Cher

 

1. Faye Dunaway, Bonnie and Clyde, 1966.

2. Vanessa Redgrave, Camelot, 1966.
   For his last hurrah after 45 years running Warner Bros, head bro Jack L Warner – having learned his lesson the hard way by ruining My Fair Lady – wanted the original Broadway stars to reprise their 1960 roles of King Arthur and Guenevere. Richard Burton was not keen (or not for the money on offer).  Nor was Julie Andrews, certainly not after the way Jack Warner dumped her from My Fair Lady (even though that led to her Mary Poppins Oscar). ).  “OK, we’ll take Liz, as well,” said Warner.  And why not their mate, Peter O’Toole, as Lancelot.  However, Elizabeth Taylor was not going where Burton was not going…    Julie refused  to work with Burton’s replacement, Richard Harris. They had not got on during Hawaii –  which is where he first heard about the film and started pushing to be the king.  Top candidates to succeed Julie were Julie Christie, Petula Clark, Marianne Faithfull, Audrey Hepburn (part of her My Fair Lady deal), Liza Minnelli, Elizabeth Taylor Jan Waters. Jack Warner separately considered the way cheaper Ann-Margret, Polly Bergen and  Cher, even Mitzi Gaynor and  Shirley Jones, nine and 12 years after their all-American South Pacific and Oklahoma!  triumphs. Vanessa and  Franco Nero (as Lancelot) were lovers on and off the screen. They finally wed in 2006. 

3. Stockard Channing, The Fortune, 1975.  Exactly what the flop comedy  needed.  Mike Nichols rejected her.  “There are two kinds of girls in the world: the kind you wanna fuck and the kind you don’t.”  He felt the role called for the latter and for him, Cher wasn’t “suitable.” Channing was “not the woman,” either – the weakest iink in the mega flop, despite – or because of – the Warren Beatty-Jack Nicholson teaming. “But I’m talented,”  Cher yelled. “If you can’t see it now, you’ll be sorry one day.”  Took him nine years to find out. After seeing her in a matinee of Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean he chose her for Silkwood.  “I guess it was destiny,” she said. “I was the only one who’d ever met Karen Silkwood.  She was a Sonny and Cher fan.”
4. Jill Clayburgh, Gable & Lombard, 1976.     She did not even acknowledge receiving the script from Canadian director Sidney J Furie. Wise, if ill-mannered
5. Jessica Lange, King Kong, 1976.     “I did the test as a lark. I was pregnant at the time, or else I probably would have done it – just to work.” The baby meant it was Lange calling the $1.7m mechanical simian assembly: “You goddamn chauvinist pig ape.” When people asked Jessica if Kong hurt her career, she replied: “What career? I didn’t have one before. Nobody gave a rat’s ass about my work…” until Bob Fosse rescued her in All That Jazz leading to The Postman Always Rings Twice, Frances and an Oscar for Tootsie.
6. Barbra Streisand, A Star Is Born, 1976.
7. Talia Shire, Rocky, 1976.
8. Susan Sarandon, Pretty Baby, 1977.  The plot sickens… A prostitute allows her 12-year-old daughter’s virginity to be auctioned off in a brothel in the red-light district of New Orleans, circa 1917. Elegant French director Louis Malle saw 28 possible pretty Violets – and another 16 actresses for her mother: Cher, Candice Bergen, Glenn Close (passed), Mia Farrow, Farrah Fawcett (passed), Jane Fonda with Jodie Foster as her daughter), Goldie Hawn (prefered Foul Play), Anjelica Huston, Diane Keaton,  Sylvia Kristel, Liza Minnelli, Cybil Shepherd, Sissy Spacek, Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver. Malle and Sarandon became lovers and also made Atlantic City together in 1980… the year he married Bergen until his 1995 death.
9. Stockard Channing, The Fish That Saved Pittsburg, 1979.    Quit, late in the day, as Mona, the astrologist saving the assses of the Pittsburg Pythons basketball team as… the Pittsburg Pisces!
10. Valerie Perrine, Can’t Stop The Music, 1979.      After the high of Grease, producer Allan Carr hit rock bottom with this nutty biopic of The Village People – minus the group’s Jagger/Lennon, Victor Willis! Still, Samanatha was fun – channeling Jane Russell in The French Line. Perfect for Perrine. Not for Cher, Jacqueline Bisset, Olivia Newton-John or Raquel Welch. 11 – Lorna Luft, Grease 2, 1981. And here endeth the Allan Carr career…. Cher (wisely) fled Paulette Rebchuck because of a pitiable salary and an incomplete script – not to mention being being way too old for Rydell High at 35. Luft is Judy Garland’s daughter, making her movie debut at… 29.   Two singers offered fellow student Shaton Zinone, Kim Carnes and Debbie Harry, were… 34!
    
