It's a firebrand that hasn't stopped getting people talking. In the first volume of his memoirs, Cher: the autobiographypublished on November 20 by Harper Collins, Chericonic singer of the 1970s, settles a lot of scores with a lot of crossed personalities during all these years in show biz and in Hollywood. She obviously evokes the happy days with Sonny, her companion in the heydays, when the duo was at the top of the British and American charts, but also her past, and sometimes complicated, experience in the ruthless world of Hollywood.
One of the “victims” of his vitriolic memoir is called Peter Bogdanovichundoubtedly the most original and singular director of New Hollywood, this movement of the late 1960s and especially the early 1970s which saw the emergence of talents like Dennis Hopper (Easy rider), George Lucas (American graffiti), Francis Coppola (Secret conversation) or even Brian de Palma (Blood sisters). Several of the films signed “Bogda” – The last session (1971), Cotton candy (1973) or even Jack the Magnificent (1979) – still occupy a special place in the hearts of moviegoers today. This is clearly not the case for Cher, who has very bad memories of her collaboration with the director on the film Mask, released in 1985. In her collection of memoirs, the singer, aged 78, described her as “arrogant” Peter Bogdanovich, even adding a definitive and pithy: “He was a pig. »
The singer notably recounts that Bogdanovich asked her one day during filming for suggestions on where they should shoot a particular scene. “I said to him: 'The kitchen works pretty well, why not do it in the kitchen?' The next morning, he comes on set eating an egg sandwich and starts yelling that he won't let me direct this movie, that I'm nobody and that he can kick me out at any time if he wants to. wants to. Oh yeah, that guy was a pig. » Before finishing (and finishing him off): “He was an asshole. He wasn't nice to the girls in the movie and he was so arrogant. I really, really hated it. » That’s clear…
“Difficult actress”
It seems the feeling was mutual and quite shared. Disappeared in January 2022, Peter Bogdanovich already declared in 2019 on the site specializing in culture and cinema vulture.com “that Cher was the most difficult actress he had ever had to work with”, maintaining that she “didn't trust anyone, especially men”. “She couldn't do what Tatum O'Neal did in Cotton candyfor example…” he said at the time. “She was going in the right direction, but very quickly went wrong one way or another. So I took a lot of close-ups of her. She is very good at close-ups. »
Very fit, and keen to set the record straight, Cher also attacks the director in her biography Frank Ozwho briefly worked with her on the film The Two Sirensreleased in France in 1991, with Winona Ryder and Bob Hoskins. A shoot where the star even takes credit for having him fired from the film. “I was actually the one who got the Muppets guy fired,” she wrote. I told him, “Either you go or I go.” Which is a shame because he's a very good director, but he had a soft spot for me. He said: “At least my wife loves me!” »…
Cher: The Autobiography, Part One is currently on sale in all bookstores. The second part is planned for 2025, with no release date yet.
