"Tattoos are the big hair of the '90s -- Wake up!"
-- Graffiti scrawled on a men's-room stall at a Boston club
"That is so cool," says Cher, when told of this bit of mid-'90s pop-cultural wisdom. And she should know. Cher is Ms. Original Rose Tattoo.
Cher has six tattoos, including, as she puts it, "a garden on my butt."
She got her first one in 1972.
"My mother was appalled. Everybody was appalled. And that suited me just fine. Now everybody has tattoos. I bet Dole has got a tattoo someplace," she says, referring to Bob Dole, the presidential candidate.
As times change, so do symbols of rebellion.
"I'll never get rid of my motorcycle or my truck," says Cher.
But she is considering the removal of the whole tattoo lot, save a crystal dagger on the inside of her right arm. "I can't imagine what my butt's gonna look like without the entire you know," she says.
What, though, might happen if Cher found herself in a new romantic situation? ("I'm absolutely available," she says.)
If you think you can follow in the shoes of Sonny Bono, David Geffen, Gregg Allman, Gene Simmons and Richie Sambora, among others, go for it. Cher says she's not even limiting potential suitors to the 18-34 demographic group.
"I could get a cool guy that was 70," she says. "I wouldn't even care. But usually I find that older men are more frightened by me and younger men are more interested."
Cher's story has been full of rises and falls, and it seems she's on another rise. She has a new album due out later this month, "It's a Man's World."
Geffen told her that she has more lives than a cat and that she is using up every one of them. "I feel like I'm on seven," Cher says, of the fabled nine lives. "I mean, I've re-emerged so many times I feel like an old Esther Williams movie."
At 50, Cher is as candid and quick-witted as ever.
On the critically slammed movie "Faithful," a supposed comeback vehicle: "If it was playing in my bedroom I wouldn't have gone [to see it] because it was a real disappointment."
On her melodramatic, overblown pop songs and her on-stage camp: "I'm serious in some things that I do, but the truth is, it's entertainment."
What of those tacky infomercials she did, which clogged up cable TV for a few years in the late '80s? "I didn't know it was a mistake then," she says.
And of her talents:
"I'm a better actress than I am a singer," Cher says. "That's for sure. "
Pub Date: 6/02/96