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Delivered 9 January 1998 in Palm Springs, CaliforniaPlease excuse my papers, but I've been writing this stupid eulogy for the last
48 hours. And, of course, I know that this would make Sonny really happy. It's
like Den said: "He got the last laugh."
So because I've had to write some of it down doesn't mean that I'm unprepared.
It just means that I'm over prepared in that this is probably the most important
thing I've ever done in my life. Don't pay any attention [weeping]. This is
probably going to happen from time to time. And I also know that he is some
place loving this Also, I have to wear the glasses that I made so much fun of
him. I called him Mr. Magoo. I said, "You know, you've got to get some better
glasses. You know, I don't care if you're Republican or not, you've got to look
cooler than this." So now I have to wear the glasses that I make fun of him for
saying. There are a couple of things -- I want to tell some stories -- but there
are a couple of things I really want to get perfect for him. So I have to read.
Some people were under the misconception that Son was a short man, but he was
heads and tails taller than anyone else. He could see above the tallest people.
He had a vision of the future and just how he was going to build it. And his
enthusiasm was so great that he just swept ever body along with him. Not that we
knew where he was going, but we just wanted to be there (audience laughs). He
was also successful at anything he ever tried. Not the first time he tried
maybe, but he just kept going. If he really wanted something, he kept going
until he achieved it. Once he told me that, when he was a teenager, he got his
nose broken six times because he used to get into fights with guys that were
much bigger than him. And he said that they would just be beating the crap out
of him and would just be keep going back and going back and going back. I said,
"Well, why?" And he said, "Because eventually I would just wear them down."
(audience laughs). And if you know him, we all got worn down.
Some people thought that Son wasn't very bright, but he was smart enough to take
an introverted 16-year-old girl and a scrappy little Italian guy with a bad
voice and turn them into the most successful and beloved couple of this
generation. And some people thought that Son wasn't to be taken seriously
because he allowed himself to be the butt of the jokes on the Sonny and Cher
show. What people don't realize is that he created Sonny and Cher. And he knew
what was right for us, you know? He just always knew the right thing. And he
wanted to make people laugh so much that he had the confidence to be the butt of
the joke because he created the joke.
When I was 16-years-old, I met Sonny -- Salvatore Philip Bono. And the first
time I ever saw him, he walked in this room. And I had never seen anything like
him before in my life. Because he was Sonny way before we were Sonny and Cher.
He had this thing about him. He walked into this room, and I swear to God I saw
him and like everybody else in this room was just washed away in this soft focus
filter -- kind of like when Maria saw Tony at the dance. And I looked at him,
and he had like this weird hair-do between Caesar and Napoleon. As a matter of
fact, one of the first things that he ever told me was that he was a descendent
of Napoleon, and that his father had shortened the name of Bonaparte to Bono
when he came to this country. But that he didn't want to make too big a deal out
of this. Now you have to realize, at this time, he was talking to a girl who
thought that Mount Rushmore was a natural phenomenon. So we were definitely a
marriage made in heaven.
Page 2 - Cher's Eulogy for Sonny
Bono
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