Playboy Interview: Cher

a candid conversation about glamor, divorce, marriage and divorce

We don't know what Cher has done for you lately, but she's improved Sunday nights for us.Around here, usually in rotten weather--which is usually--they were pretty grim. After sitting through not one but two TV football games, thrown into time warp by the shifting clusters of bodies in replays, buzzed by bloody marys and sections of The New York Times awash at our feet, we naturally enjoyed watching Marlin Perkins terrorize unsuspecting kudus and sell insurance with a penguin standing in his lap. After that, though, we were left with either "The Wonderful World of Disney," and certain coma, or the prospect of actually rejoining the living. But then one Sunday this year, in exactly such bad shape, we saw, instead of "Tonight: Fess Parker Hibernates," something else entirely. You probably saw it, too: Suddenly, there at the burnt-out end of the afternoon, right there, shaking it in our face, on television, was this half-naked--good Christ, it's Cher!--and there she was, boogieing right along next to the fine hallowed thighs of none other than Tina Turner, parting strands of sequins falling from her waist and curling in rhythm like long shining fingers round her own famous thighs. It woke us right up.

And a lot of other people, apparently. In contrast to Sonny's earlier and lamentable solo attempt, her show was an immediate hit that threatened to boot Br'er Disney out of the number-one Briar Patch for the first time in 15 years. In a splash of flesh and feathers, she appeared on the cover of Time and the issue sold faster than any before it ever had. And it certainly had to do with something more than a zap of innocent soft-core porn once a week on television. Everybody got interested in her, even people slightly embarrassed to admit it. She became another real-life soap opera for all of us to watch, whether we wanted to or not. Her life was measured out for us in Johnny Carson jokes and in strange telegrams on the covers of endless fan magazines ("'Cher's Sizzling Secret Love Affair with Beethoven Revealed!"). For a while, during her tug of love with rock star Gregg Allman, part of a real-life soap opera in his own right, solemn anchor men around the country reported to us daily on their whereabouts and the state of their psyches, as if it mattered, which it did.

But why Cher? And why now? She has been among us in various incarnations, we should remember, since 1965, when she and Sonny launched their string of hit singles with "I Got You, Babe." Her other contribution to culture back then--one that's still very much with us--was getting the teeny-bopper world into bellbottoms, which she wore everywhere, shocking the straights by doing so. She and Sonny were considered very hip for a while, let us also remember, until the acid blasts of the Airplane and the Dead made them seem a little, uh, quaint. That was when most of us lost track of them. They made two movies, "Good Times" and "Chastity"--during the making of which Cher became pregnant with the child of the same name, now six and beautiful and called Chas. The movies and their career bottomed out, so they hit the dread nightclub circuit, putting together the act that eventually became the "Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour," starring Sonny as the clown and Cher as the clever bitch vamp. It was a good enough act to keep them in prime time through several hard seasons, though by then their audience had shifted deep into the heart of straight middle America, where they were loved for being ex-hippies who, unlike so many of their own children, had seen the light and been saved. The show was chiefly unremarkable and their put-down Punch-and-Judy TV personae didn't wear very well in places where people were trying, God help them, to stumble toward some sort of liberation. Before she split from Sonny, Cher was to many of us mainly "--and Cher," gone from, our generation, safely tucked away on television, cheering up Iowa. Goodbye, good luck.

But then she was gone from Sonny, everybody was suing everybody else and it started getting interesting. In trickles from People and Rolling Stone, we watched the progress of her romance with David Geffen, hot-shot young head of Elektra Asylum Records. Then came the rock-'n'-roll party near the beach with a few members of The Average White Band: Some powder was passed and sniffed. It wasn't what it teas supposed to be; people started blacking out, one later died and Cher saved the life of another by walking him around to keep him conscious. Then Geffen was gone. It was now Allman, leader of a rock band trailed by a dark cloud of Sophoclean doom, rumored to be having his own problems with drugs. But Cher announced that his eyes were clear again and we were happy to hear that, hoped it was true. Then he did or didn't fall asleep with his face in a plate of spaghetti. Then they were married. Then they weren't. Cher was in hiding. Had there been a wedding-night freak-out? Perhaps, but a bulletin several weeks later announced they were making up. Wasn't this the stuff of great soap operas?

And isn't that probably why Cher rumors are traded like wheat futures in the pit of the commodities market? Not because she is the best or the brightest or even the most beautiful--although she can be stunning. It's because she is the perfect soap-opera heroine. Up from the streets and poverty in Los Angeles, with the love and help of Sonny, this once-plain girl became "My Fair Cher," beautiful, rich, famous and on television every week--proof to every teenage girl staring wistfully into a mirror that it can happen, that Cinderella sometimes does walk among us. Then she chucked it all, Sonny and series, while CBS executives screamed intheir sleep. Like Sister Carrie, Stella Dallas and Little Orphan Annie before her, she was going it alone. And she stuck it out, trying to lead the fast flash life--but doing it in a way that made you know she was a little vulnerable and a little sad amid all the fun. Perfect.

But was it even remotely like life?

In the midst of all the uproar, Cher graciously agreed to be interviewed, so we sent free-lancer Eugenie Ross-Leming and Assistant Articles Editor David Standish to talk with her at her home in Los Angeles. As it happened, they did so in separate sessions--not the worst accident in the world, as Eugenie reports:

"I was picked up at the hotel by Cher's PR person, who was driving a green Jag. We arrived at El Grande de Bono, got security-screened by some Munchkin voice at the gate intercom and I was greeted by Cher's exquisite secretary. We sipped coffee and munched on tasty Armenian goodies in a room reeking of heavy wealth--with Florentine doors, posh pillows, crystal chandeliers and first editions of Milton casually scattered about. Nothing nouveau about the villa.

"Upstairs, I found La Cher curled up on her emperor-sized bed, looking real little, real frail and real tired. The room had just been refurnished after a fire that had demolished it a few weeks back, a fire that had started while Cher was asleep here. It was now a cross between Moroccan seraglio and early Cherokee chic. I had to take off my shoes, because the invisible 'staff didn't want me to scuff the well-buffed wooden floors.

"Cher was almost wearing an Oriental negligee and lace bikini bottoms. As the afternoon progressed, the interview seemed more like two ladies rapping and swapping notions than anything else. We smoked, gossiped, while assorted people--Cher's sister, secretary, live-in governess--floated in and out with fashion bulletins and random hits of Hollywood news. Sort of a home for wayward women on the road to rehabilitation. At one point, secretary and sister interrupted the session: 'Can we get you anything from the store?' The store in this case turned out to be a fashionable Beverly Hills boutique, and Cher, in the tones of someone asking a friend to pick up a couple of packs of cigarettes, rattled off a shopping list that included a white coat 'with some fur and silver trim,' three Chinese-silk suits, some T-shirts and jeans and several denim boots 'for dancing.' Just routine. 'What are they wearing in Chicago now?' Cher asked. 'Where did you get those earrings?' 'I'll pick you up a pair,' I offered. And asked, 'What size curler do you use to friz your hair?' We ended up rapping in pidgin French. 'I would voulez to have quelque Coca-Cola. This humidity is un bummer. Quel drag.' The whole thing was like a reunion of refugees from the showbiz wars reminiscing about such passing fancies as death, drugs, divorce, angst and psychotherapy. Her last line to me was, 'Catchya later, babe.'"