11. Lorna Luft, Grease 2, 1981.    Cher fled Paulette Rebchuck because of a pitiable salary and an incomplete script – not to mention being being way too old for Rydell High at 35. Luft is Judy Garland’s daughter, making her movie debut at… 29.   Two singers offered fellow student Shaton Zinone, Kim Carnes and Debbie Harry, were… 34!
    
12. Jamie Lee Curtis, Grandview USA, 1984. “Listen, I didn’t want to lead a pack of teenyboppers. I’ll be 40 before long… I chose Mask, instead.”
13. Kathleen Turner, Crimes of Passion, 1984.    UK director Ken Russell’s first thought for Joanna Crane, aka the hooker China Blue, as over-ze-top Russellmania hits LA again.
14. Madonna, Desperately Seeking Susan, 1985.     Not a bad idea.  . Except, as Cher always said:   “I’m dyslexic. I can act or read but I can’t do both.”
15. Rosanna Arquette, 8 Millions Ways To Die, 1986.    Three leading ladies for 8 Million… Mask made Cher a movie star in 1985. Yet she wasn’t eager to sign for other films. She was announced as Jeff Bridges’ co-star on April 29, 1985 – 15 days later it was the turn of Jamie Lee Curtis…
16. Diane Keaton, Baby Boom, 1987.      “I have to fall in love with a script.”
17. Whoopi Goldberg, Fatal Beauty, 1987.     Title suited Cher much better!  The character was called, after all, Rita Rizzoli. Vartious people called her Alexa  Foley after Eddie Murphy’s Beverly Hills Cop. “I’m dyslexic.  I can act or read.  But I can’t do both.”
18. Whoopi Goldberg, Fatal Beauty, 1987.    The action suited Whoopi far better than her name –  Rita Rizzoli. Many called her Alexa Foley after Eddie Murphy’s  (very similar) Beverly Hills Cop. “I’m dyslexic,:” she says.   “I can act or read.  But I can’t do both.”
19. Glenn Close, Fatal Attraction, 1987.
20. Theresa Russell, Black Widow, 1987.    “For me, it’s about life experiences. Making films and… growth in life is real intertwined.”

21. Susan Sarandon, The Witches of Eastwick, 1987.    “I don’t want Jane, I wanna be Alexandra,” shouted Cher. And got her way. First Sarandon knew about Cher’s coup was when location shooting started.
    
