Every afternoon on the set of “Burlesque” they would have what was dubbed The Girl Talk.
“We talked about relationships. A lot,” divulges the pop princess. “Cher has been there and done everything. How could you not learn from Cher?”
Cher isn’t what you expect in person. Her voice is mostly soft and her heavily lashed eyes look down occasionally.
Settling into her suite at the Four Seasons Hotel, she’s wearing liquid-tight black jeans and a dark sweater with a flurry of tiny gold dots. She has the trademark straight, now shoulder-length hair with bangs and parted directly down the middle. Her heels only come in one variety: stiletto. A diamond snake ring races up her index finger and she toys with it while settling into a beige velvet chair.
“I’ve had some wonderful men in my life,” she says, in response to her “Burlesque” co-stars comments. “I wouldn’t change any of it. All of the men have been unique and I always knew that it was hard to be the right man for me. It’s not easy when you’re. . . me.”
Cher says the idea of playing an aging diva taking care of the younger singers in the film hit home for her.
“It was a weird thing,” she says. “It was hard to play someone who supports the young girls and know this is what’s happening in my real life.
“I have to move over. I’m old.”
‘Always terrified’
In “Burlesque” (opening Wednesday), Cher stars as Tess, the owner of a present-day Sunset Strip dance club who mentors the farm-girl-with-a-huge-voice named Ali, played by Aguilera. When it comes to returning to the big screen, the Oscar-winner (1987’s “Moonstruck”) says one word comes to mind: terror.
“I’m always terrified,” Cher says. “That’s the way I roll. I’m always terrified in the beginning of anything in my life and then I live it. That’s when I know it will be okay.”
It took a movie studio president to pull her back in front of the camera. Clint Culpepper, president of Screen Gems, suggested “Burlesque” to Cher, but she hesitated. Even her longtime friend, former boyfriend, confidant and neighbor David Geffen plagued her with constant e-mails insisting that “Burlesque” was a no-brainer. Then there was Aguilera’s desperate plea, which included a promise to “drink Cher’s bathwater” if she did the movie.
“I was on my way to dance rehearsals in sweat pants, flats and with my baby on my hip,” Aguilera recalls. “Clint came up to me and said, ‘You got to meet Cher.’ She’s on the next soundstage rehearsing for her Vegas show.’
“I said, ‘You can’t put me on the spot like this. I need my high heels! I’m going to meet Cher. She’s so tall. It won’t be right!’”
Given no choice, Aguilera went to see Cher.
“I walked up to her and went for it. I said, ‘Hi, I’m Christina. I’m the one who wants to drink your bathwater.’”
Cher was gracious and happy to work with Aguilera on the singer’s first film.
“It reminded me of the relationship I had with my good friend Meryl Streep when we first met and Meryl took me under her wing [on the set of “Silkwood”]. I didn’t even have an idea where to stand,” she says. “It’s not like I have an idea of where to stand now. I just learned where downstage is last week.”
“She has always known how to upstage,” Stanley Tucci says, wandering into the room.
“Touche, Tucci,” Cher says.
‘I’m just being me’
Cher has two songs in the movie, including one dance number that reminded her of her six decades on this planet.
“There’s a scene where Stanley helps me with my shoes and I scream, ‘Ow,’” she says. “In real life, I’m thinking, ‘Ow, my foot, my back, my shoulder.’
“I’m old,” she says again. “I’ve spent a lifetime throwing myself around, dancing and falling and being dropped by dancers.”
Everyone in her presence seems to become instantly tongue-tied.
“The other day, I was doing an interview with someone who has talked to everyone famous. I was the nervous wreck, but I’m not allowed to be nervous! He was shaking, so I had to say, ‘Don’t be ridiculous! Let’s get this thing together.’” Cher says.
She shrugs. “I’ve been doing this for 45 years. My personality is my personality. The moment someone spends time with me, they feel fine. For the others out there who think I’m some icon, I just want to scream, ‘But I’m not doing anything! I’m just being me!’
“I just can’t imagine someone being afraid of me or nervous around me,” she says. “I’m just Cher.”
Crazy childhood
Cher grew up Cherilyn Sarkisian LaPierre in El Centro, Calif. Her mother, Georgia Holt, now 84, raised Cher alone after her father took off although she would later marry him three different times among eight marriages.
“It was such a crazy childhood that my mother thought I would crave stability. She thought wrong,” says Cher, who dropped out of high school in the 11th grade and signed up for acting and singing lessons.
By 1963, she had met Sonny Bono and the rest is history, including their 1965 single “I Got You Babe” and the 11 Billboard hits from 1965 to 1972.
Her record sales top 100 million and now she stars in her own Vegas show, which runs at Caesar’s Palace through February. There are other movies on the horizon and perhaps even another tour.
Headlines scream: Cher is back!
“I have no idea why they keep saying I’m back. I haven’t actually been anywhere,” Cher says. “I’m not back. Where am I back from? Pluto? Did no one know where I was?”
Working mother
She has always taken time to deal with her personal life, which has included two husbands, Sonny Bono and Gregg Allman, plus two children, Chaz Bono and Elijah Blue Allman.
Son Chaz, 41, was formerly daughter Chastity before a gender reassignment surgery that Cher admits took a little adjustment.
“I did have a problem saying him or her,” Cher says. “The important thing is that my child is happy.”
Younger son Elijah, 34, works as an artist and lives close to Cher’s Malibu mansion, as does Chaz.
“They’re good kids who have found their own paths in life,” says Cher, who says one of her life regrets is not having spent more time with her children.
“There was a price and my kids definitely paid it,” she says. “Anytime you have to be a parent and a worker in this business, you will have issues. You have to leave your kids or drag them with you. You never feel like you’re doing the parenting well enough.
“Every working mother knows that feeling. My job just made it worse,” she says. “I remember going with Chaz on a field trip and we were mobbed. Chaz said, ‘Can’t we ever go anyplace without hearing, Cher, Cher, Cher!’ On the other hand, we’d go to the head of the line at Disneyland and nobody complained.”
She looks down and pauses.
“I’m sure that I wasn’t the best mother in the world because of my schedule, but Sonny was a good father, which helped.”
Cher doesn’t rule out future relationships for herself. Post-Allman, there were well-publicized boyfriends such as rockers Richie Sambora, Gene Simmons and Tom Cruise. She spent time with “bagel boy” Robert Camilletti, who worked in a deli and now is a pilot who has jetted Cher around.
Cher says she remains friends with all of her formers. “It’s better to be friends and not have all of that drama,” she says
When she does her show in Vegas, she stays in her own suite at Caesars and the rest of the time she remains at her newly renovated home.
She’ll spend Christmas in Hawaii with her kids.
“We get together and just go crazy,” she says, “which is part of the fun.”
BY CINDY PEARLMAN
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