Adds Standish:

"The sessions I sat in on were slightly more formal--she was dressed and we spoke in English. Increasingly as we talked I was struck by how normal she is, in the best sense of the word. Good is another one that went flashing by. She is just tying to get throughit, with as much grace and decency and wisdom as she can muster--just like all of us--and she is, finally, much more a kid cruising the Strip than a bombshell glamor queen who commands blazing headlines. But still, with full knowledge that the soap opera could take another several turns before this interview was published, we had to start by asking her about all that."

[Q] Playboy: What's going on with you, anyway? First we hear you're enjoying the single life; then we read that three days after your divorce from Sonny went through, you married Gregg Allman. Then, nine days later, that you were divorcing him for reasons that got heavier with every rumor. Finally, we hear you're reconciling. What really happened?

[A] Cher: Gregg had two problems that I thought were solved before we got married; two problems I just couldn't live with. When I found out that they weren't solved, I decided on divorce. When Gregg realized I was serious about divorcing him, he set about to change them. And by getting into Gregg's problems, I found out that in some ways my head is on backward, too. Romance and work are great diversions to keep you from dealing with yourself. So now Gregg and I are exploring things together as friends as well as man and wife.

[Q] Playboy: What were Gregg's two problems?

[A] Cher: It's too dangerous to our relationship for me to say what the problems were. One thing I can say is that it's hard to be Mr. Cher. He wasn't used to having 75,000 reporters and cameramen show up everywhere we went. Even when we were having a private talk in Buffalo about reconciliation, the press broke in. It was really a drag.

[Q] Playboy: Putting aside Gregg's problems for the moment, do you expect your life to calm down a bit now?

[A] Cher: Well, every day in my life seems to be an experiment. Like, you can try to make something right--you think if you close your eyes and click your heels three times and say, "There's no place like home," you'll end up in Kansas. But that's bullshit. If things turn out to be a bust, we may go through with the divorce after all. Marriage is such a hassle; it's just a label to wear so that people can figure out how to relate to you. It has nothing to do with the real relationship between two people. Signing a paper didn't make me feel any closer to Gregg. It was like when Sonny and I got married--the first time, I married us in the bathroom.

[Q] Playboy: What?

[A] Cher: Performed the ceremony, got the rings and all of this, because we couldn't get married legally while lie was still waiting for his divorce. I didn't feel more married to him later, when we finally had this preacher come in and say, "You are married." I didn't feel any different about Gregg after the marriage, or the separation, than I did before.

[Q] Playboy: How did you happen to connect with Gregg?

[A] Cher: Well, it was really strange. It was a full moon, man. I always get in trouble with a full moon. I met him at the Troubadour. He was playing with Etta James and I was a fan of hers. I didn't really know anything about the Allman Brothers. I was quickly educated, though. Anyway, we went--David Geffen, me and my sister, a whole bunch of us. I'd been going with Dave, but by then he and I were kind of broken up. And this chick came up to me and said, "Gregg would like to meet you." I said, "Fine." He came up and grumbled a couple of unintelligible words. He talks way down in his throat, low, growly and sexy. Later that evening, he sent me a note--one of his Southern flower jobs, like, "You're a beautiful lady," or some real jive stuff. "I'd be honored if, blah, blah." But we didn't connect for a long time.

[Q] Playboy: When did you?

[A] Cher: One day when I'm on the beach, my friend Paulette says, "Gregg Allman is on the phone." He asked me out and I said OK. But I was nervous, because it was the first date that I'd ever been on where I didn't know the person. He laid your basic rock-star trip on me and I wasn't going for it. After three minutes, he asked me to go to Bermuda or Jamaica with him and I said, "Yeah, that's nice." I didn't have my dating rap down good.

[A] He took me to Dino's, where it's really dark, and started to suck my fingers. And I thought, Wait a minute; back up. I said, "Why are you doing this?" Next he asked me to go with him while he met some guy, but first he wanted to change his clothes, which he did every ten minutes. So we split, and a while later he started to kiss me. I just said the dumbest thing; I said, "I'm not that kind of girl." I have no idea where the hell that came from. I just ran out die door. I told him not to bother to show me the way. "Catch you later, nice meeting you, you're a terrific guy, so long." And I split. Driving home, I was shaking, really angry. It was my first date and it was a bust. I didn't think I'd make it in the single world. I thought, I don't know how to react. I don't like it, I don't want to kiss him, I don't know him, he sucked my fingers, what the hell is going on? It was like being 16 again.

[A] Next night, he called and asked me out. I said, "I don't like you and you don't like me. I had a horrible time last night and why are you calling?" He said, "Maybe we could have a good time tonight." So we went out. We danced and then, while we were driving down the street, he was telling me something I didn't care about, so I said, "You know what? I hate fuckin' small talk.You are boring the shit out of me and I've got nothin' to say to you. I know that you must be interesting and I am, too, so what gives?" I said we should really talk. He started to laugh, and I mean very slowly, like two-months slowly. Pulling words out of Gregg Allman is like... forget it. Finally, things started to get a little bit more mellow when he found out that I was a person--that a chick was not just a dummy. For him up till then, they'd had only two uses. Make the bed and make it in the bed. That's it.

[Q] Playboy: He wasn't exactly known for being shy around chicks. How about Jenny Arness, James Arness' daughter, who supposedly left a suicide note saying she was killing herself because Gregg had fallen for you? Was there any truth to that?

[A] Cher: I honestly can't tell you. All I know from what I've heard is that she sent letters to two or three other guys telling them they were the reason she was committing suicide. I never met the girl, but Gregg told me that he had gone out with her, like, two years ago and that he honestly didn't feel responsible for it.

[Q] Playboy: Does it make you feel bummed out, going over all this stuff about Gregg--all the complications you've had to deal with?

[A] Cher: Well, this is just a part of doing something stupid, of eating it and having to go on. It's not the best thing I've ever done, not the worst thing I've ever done; it's just a part of me. Your experiences, I think, become a part of what you are.

[Q] Playboy: Why did you agree to do this interview? Because your PR people told you you should, that it would be good for your career?

[A] Cher: Nobody tells me. If I feel like I want to do it, then I do it. If I don't, I won't. Your interview is the only one I'm doing this year, and I'm doing it because I agreed to and I figured I should keep my word.

[Q] Playboy: You realize we have to ask some awkward questions, one of which is to put into words what the rumor mills are saying: that the real reason you broke up with Gregg was that he was on drugs and that you couldn't take that. One version is that he nodded off into his spaghetti at an Italian restaurant.

[A] Cher: There was a report about that on my network. CBS, and I called up and said,"I love you guys dearly, but I'm going to sue you." Because it was untrue. Neither one of us had ever been to that restaurant, and he has never passed out anyplace we have ever been. But because he was with me, it went on national television. His mother was upset, his grandmother. I mean, it made him feel really bad.

[Q] Playboy: But is he on drugs?