22. Charles Grodin, Midnight Run, 1987.     Robert De Niro was happy with his skip-tracer, something quiet after his Al Capone in The Untouchables.     Yet, from Cher to Williams, Paramount could not find anyone to co-star. Picking up the show, Universal (too) rapidly signed Grodin, who had all the charisma of a sandfly.  Said Cher: “I have to find a character to express who I am – and that’s not easy.”
23. Sigourney Weaver, Working Girl, 1988.  “If you ever want to make money, do Cinderella,” said Mike Nichols. Even better if he’s directing – despite a coke-head  star. (He made Melanie Griffith pay $80,000 from her salary for having to close down shooting one night due to her wasted condition). He saw Anne Archer, Cher, Geena Davis, Shelley Long, Natasha Richardson, Kathleen Turner, Debra Winger for her boss. Plus Michelle Pfeiffer and Meryl Streep for Tess or the wicked witch of Wall Street.
24. Kathleen Turner, The War of the Roses, 1988.     “I knew that was going to be a hit. A great script but… kinda mean. I’d lived it for real. I didn’t want to do it for money.”  So sultry Cher avoided Barbara Rose – 17 years wed to Michael Douglas – before the marital comedie-noirbecame the third and last teaming of Douglas and Turner. It was directed (and co-starred) their mate from the Romancing The Stone adventures, Danny De Vito.
25. Anjelica Huston, The Witches, 1989.      No surprise that UK director Nicolas Roeg  considered Cher as Roald Dahl’s Grand High Witch.  He’d worked his dramatic magic with other singers: David Bowie and Art Garfunkel. But Cher had already been a (much better looking)  Eastwick witch.  Olivja Hussey topped  author Ronald Dahl’s wish list . However, Anjelica was on Nic Roeg’s list. And he was the director!  He had taken his time combing through the dozen  other candidates:  From Linda Blair (little Regan grew up to be a witch?), Genevieve Bujold, Frances Conroy, Faye Dunaway, Jodie Foster, Liza Minnelli, Susan Sarandpn, Sigourney Weaver to true Brits Fiona Fullerton, Helen Mirren, Vanessa Redgrave… and the sole Black star considered, Eartha Kitt. 
26. Glenn Headly, Dick Tracy, 1989.   Before Warren Beatty was Dick and the director (he owned the rights to his boyhood idol !),  Sonny Bono  and the missus, had been set  for a 70s’ musical version that never took off.  Cher was to be Tess Trueheart, of course.
27. Meryl Streep, She-Devil, 1990.       “Scared shitless” by her Moonstruck Oscar, she spent three years choosing her next film and this is the one she most wanted.
28. Meryl  Streep,  She-Devil,  1990.    “Scared shitless” by her Moonstruck Oscar,  she spent three years choosing her next film and this is the one she most wanted.
29. Anjelica Huston, The Grifters, 1990.    Her Oscar-inflated price was too high.   Geena Davis, Sissy Spacek and Lily Tomlin also missed this neo-noir biggie – a Jim Thompson novel, scripted by Donald E Westlake, directed by Stephen Frears, and produced by Martin Scorsese.  How better could it get!
30. Susan Sarandon, Thelma & Louise, 1990.
    Anjelica Huston, The Addams Family, 1991.      Losing interest (or trust) in movies, she stayed home with her own family.
    
    
31. Michelle Pfeiffer, Batman Returns, 1991.
    
32. Christine Lahti, Leaving Normal, 1992.       Backed away from director Edward Zwick’s second feature (a kind of Thelma and Louise Revisited) as the waitress was a cousin of her role in Come Back To The 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean.. Besides she was busy with her infomercials.
    
33. Lorraine Bracco, Medicine Man, 1992.       “Cher, you’re perfect,” said Hollywood director Martin Ritt, inviting her to be female Marlow investigating a Kurtzian Jack Nicholson in what was to be Road Show in 1984. “I haven’t had this feeling since I met Sally Field and I immediately knew she was Norma Rae.” However, Ritt never left the garage but came back to Cher when  producer Donna Dubrow took it on after Marty’s death in 1990. Cher preferred the zillion more bucks from her Heart of Stone tour. When delighted with Ritt, Cher had designed a tee-shirt with “MGM Rocks” in rhinestones. On discovering he was also checking out Mary Steenburgen and Debra Winger, Cher made another. “MGM Sucks.”
    
