Cher by Mark Bego Read Free Book Online Page A

would call ahead. Says Cher of such hastily announced visitations, “I’d rush around, collect allof Sonny’s clothes and dump them through the window into Melissa’s place right across the way. One day Melissa was sitting at the table with some guests when a shower of Sonny’s belongings descended on everyone. She just said, ‘Oh, Cher’s mother must be on the way’ ” (17).
    Sonny Bono claimed that he was attracted to her simultaneous combination of maturity and immaturity. “When I met her she was sixteen and a waif,” he explained.
On one hand, she was a very mature kid. She had dealt with life and men on an adult level—she skipped the teenage stage. But on the other, she was a very naive little girl. She would walk around our house and sing her ass off. It drove me crazy. But in the first two weeks I knew her, I told her I felt that she would be a great star. That’s what she wanted (17).
    Although Cher had a bit of a rough exterior at the time, Sonny claimed that he spotted something special about her. “When I met Cher I knew she was going to be something great,” he remembered. “I told her then that I thought she was a flower that hadn’t blossomed yet but she would, and the whole world would know it. I knew then that if I didn’t have something, it wouldn’t work between us. I knew I had to do something, too, so I wouldn’t just be a nebbish” (34).
    Cher was the first to admit that she used to mask her insecurities with foul language and aggressive behavior; she developed a caustic attitude for protection.
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 S.M.B. “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 (18).
    In other words, Sonny and Cher inspired each other to refine themselves and get their acts together.
    Cher’s mother finally caught wind of her living arrangements with Sonny and decided to put an immediate end to their relationship. According to Georgia Holt, “Cher really had matured. Sonny just hung around the house. We didn’t know he was married at first. At least Ididn’t. He and his wife were separated. When I found out Sonny was eleven years older than Cher and had a wife and a daughter, I didn’t want him around my baby girl” (11).
    Then, when Cher was suddenly absent, Sonny realized that he was really in love with her. According to Cher,
Sonny and I kept going out and one day he’s thinking, “Well, maybe I ought to ask you to marry me, huh?” I said, “I dunno.” Then he bought this little diamond on a chain, just the cutest little thing, and he came home and got me out of the bath, and so he said, “Maybe I ought to propose to you, huh?” I said, “I still dunno.” So that was kind of our engagement. Mother didn’t like him and decided to take me to Arkansas to forget about him. Arkansas was a terrible place. It only made me think about him even more (33).
    Recalls her mother of their Arkansas trip,
We were gone for three weeks, but Cher didn’t simmer down. It’s strange, but at that time Sonny was the spitting image of her father, Johnny Sarkisian. I think the father image had a great deal to do with Cher’s feelings, but I didn’t think it would have helped it I’d told that to Cher. When a girl is as much in love with a man as she was, not much can be done about it (11).
    Still determined, Georgia decided that the trip to Arkansas wasn’t severe enough to shake Cher to her senses, so she took her to a home for wayward girls. Remembers Cher, “I had to move into this home for girls in El