[A] Cher: I'm not Gregg's watchdog. I can't say what he's doing. All I know is what he says he's doing.

[Q] Playboy: Well, hypothetically, if you were involved with someone who was into drugs and he wouldn't kick it, would you say to him, "We cannot be together"?

[A] Cher: Yes. I don't believe in it. I think it's a bad thing to do to yourself. Notbecause I think I'm better than other people but--like, I'm glad I never tried acid, because I'm sure that it wouldn't have been the right thing. I'm positive of it. Once I asked someone to tell me about cocaine and he said, "Well, it makes you high and it makes your heart beat fast." I said, "It makes your heart beat fast?" And he said, "Yes." And I said, "OK, pass, next one." When I used to get nervous, my heart would beat really fast, and anything that would make my heart beat fast I don't want to have anything to do with. I can't even take aspirin. I'm very sensitive to drugs. When I was 14, I took four Benzedrine and I was up for the entire weekend. Chewed the same piece of gum for three days. When I came down, I was a mess, and I went to my mom. She said, "I hope you learned some kind of lesson from this." And I said, "I swear to God I have." And that was the first and the last time for me.

[Q] Playboy: If you're so antidrug, what were you doing at that Ken Moss party with The Average White Band, where one of the guys O.D.'d?

[A] Cher: What was I doing there? I was at a party, that's what. Afterward, David said to me, "How could you go to a place where you didn't know everybody?" And I thought, What a ridiculous thing. Has it come to this in America, where you have to know everybody before you can go someplace?

[A] But while I was there, I felt like Little Annie Fanny. I mean, this guy passed stuff around, and he said, "Do you want some?" And I said no and I was sitting there, and ten minutes later, everybody was out of it.

[Q] Playboy: Except you, and because of it, you've been credited with saving Alan Gorrie's life. Can you tell us what happened? Did you know that what was being passed was heroin and not cocaine?

[A] Cher: I can't say--they've asked me not to get specific, because there's a trial coming up. I wasn't able to do much that night. I called my doctor for two of the guys, because I really didn't know what to do. It was strange; all I could get was my gynecologist, because he was on call. I told him I had gone to a party and that this was what had happened. And he told me to get the one guy to a hospital right away and to walk the other one around and not let him fall asleep. Once he got the dry heaves, he would be fine, the doctor said. So I did all that, and next thing I read in the newspapers, "Cher Busted at Hollywood Drug party." And I don't even do drugs.

[A] I always find myself fucking up, making mistakes, but my mistakes seem to be so magnified. It's like I'm a joke in this town, something to talk about, a topic of cocktail conversation.

[Q] Playboy: Does your notoriety, your popularity surprise you?

[A] Cher: No, I always knew that I was going to be somebody. When I was little, my mom and I used to go to Hollywood Boulevard and buy a couple of hot dogs and sit in our car watching the interesting people go by, and I guess I thought about it even then. I grew up thinking I wanted to be a movie star, because they were happy; they wore diamonds. That life would take me away from all that was real and ugly. I always felt really embarrassed about being poor, because I thought it was punishment for something I had done wrong.

[Q] Playboy: Well, you're not poor now, and you are famous. Now that it's happened, how do you feel about it?

[A] Cher: I feel like I'm a day late and a dollar short. It seems like I keep trying to grasp what the meaning of it all is. I know the game and I know my role, and I deal with that pretty well. But I was with Sonny for so long, and all that time I didn't really know what was going on. It's like there was no input, like I was a computer with a couple of the fuses gone. Now I'm trying to get myself together.

[Q] Playboy: How does it make you feel to be on the cover of every fan magazine in the world?

[A] Cher: Strange. When you stop hitting them, you feel like people aren't really interested. But I was reading this thing about my being this sex goddess... and I thought, My God, what a dumb thing that is. I go around in jeans and a T-shirt almost my whole life, except when I'm working. I don't relate to that sex-goddess stuff at all. It's like there's Cher out there, and here 1 am. I know we're one and the same, but somehow that Cher is what people think she is, not really what I am.

[Q] Playboy: If they believe what they read, they must think you lead a fairly exoticlife.

[A] Cher: Yeah, sometimes I read stories about me and they make me upset. One really upset me. It said that I was having an affair with some chick--and they put my sister's picture in the story. It was the only time I ever called a magazine. I got the head honcho and I said to him, "Jesus, give me a break. Don't drag me down the street. That story is completely unfounded." And he said, "Well, this guy told us he knew you and that that stuff was true." I told him I could prove that it was not.

[Q] Playboy: If it weren't your sister, how would you feel about making it with a chick?

[A] Cher: I don't think I would--I think it's wrong for me. I mean, if that's your inclination, that's OK. It just doesn't happen to be something I want. I find women attractive, but I haven't seen any women I'd really like to make it with. I have a real strong thing toward men. My best friends are women, but I can have a good relationship with women without, you know, without going to bed with them. But God knows the stuff that gets printed about me; I can sit in this house for ten days, and from what's reported, you'd think I was making it with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

[Q] Playboy: What was the most outrageous story you ever heard about yourself?

[A] Cher: That Sonny and I were both girls. We got a really good laugh out of that one.

[Q] Playboy: Why do you think that kind of story gets published?

[A] Cher: Who knows? Like I said, sometimes I think there are two different Chers--the one people write about and the real me. The one people write about, the one on the television show, is after everybody's husband. All I want to do is--I want to have a man and I want to have a life and I want to do my gig. I have this sex-siren image, but really, I couldn't give a shit about that--I mean, I'm so uninterested right now in all the Robert Redfords, Elvis Presleys and anyone else's husband that I really don't care. I figure it's almost like being a bank clerk. I go and do my job, and that's my job--that's my work, the sex-queen stuff.

[Q] Playboy: How did you feel about starting your own TV series?

[A] Cher: I was terrified--and so was the network.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Cher: First, they put me in a strange time slot.

[Q] Playboy: You mean competing with The Wonderful World of Disney?

[A] Cher: Right. Nobody has beaten Disney in, what, 15 years? It's been on since I was little. It was like the network wanted me, but they didn't really know what that me was, the television me. Then, when they found out what me was going to be, everybody started freaking: "Jesus, what are we going to do? At 7:30 Sunday night, what are we going to do with her?" When I first started the show, CBS said, "You cannot say turkey and you cannot say far out--you can't say that stuff."

[Q] Playboy: Did they give you any reasons?

[A] Cher: They said, "America doesn't know what that means." And I said, "Oh, bullshit." Tony Orlando is X-rated compared with what I could do. It's like you can have tits up to your neck, but God forbid you should show them from the side or from underneath--or anything Americans might not be used to seeing.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think TV should be so self-censoring?

[A] Cher: As a grown person--ha-ha--I think it's kind of dumb. But TV is something that, once you turn it on, it's just there. And since children watch it, it has to be censored. Because if it gets rough--and the violence bothers me a lot more than the sex--it's like a guest that quietly gets drunk, and all of a sudden he's there and you don't know what the hell to do with him. There's safety in the blandness of being in the middle. Right now, I'm kind of like queen of a mediocre medium. I mean, television is the kind of thing you can pay attention to if you wish, and if you don't, you can go clean out your drawers.

