Vegas-bound Cher reflects on her tour and her life

Cher

Who: Cher, with Cyndi Lauper and Wild Orchid.

When: 8:30 p.m. Friday, 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

Where: MGM Grand Garden Arena.

Tickets: $39.75, $75.25, $150.25

Information: Call 891-7777.

PASADENA, Calif. -- Cher was playing Cher.

She wore her magenta Cleopatra wig to meet the press -- face to face, head and shoulders only -- via HBO's giant satellite screen.

The TV critics had just previewed her new "All or Nothing" video, a mad montage of the wild and crazy night in Phoenix that opened Cher's "Believe" tour.

It's hard to believe that with so much going on around her, Cher could even sing, much less remember where she was or who was there watching her.

But she does remember specific audiences. At her Houston show on June 18, "You guys were all thinking about the basketball game," she said, referring to the San Antonio Spurs' NBA Finals game.

"It's hard for me to see out there, you know. But I do see certain things, strange things. Like at the Garden (New York's Madison Square Garden), there were the most beautiful little blond twins in the audience. One man was trying to have his daughter see me. He was twisting her all around until she finally did.

"And I see odd drag queens," she said referring to all the male Cher wannabes. "Some have done a really good job. ... It's been 35 years of drag queens for me, and I'm a connoisseur."

From Cher's onstage perspective, this concert tour is one big "collective piece of energy that is happening when we all come together in the stadium. We all kind of fuse together, and it's just this kind of back-and-forth rhythm. The audience and I are one for that hour and a half."

The tour, which also features pop singer Cyndi Lauper and pop group Wild Orchid, plays the MGM Grand Garden Arena Friday and Saturday. On Sunday HBO will present "Cher: Live In Concert," a compilation of clips from both performances in Las Vegas.

Cher's loving the tour, she said.

"It's fun and it's exhausting -- not either/or, it's both. As long as people are happy and I can still walk off the stage, I guess it's good."

She looks terrific, and she thanks her tour for that.

"I'm in really good shape, just having to get out there and running around. Some of my dancers are in their 20s, and I had to really work hard this time because the older you get, the harder it is to get in shape for this kind of tour.

"Not a lot of 53-year-old women are out there, you know, running around in tights and jumping up and down. Every night is like doing aerobics for an hour and a half because singing and running around is really difficult. You can sing and stand still and you can run around, but mixing the two together is a new experience."

She didn't see last season's TV movie about Sonny and Cher. "Thank God! ... I don't exactly consider it a film. TV is not a place where you do films."

The critics hooted at that one; HBO's meet-the-press was stuffed with new movies.

"HBO is not TV," Cher backtracked.

In TV's Sonny and Cher movie (or non-movie), Cher hated Las Vegas and had a big fight with then-husband Sonny Bono because he made her do their show there. She swore she'd never play Las Vegas again. And here she is playing it.

"In those days I really did hate Las Vegas," she said. "We did two shows a night and I always got sick. It wasn't a fun place for me."

This time, obviously, it's different.

She was asked about her singing.

"My voice has definitely improved," she replied. "Nine years ago I started lessons, and that has really helped me. I've learned a lot about my voice and how to use it. I'm happier with my voice than I have ever been."

And on this tour, she's in control, she said.

"Not that I'm always the best person to have control," she said with a smile, "but if I screw up, it's me."

She does have advisers now but she still makes the final decisions and choices about what road to take, and when. She relies on her instincts.

"I pick my own songs because if I don't like a song, there's no way I can sing it. I pick my own movies because if I don't like the part, there's no way I can act it. ... You've got to have somebody else doing some part of the business, but you've got to pick what you love ... otherwise, I'd rather do something else."

An artist's life, Cher said, is not supposed to go smoothly.

"It's only years and years and years after you're gone that your life has any sense or real meaning. And I live my life as an artist's life. It's not smooth, it's not neat, it's not tidy. I don't care about all that stuff. I don't do real life so well; I do what I do well."

Being hot one day and not the next is part of it, too.

"I don't plan; I just wait until something happens. You just get an idea, you know, and something does happen."

She's hot right now and she's decided that "most of it has to do with scrutiny of the media, people wanting to see you and to write about you."

What's Cher really like? Just a few meager clues: There's no man in her life right now. She loves old movie musicals (her mother turned her on to stars such as Betty Grable). She likes all kinds of music -- "everything from Al Jolson to Pavarotti."

Pause. "Oh, there is one I really don't like. Jazz. I just don't get it."

Everybody's dancing to Cher's "Believe" single, but can she go out and dance without creating a riot?

"At home in L.A., I can," she said. "But they don't have any good clubs there, so that's kind of a drag. In New York, I used to go out a lot. I cut my teeth on Studio 54, so I had some really good dance times behind me. I like to dance to that kind of music, so if they have an oldies night in a club in L.A., I'll go."

What's next for Cher?

"(There are) lots of things I want to do: direct more, act more, do another Broadway play, and keep on doing this for a little while. I'm not finished with this yet."

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