Hmm, how shall I describe my reaction when I read the news that Cher and the Logo network are teaming up on a TV show about '60s Hollywood? Hmmmm. How about: I fell through the floor and into the sky. This is news from a better dimension, people. A richer, greater universe where our queen is a half-breed gypsy tramp who's just like Jesse James and named, uh, CHER. I'm torqued for this show.
More tantalizing yet is we're not sure whether Cher will star in the show or bring any of her personal story to the plot. Luckily, this gives us an opportunity to propose ideas for the program and help egg along the creative process. Here are my five ideas for Cher/Logo collaboration about Hollywood in the swingin''60s.
1. Backup
Cher famously sang backup for The Ronettes and The Righteous Brothers, and I think it'd be awesome to watch a manipulative backup singer tangle with a new famous act every single episode. In one week, our trilling young star might try overshadowing fellow dames in a girl group, or she might try romancing a lead singer. Will she get to sing that extra "shoop shoop" during the third chorus that sets her apart from the other girls? Is hooking up with that hot frontman worth the gonorrhea? To be continued...
2.Ringo, I Love You... and Now I Am You.
All tolerable Cher fans know she released a novelty record called "Ringo, I Love You" under the name Bonnie Jo Mason in '64. The song capitalized on Beatlemania and was even produced by noted charmer Phil Spector. The idea of an ingenue gaining fame through a silly song and attempting to maintain her fame through desperate relations with Spector-types is perfectly fabulous-sounding to me. My only request: The Bonnie Jo character ends up BECOMING the Ringo character through a series of bizarre, but credible Desperately Seeking Susan-like machinations. All you need is a gaudy leather jacket and a dream, Bonnie.
3. Billion Dollar Homosexual
One of the greatest things about vintage Cher was that she dated David Geffen. I mean, what the. Come on, Cher. Hopefully she gleaned enough mogul-type instincts to create a show about the phenomenally successful record exec, including how he baited acts like Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and Jackson Brown to join him on his renegade label. (Laura Nyro, WHY did you sign with Columbia? Why?!) Naturally, I'm also interested in his closeted-ness, because he never officially declared his gayness until an AIDS benefit in 1992 (though it had become something of an open secret). If PBS' recent Inventing David Geffen is any indication, the story of Geffen's ascent is ripe for serialization. So anyway, Cher: Make this happen and pick out the appropriate turtlenecks yourself.
4. The Sonny and Cher Tragic Reality Hour
Let's face it, the drama of a classic celebrity couple -- a performing couple, to boot -- is infinitely intriguing. Think of the theatrical, sexual, and dangerous chemistry between Ike and Tina, Sid and Nancy, or Karen and Richard. I'd be sated with a show that simply recreated Cher's rise to fame through her marriage to Sonny and her survival through that marriage's failing. It'd be an annoyingly perfect lens for the tumult of '60s Hollywood, maybe famous folks of the present day could play visiting acts on the show (in an American Dreamz way). Here's hoping for Carey Mulligan as Sandy Duncan.
5. Chastity II: Chaz Across America
If you've never seen Cher's dramatic debut Chastity, clicketh over to Netflix, because that trash-stuffed turkey is streaming gallantly like Old Glory. In the 1969 "drama romance" (written and produced by Sonny Bono), an enigmatic drifter named Chastity (Cher) saunters into prostitution and weird dates, and we eventually learn about her troubled past. I'm personally down for an entire series about a willowy female drifter, especially if she hits a different metropolitan area every episode. Will Chastity -- who narrates her own story and refers to herself in the third person as "Chaz" almost incessantly -- seal her tormented past with the aid of her new gigs as a waitress in Hollywood, a mechanical bull instructor in El Paso, or a prostitute at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago?
All right. Your ideas. Go.