[Q] Playboy: Isn't that a dangerous statement for you to make--sort of like biting the hand that feeds you?

[A] Cher: Oh, my mouth gets me into more trouble than anything else, because I have a kind of cutting way of saying things, even when I don't mean to.

[Q] Playboy: What did the network cut from your show?

[A] Cher: Like, they pulled Raquel Welch's number. I'm real pissed off about that. Raquel and I were becoming really good friends. She is strange, but I really like her. We did this number together. We came out in dresses and sang a song--no horrible gyrations, no anything. And she did a solo number, which was really nice. Well, first we got a call that they were cutting out the duet between the two of us because the program director said it was too suggestive. Then they said we could keep the duet, but her number had to go. Because she was singing a suggestive song and she placed her hand, God forbid, on parts of her anatomy'. The song was Feel Like Makin' Love--I mean, it was a hit song. George Schlatter, my producer, got back the duet but couldn't save Raquel's solo. When she found out about it, God, she just freaked, because she'd worked hard on it. I don't blame her; I would have been really pissed off, too. So she called the network and got some guy who didn't even have the guts to tell her that it was their idea--he told her it was mine. Then she called me, and she was furious. She read me up one side and down another. And I said, "Raquel, I swear to God on my daughter's life, I had nothing to do with it"--and she hung up on me. So then I got really angry. I called up Freddie Silverman, CBS' programing director, at home in New York, and laid down the story to him. I said, "You guys have just ruined a friendship for me." So he said, "I'll call her myself and tell her it was because she touched herself," and blah-blah-blah. He called her, but she was into such a role by then that it didn't pierce. Maybe she thought they were just trying to cover up for me, I don't know. But we haven't spoken since then. All the people at the network that I have dealings with--Perry Lafferty, Bob Gordon and Freddie Silverman--are incredible men. I really like them. But at first they were so afraid. And because of that, now I give them even more skin for letting me go on and do something they thought would be a bust.

[Q] Playboy: Your show is a hit, though. It was Sonny's that didn't fare too well.

[A] Cher: I felt really bad about that, because I knew he didn't want to do that show. I worked with him for years and I know more than anyone just how talented he is. Sonny can do all kinds of stuff, but you can't do the same old Sonny and Cher format without the sameline-up. If you gave me the Sonny and Cher Show without Sonny, I couldn't do it, either.

[Q] Playboy: Why do you think your show is so popular?

[A] Cher: I read this dumb article on why Cher is the biggest star in America and they had, like, five psychiatrists saying what it was. They didn't say shit. And there is no reason. I'm not the best at anything I do. I come out and say that dumb little bunch of shit at the beginning of the show so that people know there's a person behind all those costumes, a person who's having a good time singing and dressing up. It takes them away from the drudgery, the news and all that bullshit that's going on in the world. There's something about me people like, that's all I know.

[Q] Playboy: Could that something be described as glamor?

[A] Cher: I don't know. My mother once told me something that has stayed with me through thick and thin: "Honey, you're not the prettiest or the most talented, so make the most of what you got." At the time, that hurt. I felt so ugly, while my sister was so beautiful, with this white-blonde hair and green eyes, like my mom. Once we went to Mexico and they wouldn't let me back over the border because they thought I was a Mexican and my mother was trying to sneak me in. I was really pissed off. Another time, I met Diana Vreeland, the editor of Vogue, at a party and she said, "My dear, you're beautiful. You have a pointed head." I thought, Hmm, strange old lady. She asked me to be in her magazine and sent Richard Avedon out to shoot photos. Avedon told me, "Cher, you will never make the cover of Vogue, because you don't have blonde hair or blue eyes." Then they did put me on the cover and it sold more issues than any other. Imperfect beauty is still beautiful.

[Q] Playboy: Well, how hung up are you on your looks?

[A] Cher: I guess I do go through changes about them. Like, when I'm uptight, my face will just go into craziness. It never happened before the TV show; I didn't know what a pimple was. My doctor told me that women who make money with their face will sometimes do something against it because they subconsciously don't want to work. It's a kind of psychological rebellion.

[Q] Playboy: Whatever the reason your fans dig you, do you have any sense of who they are, of die make-up of your audience?

[A] Cher: I'm certainly not the hip person's ideal. But, for instance, I have a big black following. I went to the Apollo Theater in Harlem one night and someone asked if I wanted to be introduced. God, no, I said, you have to be heavily into soul music or do something really terrific at the Apollo or they just tell you to fuck off. But they gave me a standing ovation. I thought, Jesus Christ, this is terrific. I do a lot of black looks on my show, because I happen to think it's a terrific look. If I were to be anyone else, that's what I'd be. I'd be Diana Ross.

[A] And I have an incredible kid following--little teeny children. Once, when I was in a market in Macon, this little black chick, about three years old, tugs at my leg and looks up and says, "Cher, I love you." And I couldn't believe it. But it happens to me all the time.

[Q] Playboy: Some of the kids may be Chastity's fans, too. How does she like being on the show?

[A] Cher: She loves it. We had a war because she wasn't on it. Especially when Tatum O'Neal was on, Chastity was really pissed off because she couldn't be on with us. But I didn't want to put her on until the show was a success on its own. I knew that everyone wanted to see her, but I didn't want to use her to get any rating points.

[Q] Playboy: Have you been getting any flak about using her?

[A] Cher: No; I asked Son and he said it was fine. She enjoys it and she's been doing it since she was two, you know. She used to think that everybody's mother was on television.

[Q] Playboy: How did Chastity react when you and Sonny split up?

[A] Cher: She was upset at first, but now that she sees we're still friends, she's OK. You can't fool kids, anyway. I had a lot of friends in school whose parents stayed together until the children were grown--and then they split. They thought they were pulling big thing off, but their children knew what was going on. They stuck it out for no reason, for no reason at all. My mother got married a million times, but she didn't do that. She's really terrific.

[Q] Playboy: She got married how many times?

[A] Cher: Well, eight times, really. She married my father three of those times--he can be very charming.

[Q] Playboy: Why do you think she has married so often?

[A] Cher: I think my mom was looking for some man to take care of her--someone who would be like a father. I think a lot of women do that. As far as I can see, it's a wrong place to be. You have to find it with yourself. But I did the same thing she did, only I stayed with the first one for ten years. But I was pretty wild by the time I was 16 and with Sonny I figured I'd better settle down.

[Q] Playboy: Wild how?

[A] Cher: Well, actually, I didn't drink or do drugs or any of the things people would consider wild now. I wasn't hopping into bed with everybody, either. Of course, when I was 14, my girlfriends were all telling me how much fun sex was, that I could get away with it and that boys would respect me--as long as I didn't go all the way. But I thought stopping short was ridiculous. I wanted to find out what it was about, so I just did it, all at once, with this guy next door I was madly in love with. A little Italian guy, as it turned out. When we'd finished, I said, "Is this it?" He said, "Yeah." And I said, "Well, you can go home."

[Q] Playboy: We take it you've changed your mind about sex since then.

