Cher by Mark Bego

Author:Mark Bego [Bego, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor Trade Publishing
Published: 2001-11-26T08:00:00+00:00

11

MOONSTRUCK

In the time that Cher had been busy establishing herself as an actress, Sonny Bono had branched out a bit too. Since the end of their last television show together, The Sonny & Cher Show in 1977, he had taken several different acting roles on television and in movies. He sold a series idea to NBC-TV, called Murder in Music City. However, after the pilot was shot and run, the plug was pulled on the actual series. He acted in a miniseries called Top of the Hill and made appearances on shows like The Love Boat and Fantasy Island.

While taping a Fantasy Island episode Sonny started to reassess his career. When he was insulted on the set of the show by diminutive actor Herve Villechaize (“De plane, De plane”), he began to wonder whether or not he really wanted to remain in the television business. While the cameras rolled that particular day, Sonny’s line, which he addressed to Villechaize, was supposed to be “It’s a nice day, Tattoo.” By mistake he said, “It’s a nice day, Pontoon” (153). The next thing he knew he was being berated by Villechaize. “I have eight Gold records, and here I’m taking all this crap from a midget,” he was later to complain (154).

However, roles he was interested in playing would surface from time to time. He went to Greece to film the 1979 movie Escape to Athena. It was a World War II film that costarred Roger Moore, David Niven, Claudia Cardinale, Stefanie Powers, Richard Roundtree, and Telly Savalas. It was about prisoners of war not only trying to escape their Nazi captors, but attempting to pull off an art heist as well.

In 1982 Sonny landed a small role in the satirical comedy film Airplane II: The Sequel, which was filmed on the Paramount Pictures lot on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Every day that he drove to the film studio, he passed the intersection of Melrose and La Cienega. Heading east from that intersection, Sonny passed an odd-shaped triangular block with a single-story restaurant on it. It had once been a hamburger joint, and most recently, it had been painted in pink and turquoise and called Chicken Olé. Now there was a very prominent sign on it that read “For Lease.”

For some reason, Sonny was curious about the space, and on one of his trips past the block, he stopped to examine the building. He was later to confess that he had no idea what prompted him to stop in, but he felt compelled to do so. He tried the doors, looked in the windows, and did his own informal building inspection. He phoned the owner of the building, only to find that a woman was thinking about turning the place into a French restaurant. He told the owner that her plan would never work, because he envisioned the space as an Italian trattoria.

That night after his wife, Susie, went to bed, Sonny sat up sketching his idea of what the restaurant could look like, if he were to take it over.

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