The reason Cher's film career took off while other singers stumbled was the directors she worked with

I think she's a really good actress. I loved Mask, The Witches Of Eastwick, Silkwood, Moonstruck, etc...

She won an Oscar, for Christ's sake! What the fuck happened to her career?

... and the talented Editors.

She was unique, not cookie cutter. She's studied but charming and likeable. I think she lost her career due to laziness and over indulgence in plastic surgery so she no longer looked very natural. Didn't she also struggle for a long time with CFS - epstein-barr?

Even as her career as an actress faltered in the nineties, Cher was still working with some major directors: Altman again, Paul Mazursky and Franco Zeffirelli. Only Richard Benjamin wasn't at their level, but he had done some respectable work prior to Mermaids.

Those choices might not have panned out for her, but it wasn't because she stopped working with talented people.

What was the second Altman picture r4?

She did have a great comic flair. I love in the Mazursky film (forget the name) how she exclaims "you're in therapy?!" to the the hitman who has her tied up.)

There were actually two more in the nineties, R4: The Player and Pret-a-Porter. I think both were cameos.

R6, that one is called Faithful.

She played herself in The Player and Pret a Porter in cameos.

After she got the Oscar, I don't think she had much interest in sustaining an acting career. It is a shame in a way, because in five years she racked up one oscar nomination, one win, and was snubbed for another Oscar nomination. That was very impressive. But she also had a music career that was bringing in huge bucks, and dealing with the Dorothy Zbornack disease.

I kind of wish she would have found her way back to motion pictures in the 2000's. Burlesque was okay, but nowhere near her previous output.

[quote] she exclaims "you're in therapy?!" to the the hitman who has her tied up.)

I wonder if that film inspired The Sopranos

I know it is not a popular film but I love Suspect.

It is a fun watch every few years.

I remember she got flack for Suspect because she wore a black leather jacket that was too stylish in the courtroom scenes. I agree though it is a good film.

IMO, Cher's acting is overrated.

She was not taken seriously as an actress in her first few films. It was only when she went to NY to Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean that she started to be taken seriously.

It took off because she was Cher first of all and secondly she put the work in which the Academy rewarded her for. That was the zenith. Then she went back to being Cher.

She wasn't typecast. Cher could play down to earth in Silkwood and Mask but still do glamorous parts like Moonstruck.

Barbra would never play a blue collar lesbian.

Cher would have been more believable in Nuts.

[quote]Cher could play down to earth in Silkwood and Mask but still do glamorous parts like Moonstruck.

Cher *is* down to earth and capable of exuding glamour, r16. Neither of those are a stretch for her.

R18 is Flora, The Countess De Lave.

Of course her talent couldn't have anything to do with it, could it? It had to be due to the talent and skill and hard work of her male directors, right? Jesus Christ.

I'm not even a huge Cher fan, but she is a talented person who knows a thing or two about the business. Why do you feel such a need to cut her down?

I don't think mentioning that she worked with a series of great directors is meant to diminish her, R20. I think it speaks to her good taste in collaborators and savvy business sense.

OP says the reason her career took off was her directors -that sounds like they are giving all the credit to the directors, rather than the actor...

OP did word it that way, R22, but I read it more as a reflection of her choices and those of her directors, which didn't happen in a vacuum. Cher could have just as easily done a series of dumb romantic comedies in the eighties instead of working with legends like Altman and Nichols. And those directors could have just as easily said "no, I don't think Cher can act, I'd rather have someone else in the role." But they recognized something in her, and rightfully so.

I definitely didn't think OP was saying that Cher's success as an actress is merely the creation of talented men.

r22 - OP is merely posing the question of whether other singers trying for a film career would have fared better if they'd had the same level of director.

Bogdanovich did say he had a hard time directing Cher, but consider the source

Here's what Bogdanovich said about Cher:

[quote]“Well, she didn’t trust anybody, particularly men,” he said at the time, ahead of his death in 2022. “She doesn’t like men. That’s why she’s named Cher: She dropped her father’s name. Sarkisian, it is. She can’t act. She won Best Actress at Cannes because I shot her very well. And she can’t sustain a scene. She couldn’t do what Tatum [O’Neal] did in Paper Moon. She’d start off in the right direction, but she’d go off wrong somehow, very quickly. So I shot a lot of close-ups of her because she’s very good in close-ups. Her eyes have the sadness of the world. You get to know her, you find out it’s self-pity, but still, it translates well in movies. I shot more close-ups of her than I think in any picture I ever made.”

She thought he was an arrogant pig, and Bogdanovich's own comments seem to prove her point.

Team Cher

Cher's got to have an outsized ego, as well. She's turning into a beloved old lady, like Betty White and Dolly Parton, somehow.

Do I believe Peter Bogdanovich's account 100%? No, because he's a cunt. But there's some truth in what he says.

I didn't mean to credit the director's for making her career. I just worded it poorly. I meant to say she took risks and made good decisions.

The Bogdanovitch hatred all comes from her not taking his side in the lawsuit to get Springsteen music on the soundtrack.

Her face has settled nicely in old age. She looked beautiful in Mama Mia Here We Go Again.

"Good Times" wasn't very good.