[A] Cher: I still think sex is a dumb thing unless you love somebody. I mean, I see some of these magazines with naked guys standing around looking like real assholes and I wonder how any woman could get turned on. They all look like Ken dolls, you know. I would never make it with some guy I'd just met. The only thing that sees you through life is a relationship with someone, so to just fuck without feeling or love is stupid.

[Q] Playboy: When you met Sonny, at 16, did he turn you on?

[A] Cher: Oh, yes, I was knocked out. I didn't think he was handsome, but I'd never seen anyone with long hair and boots and stuff like that. All my girlfriends said, "He's kind of ugly, he has a big nose and he's strange-looking--you could do a lot better." But there was something about him. He was good, stable, older--sweet.

[A] But it did take a long time for the relationship to get physical. Sonny's into having a very mental relationship and if he can't, he doesn't mess with you. It wasn't a fiery, sexy thing with us, but rather paternal, like we were bound together, two people who needed each other, almost, for protection.

[Q] Playboy: What was he doing when you met?

[A] Cher: He was a record promoter. He had just left his wife and he liked my girlfriend, the one I was staying with, but she didn't like him at all. He moved next door, anyway. Then my girlfriend split and left me with all these bills, and I lost my job, and my mother was going to make me come home. So Sonny said, "Well, I'll tell you something. I don't find you particularly attractive, but you can stay in my house." He said: "Can you cook?" I said no, and he said, "Can you clean?" I said, "Yeah." So he said, "All right, I'll pay everything and you keep the house clean and we'll do it." So I told my mother I was living with a stewardess, and it seemed like a good thing at the time. We stayed in the same room. I remember waking up one time, I'd had a really bad dream, and I said, "Sonny, can I get in bed with you?" And he said, "Yes, but don't bother me." And I said, "OK." And we just lived there together for ages. Finally, my mother made me move out, because I was underage--and Sonny didn't even know it then. I told everybody I was 19, but then someone told him I wasn't. Anyway. When I had to go back home, I guess he found out that he really liked me. He called me up and said, "Don't you think it's time you asked me to marry you?" And I said, "What?" It was really weird.

[Q] Playboy: How soon after that did you start making records together?

[A] Cher: About a year later, I guess. I used to sing like crazy around the house, but I never even thought of being a singer. And then, one night, one of the girls didn't show up to do background voices. This guy looked at me and said, "Can you sing?" And I said no. He said, "Well, can you carry a tune?" I said, "Yeah." And he said, "Well, get out there, because we need some noise." And from that time on, I did all the dates.

[Q] Playboy: Most people have forgotten it, but you're the person who made bell-bottoms popular back in the Sixties. How did you happen to start wearing them?

[A] Cher: We had these two friends, Bridget and Colleen. They were my girlfriends and they were real space cadets. I mean, they were terrific, but they were really spacy chicks--and Bridget was into making clothes. We'd pool our money, I'd design things and they'd make them. We were crazy dressers. It's so ridiculous now, but we got thrown out of more places than I can even remember.

[Q] Playboy: Do you remember the first time that happened?

[A] Cher: It was on our first trip to London, in 1969. No one knew who we were, but by the first night, our picture was on the cover of every newspaper because we'd been thrown out of the Hilton for the way we looked.

[Q] Playboy: What were you wearing?

[A] Cher: I had on one of my pride-and joy outfits. I was really proud of it. It was red, white and blue striped bellbottoms with an industrial zipper with a big ring on it. And a top with big bell sleeves, and a pair of red shoes. And Sonny had on a pair of striped pants and his dress Eskimo boots, real beautiful, and he had on his bobcat vest and a big shirt. The people in England loved it. They didn't even think we were American. You know, American rock 'n' roll at that time was zilch. Everything was the Beatles and Dave Clark and the Stones. It's funny, when the Stones came to America for the first time, they wanted to stay with us.

[Q] Playboy: How did that work out?

[A] Cher: Well, we had a big house, but we only had money enough to furnish the bedroom, so we said, "You guys can't stay with us, because we haven't got any furniture." They said,"That's OK, we'll rent cots," because they were really uptight around the people they were with over here. No one looked like them and they felt real insecure.

[Q] Playboy: Did you meet them on that first trip to London?

[A] Cher: Yeah, it was funny. It was like we were an overnight success over there.

[Q] Playboy: Well, The Beat Goes On was really an English sound.

[A] Cher:Beat came much later. This was Babe and All I Really Want to Do-- those were the two songs we had out. But by the time we got back to America, we had five songs in the Top 20 or something like that; it was really incredible. But then we got thrown out of every place over here. I mean, we got thrown out of the Americana! No one gets thrown out of the Americana, but we did.

[Q] Playboy: A lot of hotels these days won't book music acts at all, because their places end up getting destroyed.

[A] Cher: That happened to us a lot in Europe.

[Q] Playboy: Why? Were you into tearing up hotels?

[A] Cher: No, the people with us didn't rip up the hotel, but a lot of groups obviously are into that. I guess the heaviest thing we ever got to was a shaving-cream fight, and we even cleaned up afterward ourselves. We were thrown out, anyway--that was in Hamburg. But, I mean, you're on the road for 40 days and you're in a limo, then the airport, then onstage and back to your Howard Johnson's or Ramada Inn--and you just start going crazy. If you're stranger than we were, you do things like ripping up stuff and tossing TV sets into swimming pools. But it's like if you get into the rock-'n'-roll-star syndrome, it's really a drag, because you have to live up to this strange image and it kills you.

[Q] Playboy: What image?

[A] Cher: Like a Jimi Hendrix--Janis Joplin kind of trip. Or like with Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe. The thing that really immortalized them, pushed them over the top, is that they died, which is really a drag, you know. That's a little bit too much of a sacrifice to make for your art.

[A] If you're a guy, the trip is you're supposed to be a superstud and shooting up, you know. Male rock musicians are mostly into friendships with men, because the groupies make themselves so dense and unrewarding as human beings. On the road, chicks walk up to them and say, "Can I do it to you?-- anyplace, any time." So the men are left with this spacy feeling about what a relationship is. The pressure is incredible and you burn yourself out. You're getting all this money, but you feel unworthy. People are always going crazy around you.

[Q] Playboy: Did all that make you crazy when it started happening to you?

[A] Cher: Well, being 18 and walking on a stage and hearing 10,000 people screaming and yelling your name--the whole thing can make you lose all concept of who you are. Sometimes I'd get off the stage with my clothes and sometimes I wouldn't. But, overall, Sonny kept on top of the situation for me. I was like a worker in a beehive, mostly, just doing my gig. So it never really got to me. It's like when we first did the TV show. I didn't really know we were a success until one day I went to Saks and all these ladies were coming up to me, saying, "Oh, wonderful, beautiful," and this and that--and I thought, Jesus Christ, we must be a hit. But I was terrified on the stage always, totally terrified.

[Q] Playboy: What was your personal life with Sonny like--or was there time for any?

[A] Cher: We were together 24 hours a day, and we were working. In the beginning, we were pretty excited, because we made plans about what we would do. We were going to walk into aCadillac dealership--I don't know why; I guess we all wanted Cadillacs. But we wanted to walk in, just the way we dressed, with a paper bag full of money, and give them cash. You know, all that dumb stuff that you think about doing.

