Award
nominations throughout its initial four seasons on CBS. The duo also
revived their recording career, releasing four albums and charting
two more top ten hits: “All I Ever Need Is You,” and “A Cowboy’s
Work Is Never Done” (1972).
Sonny and Cher’s dialogues were patterned after the successful
nightclub routines of Louis Prima and Keely Smith: the
happy-go-lucky husband squelched by a tart remark from the unamused
wife. The show featured a stock company of zany comedians, including
Freeman King, Ted Ziegler, and Murray Langston (later The Unknown
Comic on The Gong Show). One sketch satirizing CBS’s detective show
Cannon and its portly star William Conrad was so successful that
Sonny and Cher staged several follow-ups, with Tony Curtis as
“Detective Fat.” Everybody in these sketches wore wide-waisted “fat
suits” (similar to hoop skirts), so Detective Fat and his clients
and his suspects would spend most of the time bumping each other and
bouncing across the crowded room.
By the third season of the Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour in early 1974,
the marriage of Sonny and Cher began to fall apart; the duo
separated later that year. Therefore the show also fell apart, while
still in the top 10 of the ratings. What followed was a nasty and
very public divorce (finalized on June 27, 1975).
Bono launched his own show, The Sonny Comedy Revue, in the fall of
1974, retaining the “Sonny and Cher” troupe of comedians and writers.
Cher also announced plans to star in a new variety series of her own.
Critics, surprisingly, predicted that Sonny would be the big winner
with a solo comedy vehicle, and didn’t hold much hope for Cher’s
more musical showcase. After only six weeks, however, Sonny’s show
was abruptly cancelled. The Cher show debuted as an elaborate,
all-star television special on February 16, 1975 featuring Flip
Wilson, Bette Midler and special guest Elton John. Cloris Leachman
and Jack Albertson both won Emmy Awards for their appearances as
guest-stars a few weeks later, and the series received four
additional Emmy nominations that year. The first season ranked in
the Top 25 of the year-end ratings.
As a result of the divorce, Sonny and Cher went their separate ways
until Cher attended the opening of one of Sonny’s restaurants in
something of a reconciliation. The Sonny & Cher Show returned in
1976, even though they were no longer married. After struggling with
low ratings through 1977, Sonny and Cher finally parted ways for
good. Sonny went on to an acting career and later entered politics,
eventually becoming a U.S. Representative, Cher continued a
successful singing career.
The couple made two surprise impromptu reunion performances: the
first in 1979 on The Mike Douglas Show and the second in 1987 on
Late Night with David Letterman where they performed their hit song
“I Got You Babe”.
On January 5, 1998, Bono died of injuries after hitting a tree while
skiing at the Heavenly Ski Resort near South Lake Tahoe, California.
He was 62 years old. Bono’s death came just days after Michael
Kennedy died in a similar accident. Bono’s widow, Mary, was elected
to fill the remainder Congressional term. She has since been
re-elected in her own right. She continues to champion many of her
late husband’s causes, including the ongoing fight as how to best
save the Salton Sea.
Cher gave a tearful eulogy at Bono’s funeral, after which the
attendees sang the song “The Beat Goes On.” His final resting place
is Desert Memorial Park in nearby Cathedral City, California, the
same cemetery in which Frank Sinatra was laid to rest later that
same year. The epitaph on Bono’s headstone reads: “And The Beat Goes
On.” |