34. Julie Kavner, This Is My Life, 1992.     Fox wanted the Jewish housewife struggling to be a stand-up comic to be Cher, Bette Midler or Michelle Pfeiffer.
35. Whoopi Goldberg, Sister Act, 1992.       When Bette Midler pulled out, Disney execs ran Cher up the flagpole. Few Burbank suits saluted.
    
36. Brad Pitt, Interview With The Vampire, 1994.
37. Meryl Streep, The Bridges of Madison County, 1995.       Among the hopefuls group (Anjelica Houston, Jessica Lange, Susan Sarandon, etc) before Clint sent for “our best actress.”   Cher has been  had been up for a Meryl role three times and yet… “I don’t think of myself as  an actress. I don’t do it for a living.”  
38. Joanna Gleason, If These Walls Could Talk, TV, 1996.  Demi Moore (among the six producers) asked  Cher to appear in their pro-choice project, – just a  support role opposite Sissy Spacek in the 1974 segment of the look at US abortion issues during 52-96. Cher wanted more . Like directing the 1996 story – and taking a small role in it. And Cher being Cher, she got both. And a Golden Globe nomination.
39. Sigourney Weaver, Heartbreakers, 2001.       A sexual Grifters. Angelica Huston was also considered – to rip off guys with daughter Jennifer Aniston.
    
40. Lorraine Bracco, Riding in Cars With Boys, 2001.       When director James L Brooks obtained the rights in ’89, it was to team Cher and Debra Winger as mother and daughter. Bracco mothered Drew Barrymore.

41. Aaliyah, Queen of the Damned, 2001.   What were they thinking?  Cher was hardly going to agree to be a (26 minute) supporting act to the vampire Lestat…!   Particularly in such a mish-mash of two Anne Rice novels. rushed into action before Warner Bros’ rights ran out.  She would have been  great, of course. However,  director Michael Rymer decided Queen Akasha  should  be black. He saw all the inevitables: Halle Berry, Rosario Dawson, Vivica A Fox, Jada Pinkett Smith, Vanessa Williams, plus newcomers Jenna Dewan and Samanatha Mumba…  But  Aaliyah was at her short-lived zenith..   Having survived the odious R Kelly (she wed him at 15, although the certification said 18), she tragically died  in a  Bahamas plane crash soon after shooting wrapped.  She was just  22.

42. Christine Baranski, Mama Mia,2007.   Her concert tour meant Cher couldn’t be Tanya  the Abba musical.  It was such a hit, sshe made sure she was available to be Ruby the ten-years-after sequel: Mama Mia: Here We Go Again.Producers included Rita Wilson, Mrs Tom Hanks.

43. Julie Delpy, The Countess, France-Germany, 2009.        Czech director Zdenek Troska opened the 21st Century by announcing Cher as Elizabeth Bathory, the Hungarian countess who kept her (1560-1614) beauty by bathing in the blood of virgin girls. (Aha!) Also announced (also to their surprise): Gérard Depardieu, Anjelica Huston. French actress Julie Delpy took over, haphazardly, as writer, composer, director. And star.
    
44. Larry David, The Three Stooges, 2011.       In their (obvious) flop salute to their slap-happy idols, the Farrelley brothers, Bobby and Peter, had the Stooges copying The Blue Brothers, 1979, by trying to save their old orphanage home… run by a Glee-ful Mother Superior. But hey, imagine Cher in a wimple! This was a loser from the get-go. The Farrellys adored them (hence their own un-subtle comedies like Dumb and Dumber) but there were not many fans left of the Stooges’ literal slap-happy boinks, pokes, slaps, nyuk-nyuks, nyaaahhhs. Even Mel Brooks dropped such a project in 1974 for exactly the reason that this one failed. “It’s so hard to sustain a plot that could withstand their antics for that long.”
45. Meryl Streep, Into The Woods, 2013.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Birth year: Death year: Other name: Cherilyn SarkesianUsual occupation: SingerCasting Calls:  45