[Q] Playboy: Did you ever actually do anything like that?

[A] Cher: Oh, one thing, but on a much smaller scale. I went into this store one day, just in my regular duds, and I saw a Rudi Gernreich outfit that I wanted. So I asked this saleslady, "Can you tell me what colors you have this outfit in?" She said, "It's a very expensive outfit." I said, "OK. Can you tell me what size this is? There's no tag on it." She said, "My dear, it's a very expensive outfit." I said, "OK, what colors does it come in?" "Well," she said,"it comes in red and black, green and yellow, and purple and red." And I said, "OK. I'll take all three." I never wore the outfit. I went home and told Sonny what I'd done. I said, "Sonny, I've really done a dumb thing." I was embarrassed, but I copped to it. And he said, "Well, now you did it once, and so it's not so important." But I did some other silly things. Like, if I'd go to buy an electric fry pan, I'd buy two to put away, in case someday we couldn't afford one. So I have this whole stockpile of stuff.

[Q] Playboy: You and Sonny did fall on some hard times at one point. What happened?

[A] Cher: Well. Sonny decided he wanted to make this movie, Chastity. He wrote it, and it was one of the best scripts I've ever read--especially compared with all the scripts I'm seeing now, which are mostly shit. But he shouldn't have had me do it. Because it was me, his wife--and he's very Italian--he just kept changing it to make things less rough for me. Basically, I wasn't ready. So he spent a whole year and all of our bread on this movie. And then I got pregnant in the middle of it and I couldn't work during the pregnancy. So when Chastity was born, we owed the Government, I don't know, something like $190,000.

[Q] Playboy: How did you get out of the hole?

[A] Cher: We went on the road and played night clubs. At first, we died. Then we started getting off on the band, just getting into a little rapping, and then we noticed that people were beginning to laugh, so we just started working on it. We never wrote anything down. If something worked, we'd add it, and if it didn't, we'd chuck it out.

[Q] Playboy: Did the ad-libbing come out of your personal relationship?

[A] Cher: Some of it came from further back. When I was younger, I was chicken and poor, which isn't hip, because you haven't got clothes and all that stuff. So I developed SMB--Smart Mouth Bitch. Which meant, "Don't screw with me, because I may not have clothes or what everyone else has, but I can cut you to ribbons." When I met Sonny, I had that reputation, gave him the finger and all that. But after I'd been with him for about six months, I was so different. I wasn't allowed to say fuck or hell or damn. With Sonny, that part of my personality was just tucked away. But then it started creeping out again. My sense of humor began cutting a little bit, with him, the band, the audience, the hecklers. People would laugh and Sonny would say,"We'll keep it." It was great. That part of my personality had been stifled for so long it was wonderful to use it onstage. I was getting myself together, getting out my frustrations. The act worked and we started building a following on the club circuit. Then we did a Merv Griffin show and were really good, so then, in 1971, we got the summer series and things just fell into place.

[Q] Playboy: How did you feel when you got into TV?

[A] Cher: I loved it. Everything, especially the dresses designed by Bob Mackie. I thought, Boy, if I ever have money, that would be the guy to do my clothes.

[Q] Playboy: Are clothes really as important to you as press reports indicate?

[A] Cher: Oh, people say I have thousands and thousands of clothes and 700 pairs of shoes and all that. Bullshit. I mean, I have a lot of stuff from the show, but I don't wear those outfits when I'm not working. I usually end up in jeans. I've been thinking of going on my show just once in a dress made out of an old Army blanket. I don't give a shit. I honestly don't. I started dressing up because I thought it would be interesting: Television was so goddamned drab and dull! I'm not that into clothes, even though I have been through stages of jewelry, diamonds, all that.

[Q] Playboy: How important is money to you?

[A] Cher: Sometimes I honestly think that I wouldn't be happy if I was broke. A big thing money does for me is give me choices. If I feel like going someplace, I have the money to do it; or if I see something I want, I can buy it. I mean, I don't ever sit around and say, "My God, look at all this money I've got; it's terrific." Because at other times, I think I could almost live happily without too much money. And for me, that's really something to say, because I always thought, God, I couldn't bear to be poor again.

[A] But I mostly don't even think about money; I know I should, but I don't understand it. I know I make a lot, but there have been times when we made nothing--and the difference wasn't that much. But the way I live right now is a stupid way to live. Not that I'm not materialistic; it'd be a crock to say I'm not. But I certainly don't need this house. I'm going to sell it. What I'd like to do with money is buy only what's really beautiful.

[A] When I was little, my mom spent most of her time thinking about how she could pay the rent and buy the food and pay the phone bill and buy gas for the car and feed the kids and I don't have to think about those things. Which gives me free time to think about how uptight I am because I broke my fingernail--a really dumb thing, nothing important.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever thought you might like to use some of your wealth to help someone else who's struggling?

[A] Cher: No. An honest answer that won't make me seem like a very terrific person is that I think struggling is good for a person. I have things I give money to, but it's not like rich people's things to pay off their guilt.

[Q] Playboy: As you got more successful, less hungry, did things start changing between you and Sonny?

[A] Cher: After the baby was born, things started to get different, but not so that he even noticed. I started feeling more like a woman. I carried over half the load, but I knew I never would have been out there if it weren't for him. Otherwise, I might as well have been in a closet someplace in east Guam. But as I started feeling more mature, I got more pissed off about things I wanted that weren't exactly outrageous and he just laid a definite no on them. In fact, I just saw A Clockwork Orange. Sonny had always forbidden it because he thought it was the wrong kind of movie for me. He was strange like that. One of the things I originally found so attractive about Sonny was that he really believed women should be taken care of. Eventually, it got to the point of driving me crazy.

[Q] Playboy: When did Sonny begin to think of you as his equal?

[A] Cher: Oh, let's see, about a week ago.

[Q] Playboy: Seriously.

[A] Cher: He never really changed: I was growing up and he wasn't catching up. Plus, from the time we began the show until I left him, it was constant work. I went to the hospital two or three times a year--I have anemia and lose weight very easily. And we had a schedule that would break a 300-pound truck driver. We'd do the show, then weekends and holidays, we'd do one-nighters and interviews and picture sessions.

[Q] Playboy: Did you really need to generate a lot of money to keep the act going?

[A] Cher: No, Sonny is just into work: he loves it. He controlled the whole situation. He booked the gigs and managed every phase of work. To me, it was a pain in the ass. It was kind of interesting, but there was too much hassle, hauling the baby all over. I remember just before I left him, he told me, "We have a million dollars in the bank, tax paid." I said, "Terrific! Can we go to Europe for a couple of weeks?" And everyone looked at me and said, "Are you crazy? You can't make any money in Europe now. Run along and go shopping." I shopped all die time, because that was the only way I could get out of the house alone without being supervised. Just shopped my ass off. Then I took up needlepoint--my God, I needlepointed everything. I couldhave made a needlepoint stove, I was so unhappy. Everyone was having a great time but me. I'd be put in bed after the show, take off my lashes and just go to sleep. And they'd stay up. And I just thought, Goddamn, I'm 26, these ten years have gone by so quickly. I just wanted to be a human being, to go and do things.

