HarperCollins
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in “Cher: The Memoirs – Part One” (To be published November 19 by HarperCollins), the singer and actress writes about her early years in the music business, including her partnership and marriage to Sonny Bono. The duo had eight Top 20 hits in the 1960s and 1970s, and their television series “The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour” was a ratings success.
Read an excerpt below, where she recounts that, at the age of 11, she attended an event that would change the direction of her life: an Elvis Presley concert.
and Don’t miss Anthony Mason’s interview with Cher “CBS Sunday Morning” November 17!
“Cher: The Memoirs – Part One”
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introduction
Los Angeles, summer 1956
Staring at the TV with my mouth open, I let the peanut butter and jelly sandwich fall onto the plate in my lap as goosebumps ran down my body.
At home alone after school, I would sit cross-legged (my favorite position, still) on the floor in front of the TV and enjoy the peace and quiet and watch my favorite show. American platform. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, Ray Charles,” Dick Clark announced as the camera panned toward a handsome man wearing sunglasses sitting at the piano.
“Georgia, Georgia. . . ” he began, and I burst into tears. I couldn’t believe he was singing a song about my mother. As the tears ran down my sandwich, I had never felt more connected to anything in my life. Ray Charles’s voice and melody seemed to express exactly how I felt.
It took me weeks to get over seeing him sing, and in some ways, I never did, but then someone whose songs I first heard on the radio blew a hole in my understanding of the world and I was never the same. While I was staring at the TV and my mom was watching The Ed Sullivan ShowA famous young singer named Elvis Presley filled the screen. My mother and I were among sixty million Americans who witnessed this historic performance in September 1956.
Although Elvis was dressed quite traditionally on that Sunday night, he looked and moved differently than any entertainer I’d ever seen. He started singing “Don’t Be Cruel,” and by the time he started “Love Me Tender,” it felt like he was singing just to me. I wanted to jump straight into TV and He is Facebook.
When I heard a year later that he was giving a concert at the Pan Pacific Hall in Los Angeles, I came home with stars in my eleven-year-old eyes. “Mom, mom! Elvis is going to be in the Pan Pacific! Can we go? . . . please?” I was convinced I had to be there. Secretly, I thought he would notice me in the crowd and pick me, even though I’m sure that’s what every girl thinks.
Fortunately for me, my 31-year-old mother was as obsessed with Elvis as I was, a fact that impressed my friends because their mothers disapproved of his raw sexuality. To this day, I don’t know where she found the money, but Georgia somehow knew it. My mother and I got dressed and headed into town, more like sisters than mother and daughter. We felt the tension growing as we approached the Fairfax area, and soon found ourselves caught up in a crowd of nine thousand noisy girls.
A wave of pure adrenaline swept us into the hall. Our folding chairs were about halfway through the audience, but that was fine by me. As I looked around at all the girls staring expectantly at the darkened stage, I felt my heart beating inside my small, flat chest—a sensation I would become familiar with later in life.
The stage was dark, but when the lights came on, Elvis was there and he was magical. There was a roar from the crowd that was unlike anything I had ever heard before. Light bulbs exploded. I just wished he could bring us a little Kodak cake. And Elvis was standing there in his famous gold suit that was sparkling and changing color in the lights.
He was so handsome with that adorable smile and shiny black hair, just like my hair color. Everyone around us jumped to their feet and started screaming hysterically so much so that we could barely hear the word “Heartbreak Hotel.” But boy, we could see his movements, the way he moved his hips and shook his legs until they were shaking. Not only did the girls make as much noise as they could, the girls started jumping on their chairs to get a better view, which meant that from then on, we could only see Elvis’s head and shoulders.
Being in the middle of this raucous crowd was like being caught in a huge tidal wave of hip-spinning, hysteria sweeping towards the stage. I had no idea why everyone was acting so crazy. I was too young to get that part of it, honestly (but if I had been three years older and my mother had been three years younger, we would have swooned). It was the most exciting experience I’d ever had because I knew I wanted to be on that stage in the spotlight one day too.
When I looked at my mother, she was down counting. We were both mesmerized. She looked so beautiful in such a great outfit that I felt confident out of all the girls in the place, myself included, that Elvis was going to choose her.
I pressed my mouth to her ear so she could hear, put my hand on top of hers and shouted, “Mom, can we stand on our seats and scream too?”
“Yes,” she replied, smiling like a teenager and taking off her high heels. “Come on, let’s do it!” So we did, straining on our tiptoes to see it.
Glowing with happiness, I tried to see if Elvis would be enough to marry me when I grew up, so he could sing to me every day. I dreamed of being Mrs. Presley, and I couldn’t stop talking to my mother about Elvis for weeks while I floated on a shiny, golden cloud.
Excerpted from “Sheer: The Memoir (Part One)” by Sheer. Copyright © 2024 by Share. Reprinted with permission from HarperCollins.
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