CHER EARNS SHARE OF SPOTLIGHT

People magazine had come and gone, Newsweek was just leaving and USA Today would soon arrive at the newly rented Malibu beach house. Inside, Cher took a deep breath and sank into her patchwork-quilt-covered couch. The brief respite was all the time she would have between interviews publicizing “Mask.”

Movie critics have praised Cher’s portrayal of the real-life Rusty Dennis--a tough, troubled biker moll whose commitment to her grotesquely disfigured son helped him lead a normal life. However, at this moment, all the plaudits in the world seemed unlikely to excite her.

“I’m busting my butt on these interviews,” she said wearily, to no one in particular.

Wearing a soft, oversized white sweater, its folds tumbling off her shoulders, and faded jeans threadbare at the knees, Cher appeared tiny and fragile as she sipped tea in her country-style living room. The illusion disappeared as she held forth on a number of subjects.

They ranged from Peter Bogdanovich and “Mask” (“When we were making the film, I didn’t have a clue about what he was up to”), to music, television and movie executives (“suit people”), to how she feels about women who wear navy blue (“They don’t have the guts to wear black”).

Her comments reflect her approach to almost everything--a witty candor that at times teeters perilously on the edge of tactlessness. The balancing force--and her overall charm--is her liberal application of humor, irony or sarcasm, especially when it comes to herself.

Depending on the topic, Cher’s choice of language is also candid, with any number of four-letter words used to underscore her points.

For instance, her attitude toward director Bogdanovich and his battle with Universal Pictures over the removal from “Mask” of Bruce Springsteen’s songs and several scenes that the director felt were critical:

“The one scene he keeps talking about is my scene; if I can live without it, he should be able to live without it, but he was just amazed that studio people were screwing with his work. Basically, what I said was: ‘You know, you screwed with my work; now they’re screwing with my work. . . . I don’t really give a damn.’

“It’s like being a slave and having someone sell you. When you’re a slave, one master’s as good as the next.”

She shrugged. “He screwed up my work as far as I’m concerned, so for them to screw it up a little bit more . . . who cares? They really didn’t hurt it as much as Peter hurt it in the beginning.” (The movie has grossed a respectable $13.5 million to date.)

While her remarks seemed incendiary, Cher hardly could be described as hotheaded. She actually seemed rather shy. During a two-hour interview she sat perfectly still, occasionally playing with the six-inch silver earring hanging from one ear. She rarely gestured and never raised her voice. After all, petty squabbles, business disputes and problems are hardly novel occurrences to her.

Although only 38, Cher’s already been around that territory . . . a lot.

“God, I am so sick of ‘finding a new life.’ It seems like every time someone writes about me, it’s me with a new life--every time I get a new boyfriend, I get a ‘new life.’ ”

Irony in her voice and sly amusement on her face, Cher glanced through a small stack of old newspaper stories about her that had been brought by a visitor. (Considering the batch of interviews now out for “Mask,” she’s still being reborn. Newspapers and magazines are talking about her “loving new man,” her “new role,” her “new confidence” and her “new depth of expression.”)

Holding the stories by her fingertips, she carefully inspected the yellowed documentation of her highly publicized life, commenting: “It’s depressing to see your life reduced to little pieces of paper.”

Private matters usually discussed only with close friends were--during the height of Cher’s television career--national news. There were the clips from her divorce with Sonny Bono. From her marriage to rock musician Greg Allman. From their separation. From their reconciliation. And their new separation. From her brief television reconciliation with Sonny. From the show’s cancellation, and ultimately the Allman divorce.

Periodically, her expressive dark eyes would widen at a forgotten news item and her husky contralto tones would punctuate the silence.

“Sonny sued me for 24 million d o llars ?” she asked, incredulous.

“He did?” Cher’s sister, actress Georganne LaPierre--a frequent visitor--overheard the comment, strolled in from the next room and read over her shoulder.

“Yeah, I forgot--I settled for $2 million,” Cher said glumly, as she picked up another clip. “Divorce is so damned expensive.”

Cher read another headline aloud: “Will the real Cher please stand up?”

She laughed and responded in short defiance.

“No.”

As she read, the only sounds were the waves breaking outside the home she shares with boyfriend Josh Donen, ABC executive and son of producer Stanley (“Two for the Road”) Donen.

Cher was asked about her decision to return to Malibu. When she moved into her Benedict Canyon home (now on the market) several years back, she had offered no regrets, saying in an interview: “I think the sea is horrible . . . cold and dirty.”

“You said that?” her sister asked in disbelief. Cher laughed good-naturedly: “Yeah, sounds exactly like me. If it’s stupid, I said it.”

Somewhere in the stack, the articles about Cher the Phenomenon grew scarce.

“Oh yeah, that’s when I was ‘washed up,’ ” she quipped, mimicking media reportage to that effect. “That’s what happens to phenomenons. Actually, I worked in Vegas, took that show all over the world and made more money in a night than I have since I started acting.”

The articles reflected that change in profession. They told the story of Cher’s frustration with Hollywood’s unwillingness to give her a chance on screen, and her subsequent move to New York.