[Q] Playboy: Was Sonny incapable of bending or changing?

[A] Cher: He really doesn't understand. Or he may now, but he didn't then. He's exactly like his father. His father's from Sicily and they're very old-fashioned. One thing I've found out from living away from Sonny is that I did it to myself. No idea of ever saying no to Sonny had ever entered my mind. He was a benevolent dictator. I let myself get into the situation. I just took it for granted. Until the day I said, "I'm real sick and tired of all this shit; goodbye."

[Q] Playboy: How did that day come about?

[A] Cher: It was a Saturday night after a gig, about four in the morning. I just decided, Tomorrow I leave him. All day I was sweating and really nervous. I kept thinking, Why are you going through all this? You'll never leave him. And by that night, it was all over. I was real calm about it.

[Q] Playboy: Did you just say, "It's over"?

[A] Cher: That's it. And he said, "OK." He told me later he thought about throwing me off the balcony. He'd get seven years, they'd let him out and he'd get his own show. I had to laugh. He has the greatest sense of humor. But I had gotten to the point where I was so crazy I couldn't sleep, I could just barely work and I had all these guilt and anxiety feelings. When I got over them, I felt the same way about him that I had for years. I loved him, I really adored him, but I didn't want to be married to him. So our relationship seemed the same, except that I could leave the house when I wanted to. Even then, we worked for a year and a half together before people actually knew we were splitting.

[Q] Playboy: Was it as much a corporate decision as a personal one?

[A] Cher: I didn't really know anything about the business part. I assumed that therewould be no professional life. I didn't realize the ramifications, even when die agents and CBS and our lawyer came down on me.

[Q] Playboy: We can see why CBS and your agents might be upset, but why your own lawyer?

[A] Cher: I lived in this house, and Sonny and I had made an agreement that if it didn't work out, he'd move out and I could live here with the baby. So we were on the road and things were getting kind of sticky. He was angry, and I don't exactly blame him, but then he started being unkind, I thought. So I said, "Sonny, when we get home, you're just going to have to move out, because you're really making me feel bad in my own home and on the road. It's really a drag and I don't like it." So he gave me a few choice words and I called our lawyer. I told him to remind Sonny of the deal we had made. He called back and said. "Well, Sonny hung up on me. I suggest you move out." I said, "Really, you do?" And he said, "Yeah." I thought, Well, all right, I guess I will. So I did. I didn't know that once you move out, you can't get back in. No one had told me that.

[Q] Playboy: You mean your lawyer hadn't?

[A] Cher: Right. I couldn't get any money, I couldn't get anything, because everything was in Sonny's control--and the business accountant's. I could sign a check, but without Sonny's or the lawyer's signature, it meant nothing--so I couldn't get any money. They were giving me about $7500 a month, which was OK, but I had moved out to the beach and had a house payment of $4000 every month. It just didn't cover everything. And, besides that, it had been, like, ten years' work for me, and I couldn't get any of the money I thought was half mine. I didn't want any more than half. I said, you know, "There's a lot of money there, so you take half, let me have half and let's cool it." "No, no, no," he said. I really thought I was getting the runaround. Then, when David Geffen heard that my lawyer had advised me to move out of the house, he said, "Are you sure that this lawyer is a good one? Why don't you just talk to another lawyer and tell him the things that have happened and see what he thinks? I don't want you to go to my lawyer, because I don't want to have any control over the situation, but I know another good lawyer." So I went to the new lawyer and he told me, "Do you realize that you're an employee of this company, an employee of Sonny, and that he has the right to tell you when you can work, if you can work, where you should be, how much you'll get paid? And you don't get any of the money; all the money goes into the corporation and they give you a salary?" I said, "I don't remember that." He said, "Well, is this your signature?" And I said, "Yeah." But it wasn't a contract, it was a letter. I had always signed things over the years. If Sonny's or the lawyer's name was on it, I just signed. I mean, who has time to read it, and who would understand it? I didn't even know where we kept our money. There was no necessity--everything was always taken care of. I worked and the bills were paid. I had charge accounts and stuff like that, so there was really no reason for me to know. Sonny had had two expressions: "Stop spending" or "Everything is cool." So when I started finding out all this stuff, I was really angry.

[Q] Playboy: Isn't Sonny presently suing David for some 314,000,000 for alienation of professional affections or something like that?

[A] Cher: Something like that. But the only thing David ever did was tell me he thought I should find a lawyer. When I did, David helped me make decisions about working or whatever, because I didn't know what to do. I was really, really lost. But by the time I met David, I had left Sonny and I was going to stay gone from Sonny for the rest of my life. There's something about David, though, that Sonny is really angry about, more so than, I don't know, than somebody else.

[Q] Playboy: Have you and Sonny managed to stay pretty cool with each other during all your fights over finances?

[A] Cher: Oh, yeah, that's what's strange. We hardly even talk about it. It's something that goes on with our lawyers, it really doesn't go on with us. It's only bread.

[A] Sonny told me recently, "You did the only thing you could have done. But in doing it, you took away all this money from me." So the money and the emotions are two separate things. By paying him, I'm not paying him back for anything he went through emotionally, I'm paying him because I broke up Sonny and Cher--and he's lost his work.

[Q] Playboy: What do you think he'd have done if the economics of the situation had gone the other way--if he'd had the hit show?

[A] Cher: Sonny has always been a very generous man, and I don't think he would have left me high and dry. We took care of his first wife. She lived in our old house, which was a beautiful house, and he bought her a car--and one time, for a birthday present, he wanted to send his older daughter to Europe with her mother, so I paid for her ticket and he paid for the mother's ticket. So he's not a bad guy. We should have been brother and sister.

[Q] Playboy: How did your private life change after you split?

[A] Cher: I was so thankful to be able to say anything and wear anything without being checked on. But it was hard in the beginning. Everyone gave me the word: "You can't go out, you can't hang a sign on the door, saying, FREE TO DATE." People had never seen me out without Sonny. When you're married, you become safe, no matter what. Man, you could have been a hooker your whole life, but once you're married, you're dignified and respected. Getting married and growing old are the two things that save everybody's ass. No one says ill about the dead, the (continued on page 178)Playboy Interview(continued from base 74) old and the married ladies, right? Except in beauty parlors. But, about me, the rumors were incredible, even though since Sonny, I've had only two boyfriends--David and Gregg.

[Q] Playboy: Was your relationship with David something fairly serious?

[A] Cher: Oh, yeah. He's incredible. He's the--I was about to say he's the best I've ever known, but I'd get in a lot of trouble there. Ha-ha. David is magic to me. I've seen him deal with people, and I've seen him deal with me, and I don't know anybody who knows the Dave Geffen I know. It's real odd. For 15 months, I was with David day and night. I never saw him do a thing that I thought was not right by his artists. It seems to me that most men deal with each other strangely: they're not honest. When I say something, that's what I mean; I don't say one thing and mean another. But that's not what goes on with most men. But I found David above reproach in every way. He's a genius. He takes good care of his artists, he believes in them, he has supported them until they hit. He yells a lot, yells like crazy, he attacks you until you give in. He's total energy. But I never met anyone kinder or more amiable.

