looked” (6).
While Sonny & Cher began producing a string of hits like “Just You,” “But You’re Mine,” “What Now My Love,” and “Little Man,” Cher was simultaneously signed to a solo recording contract on Imperial Records. It wasn’t long before her Sonny-produced hits like “All I Really Want to Do,” “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down),” and “Where Do You Go” were also huge successes on the record charts. Since Sonny produced the “Sonny & Cher” records and the “Cher” records, owned publishing rights on all of his compositions, and was getting a percentage of the profits as a producer on the recordings, the couple was suddenly making a lot of money, in fact much more than most of their contemporaries on the pop charts.
In 1965, when Imperial Records sent out the official first “biography” to press members, the media got to know Cher La Piere. Describing her background, the bio explained,
Cher, who has just turned 19, had seemed more destined for an acting career than one in music. Her mother has been acting in Hollywood for a number of years and started Cher off on a dramatic career a few years ago by engaging one of Hollywood’s leading acting teachers, Jeff Corey, to tutor Cher. Aside from her two and one half years of study with Jeff, Cher also kept busy with dancing lessons. It has only been in the last year, working diligently with Sonny, that Cher has come into her own as a vocalist (40).
In an effort to tone down the impact of Sonny & Cher’s outrageous outfits and unconventional appearance, it was decided that they be represented to the press and to the public as a wild-looking but very stable married couple. The only minor detail out of kilter was the fact that Sonny and Cher were not really married at all. In fact, they had been lying to the press whenever the question came up in conversation, claiming—falsely—that they had eloped in 1964.
To make it seem real in their own minds, Sonny and Cher had decided that they would perform their own ceremony and exchange vows. There was an old Indian trading shop near the corner of Hollywood and Vine, and Cher found a pair of cheap gold-plated rings in a basket there. For an extra twenty-five cents, names could be added to them. They splurgedand bought the rings. The ceremony they performed was done in the bathroom of their apartment.
Remembers Brian Stone,
We knew they were just living together, and they felt there was no reason to get married. But in mid-1965, when they became pop stars and the hottest young couple in America, role models for young marrieds around the world, we knew that they had to get married—legally. Sonny wanted nothing to do with it. He knew it would be impossible for them to walk into a Justice of the Peace and get married in secret. And if they were spotted going into a chapel, it would be like announcing that they’d been lying all along. So we came up with a scheme to go to Mexico and pay some registry official to backdate a marriage certificate for them for $7,500. But Sonny said, “You aren’t going to waste my money on that.” Sonny and Cher just never wanted to bother with marriage, even though they kept telling people they’d been married in September 1964. We had to remind them that, if they were going to claim they were married, they couldn’t say it happened until at least October 1964—when Sonny’s divorce from his former wife, Donna, took effect (41).
Brian claims that once things got started for Sonny & Cher, their success just snowballed. However, Cher hated getting on stage in front of an audience. Says Stone, “Sonny could just take a swig of bourbon before a show, but Cher hated performing in front of an audience. Sonny or Charlie or myself would coax her, but once we got her to the dressing room, it was O.K. Then Sonny would help her with her make-up and hair, and she’d be ready to go” (41).
In the summer of 1965, as “I Got You Babe” was logging two weeks at
While Sonny & Cher began producing a string of hits like “Just You,” “But You’re Mine,” “What Now My Love,” and “Little Man,” Cher was simultaneously signed to a solo recording contract on Imperial Records. It wasn’t long before her Sonny-produced hits like “All I Really Want to Do,” “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down),” and “Where Do You Go” were also huge successes on the record charts. Since Sonny produced the “Sonny & Cher” records and the “Cher” records, owned publishing rights on all of his compositions, and was getting a percentage of the profits as a producer on the recordings, the couple was suddenly making a lot of money, in fact much more than most of their contemporaries on the pop charts.
In 1965, when Imperial Records sent out the official first “biography” to press members, the media got to know Cher La Piere. Describing her background, the bio explained,
Cher, who has just turned 19, had seemed more destined for an acting career than one in music. Her mother has been acting in Hollywood for a number of years and started Cher off on a dramatic career a few years ago by engaging one of Hollywood’s leading acting teachers, Jeff Corey, to tutor Cher. Aside from her two and one half years of study with Jeff, Cher also kept busy with dancing lessons. It has only been in the last year, working diligently with Sonny, that Cher has come into her own as a vocalist (40).
In an effort to tone down the impact of Sonny & Cher’s outrageous outfits and unconventional appearance, it was decided that they be represented to the press and to the public as a wild-looking but very stable married couple. The only minor detail out of kilter was the fact that Sonny and Cher were not really married at all. In fact, they had been lying to the press whenever the question came up in conversation, claiming—falsely—that they had eloped in 1964.
To make it seem real in their own minds, Sonny and Cher had decided that they would perform their own ceremony and exchange vows. There was an old Indian trading shop near the corner of Hollywood and Vine, and Cher found a pair of cheap gold-plated rings in a basket there. For an extra twenty-five cents, names could be added to them. They splurgedand bought the rings. The ceremony they performed was done in the bathroom of their apartment.
Remembers Brian Stone,
We knew they were just living together, and they felt there was no reason to get married. But in mid-1965, when they became pop stars and the hottest young couple in America, role models for young marrieds around the world, we knew that they had to get married—legally. Sonny wanted nothing to do with it. He knew it would be impossible for them to walk into a Justice of the Peace and get married in secret. And if they were spotted going into a chapel, it would be like announcing that they’d been lying all along. So we came up with a scheme to go to Mexico and pay some registry official to backdate a marriage certificate for them for $7,500. But Sonny said, “You aren’t going to waste my money on that.” Sonny and Cher just never wanted to bother with marriage, even though they kept telling people they’d been married in September 1964. We had to remind them that, if they were going to claim they were married, they couldn’t say it happened until at least October 1964—when Sonny’s divorce from his former wife, Donna, took effect (41).
Brian claims that once things got started for Sonny & Cher, their success just snowballed. However, Cher hated getting on stage in front of an audience. Says Stone, “Sonny could just take a swig of bourbon before a show, but Cher hated performing in front of an audience. Sonny or Charlie or myself would coax her, but once we got her to the dressing room, it was O.K. Then Sonny would help her with her make-up and hair, and she’d be ready to go” (41).
In the summer of 1965, as “I Got You Babe” was logging two weeks at
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