There were raves from her Broadway acting debut in Robert Altman’s “Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean” and her performance in the film version. Then further critical praise, and news of her best supporting actress Oscar nomination for her role in “Silkwood” as Dolly Pelliker, Meryl Streep’s friend and roommate.

The plum roles and rave reviews, she said, have resulted in a different kind of media coverage. “People somehow feel that they can’t be totally rude to you anymore. They don’t say really stupid things like ‘Do you think that showing your belly button . . ? ‘ “ She began laughing. “Or, ‘Why did you go out with a guy and kiss him in public?’ ”

However, some reporters still have problems considering Cher as a real actress.

“A lot of the press said to me, ‘You’ve played the same three women.’ I don’t know where that comes from,” she said testily. “If you look at Dolly and look at Rusty, they’re not at all the same. I think that’s an insensitivity and a superficiality on the part of the reporter.

“I have to pick characters that I think I can do. Now Meryl (Streep, who remains a close friend) could play anything, in any kind of emotional area code . . . I can’t. I cannot play the Queen of England.”

Certainly not with her current hair style, which features a blond streak down the center of her head. It was not the hair style of a “serious” actress, she was told.

“Some reporter asked: ‘If you want to be taken seriously, why don’t you tone down your looks?’ ” Cher recalled, still incredulous. “I have to have this (acting) success or failure on my own terms. I’m not any more serious than I was before. I really don’t know what my hair has to do with my talent.

“Anyway, if you can’t be who you are, then you aren’t anybody.”

She laughed. “God, if I wanted to be acceptable, I never would have left Sonny!”

Suit people is the designation Cher reserves for show-business executives. After “Mask,” she had some definite feelings about film’s suit people.

“It’s strange,” she mused. “I think that the artists in all businesses (movies, television, music) are the same. It’s the suit people . . . they just get worse.”

She corrected herself: “I don’t know that they get worse in film, but they have more power. I hand in a master (tape, for an album)--what can they do to it? They either like it or they don’t. They can’t edit it, they can’t make you change words, they can’t do anything.

“In film, you hand in your work and then it becomes something totally different. You do the work on the thing and you have your scene, then they cut it, or change it, or take it out. Or they can redo the whole movie so it doesn’t have anything to do with what you thought it was about.”

The only suit person at Universal whom Cher praised was MCA President and Chief Executive Officer Sidney Sheinberg.

“I know that if it weren’t for Sid, this movie would’ve never been made. No one wanted to make this movie.”

Gone are the days when Cher couldn’t be taken seriously by film’s suit people. Producer Ray Stark called her the other day, she said, asking her to make movies with him. However, it was while talking about former MGM/UA vice chairman Frank Yablans that a triumphant note crept into her voice.

“He could have cared less whether I lived, died or whatever. He didn’t like my work until ‘Mask,’ and it changed his whole thing. He called and said, ‘You know, I never liked you before, but I have to tell you that I’m crazy about you now.’ ” She smiled. “That’s happened with lots of people since ‘Mask.’ I think before that, they didn’t know whether or not I was a one-shot deal.”

Her current good fortune, she said, “is like luck in reverse. It’s like fate or something knows that I don’t have time to go through jobs that are not gonna be anything for me.” She added, “I’ve done only three jobs since 1981, so they’re (film projects) not exactly coming at me in full force. We’ll see what happens with this one.”

Saturday Review magazine recently published a list of overrated and underrated celebrities. Of Cher, the magazine said: “Her ludicrous personal life is still distracting attention from the range and sensitivity of her late-blooming talent.”

During a Sunday-afternoon barbecue later that week, the life style at the Malibu beach house seemed anything but ludicrous. Given the number of couples with their small children, Cher’s mother and sister and Josh Donen’s father, it resembled any family-style gathering.

Sure, most family gatherings don’t include actor Hart Bochner, who--at the moment--was helping Cher’s son, 8-year-old Elijah Allman, put up a volleyball net, or actress Kelly LeBrock, who stopped by with producer Victor Drai (“The Bride”). However, the 20-plus people constituted the current extent of Cher’s social life.

As she said earlier in the week, “I’m very anti-social, I’m a terrible friend . . . I never call anybody or return calls. I have friends now like Hart and Sean (Penn), but not many women--besides Meryl. I vacillate between thinking how interesting and important women really are and how dull they are.

“I like to gossip, but I don’t really care--I don’t really care what most people are doing.”

The Saturday Review piece suggests that Cher probably can be found dancing on the beach in a sequined string bikini; however, the actress--wearing the same jeans and sweater--was actually bustling around the kitchen, getting hamburgers, hot dogs and chicken ready while her manager, Bill Sammeth, put the final touches on a pasta salad.

“I never handle this thing right,” she confessed. “Even if I had two or three maids (there was only the housekeeper), I still wouldn’t be prepared.”

Later that afternoon, as she relaxed on a lounge chair, bouncing a friend’s baby on her stomach and talking with her son, she hardly seemed the much-hyped Singer-Phenomenon-Actress.

Just Mom.