[Q] Playboy: Why did you stop seeing each other?

[A] Cher: Because he wanted to get married and I didn't. He was ready and I wasn't. I'd been and he hadn't. It was a pay-or-play deal.

[Q] Playboy: Have your romantic complications led you into feminism at all?

[A] Cher: Not really. My producer, George Schlatter, says I'm a product of the women's movement, a first-generation product of it. My image on the show is a little more aggressive, in that I'm certainly not Julie Andrews, you know. But I don't agree with the extreme movement.I'm not looking to beat out any guy in arm wrestling. I really dig men. I'm a human being and I don't want to prove anything else. Since men are bigger than us, we've learned to be die sneakier of the two sexes, to trick men and be cute about it; but, in the long run, they've been maneuvered. That is not good for either sex.

[A] But things are changing and men have to adjust to all this. A friend of mine wrote a book about this guy who could get a girl's bra off in 13 seconds. But when girls started going without bras, it made him crazy. He had worked on this art for so long that to lose it made him uptight, even though the need for it was gone. You either change or get screwed. The stud thing is really not so hip. Like, rock-'n'-roll singers haven't got great physiques. They're skinny but terrific, and they don't feel they have to walk around like Popeye with muscles bulging.

[Q] Playboy: What kind of man turns you on?

[A] Cher: No particular type. Except lately I like men without brown eyes.

[Q] Playboy: Do you prefer musicians and actors?

[A] Cher: I do have a thing about musicians, but I'm not big on actors. They seem kind of amusing, but that's about it--fun to talk to, but no one's home upstairs.

[Q] Playboy: As far as braininess goes, there's a story that you once thought Mount Rushmore was a natural rock formation, sculpted by God. Is that true?

[A] Cher: I must tell you it is. When I first told Sonny, he said, "Cher, either you're the stupidest person I ever met or you've got more faith than anyone in the world." I also used to think the sun was the other side of the moon. When a solar eclipse came along, I was so banged up I didn't know what the fuck was going on. I believed that for years, until I was 18 or 19.

[Q] Playboy: Are you political at all?

[A] Cher: I don't understand politics. I don't even know who was a good President. The first President I knew about was Eisenhower and all I remember about him is that he was a good golfer and Mamie had beautiful bangs.

[Q] Playboy: Do you believe in God? Or religion?

[A] Cher: Religion is a convenient crutch; it clutters the main message of what being good is and what God is. I don't need the interference of churches. I talk to God all the time, say, "Hi, how're You doing?" It's not praying; I just feel Him there. So I choose to believe in God not as a person but as a goodness.

[Q] Playboy: Were you raised in a church background?

[A] Cher: Well, I went to Catholic school. I wasn't a Catholic, but I got A's on all my catechism tests. I never could get behind the idea of penance, though. Once, when I was a kid, I said, "Mother So-and-so looks like Joe E. Brown." Well, that nun beat die absolute shit out of me; beat me to a pulp and made me say the Rosary on my knees across the schoolyard. It was a killer, but I still believe in God and America, even if it's bad for my image.

[A] Everybody is looking for something to believe in. In our life, there're great heights and great depths, and you can really deal with those. I mean, when you're having great heights, who thinks about anything? And when you're down, you just try to pull yourself together. But when you get this thing in between, this shade of gray that happens, you don't know how to deal with it and it becomes like a gnawing feeling inside you. I guess you just have to say, "Well, this is a gray day; screw it. Tomorrow it will be either high or low."

[Q] Playboy: What are some of your highs?

[A] Cher: Doing a show is really a great high. Most performers would work even if they didn't get any money. One time we were doing a gig in San Francisco and some people invited us to a party where Truman Capote was going to be, and this other writer was there. He's a big muckety-muck writer in San Francisco and he had a young wife. I don't really remember what his name was; it was a long time ago. His wife was kind of bitchy, I thought, because all she woulddrink was champagne, and there wasn't any, so they had to send someone out to get it. We were sitting around this table, and this one guy said that none of us liked what we were doing, that we were just doing it for the money. And people started saying, "That's not true," and everyone was really getting, you know, dramatic about the whole situation. And I thought, Screw it, I'm not going to get into this conversation. So I started talking to the guy who lived in the house, because he'd decorated it beautifully and I thought it was great. So he and I were talking about that, and the terrific salad that the cook had made, when Sonny and Truman got into this fight. I thought, Well, Sonny is a big boy, he can take care of himself. And I'm sitting there, when all of a sudden Truman Capote turned to me and said, "I want to know what you think about this." I looked at these 12 people sitting around the table and I said, "You guys don't care what I think about this, and I don't care if you care. 7 don't care what I think about it, either." And he said, "No, why do you think you're doing this? Why do you think people perform?" I shrugged and told him, "I honestly think it has something to do with something that was lacking when you were small. Because all it is when you perform and people clap for you--it's that these people out there love you for that moment. Certainly, you're expressing yourself, but whatyou're getting back is just love."

[A] When I go out onto a stage and people clap, I get this kind of warm feeling that I'm in a place where I'm comfortable, that these people have come to see me because they like me. And what a terrific feeling. Like, when I walked out onto the stage by myself for the first time after splitting with Sonny. My legs were shaking so I couldn't believe it and my mother was out there in the audience and she began crying and I looked over and there was Bob Mackie crying, and everybody else was crying. I just said, "Hi, how're you doing? My name is Cher." And everybody just started screaming and yelling and I thought, My God, this is overwhelming.

[Q] Playboy: If it's that good, you must get really hungry for that recognition when it's not happening.

[A] Cher: I'll tell you the truth. For the year that I didn't work, man, I was bananas. I was really going crazy. And that's not good, either. I'm glad I went through it, though, because I realized there will be a time when I won't be working, people won't be wanting to see me, people won't be giving me all this applause.

[A] Sometimes you wonder if it's worth it. It's such a hassle trying to hold on to your career, you know? And when your career is gone--because it goes for everybody, you know--how do you handle your life? When you go home and take your make-up off, who are you? That's why I don't go around the house in diamonds or bugle-beaded pajamas, because there's a time for that and there's a time for just trying to find out who you are. I've learned that behind Cher the performer there's got to be Cher the person, somebody I'll be able to fall back on, who will be content to do something--or nothing--and just be happy.

[A] The older I get, the more I have to have a reason for being. And it has to be something more than just hanging out or going to parties and being on the numero-uno list.

[Q] Playboy: Do you fear growing older?

[A] Cher: I am afraid of growing old. It's really a drag. At 65, you have to retire and go eat dog food, do whatever. You can't dance anymore, you have wrinkles and what good are you? It's a shame to be discarded because of something that happens to everybody. We're all into tight asses and tits that won't hold a pencil under them. Old is like an enemy you have to make peace with before you get there.

[Q] Playboy: And have you made peace with getting there--on your own?

[A] Cher: When I found myself alone and started doing and seeing the things I'd always wanted to, I was disappointed. I'd built them up. I've made some good friends, but on my own I find that die world is a harder place than it was when I had Sonny to protect me. I didn't think it would be so rough.