The Search Goes On for ‘Sonny and Cher’

In lime-and-blue-striped flare pants, four-inch heels and a “very expensive” black wig, Gwenne Wilcox chatted casually about her dreams of playing Cher.

The thirtysomething actress and graphic designer from Reseda said she’s been compared to the 1970s icon and Academy Award-winning actress since she was a teenager. “I used to imitate her growing up, so the gestures are all there,” Wilcox said. “I think she’s really exotic and she’s bold, an enigmatic character.”

Wilcox was one of dozens of look-alikes who queued up outside the ABC studios in Century City on Thursday to audition for a TV movie about Sonny Bono and Cher.

ABC has launched a nationwide talent search to find lead actors for its two-hour movie “And the Beat Goes On: The Sonny and Cher Story,” a chronicle of the couple’s rise to fame as hosts of a popular musical variety show in the early 1970s, their public divorce and their subsequent individual achievements.

After the death of her ex-husband in January, Cher produced an appreciation, “Cher Remembers,” on CBS. The ABC production, scheduled to be broadcast next February, will be told from Bono’s perspective and is being produced with the full cooperation of his widow, Rep. Mary Bono (R-Palm Springs), according to executive producer Larry Thompson, former attorney for the couple and a longtime Bono confidant.

“This covers the heartthrob, the heartbreak and eventually their reinvention,” Thompson said. “It’s a wonderful story because it was a wonderful time in music and these were two pop icons.”

Thompson said the network will hold auditions in Chicago and New York next week, then plans to announce the lucky duo at month’s end and start shooting in mid-September.

ABC executive Susan Lyne said open casting calls are rare for the network, but the distinctive personalities of the famous couple require new faces. “There’s such baggage with actors people know, so we knew we’d have to cast unknowns,” Lyne said. “Why not see if we can’t find some fresh talent?”

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Amid the sea of polyester and platform shoes outside on Thursday, bars from the couple’s trademark song “I Got You Babe” cut through the early morning silence every few minutes as those auditioning warmed up. The tryout drew local actors as well as long-distance hopefuls from Las Vegas to Vancouver, Canada.

Filling out audition paperwork in the outdoor plaza, Angel and James Espinoza had brought their 5-year-old son, James, from Espanola, N.M. In a full-length, blue-sequined gown, Angel admitted she’s a true Sonny and Cher fan. She has impersonated Cher as part of a Las Vegas lounge act and at a local community theater in New Mexico, and collects Sonny and Cher memorabilia. “We even have Sonny tanning lotion,” she said and laughed, “but I’ve never used it.”

As one of a handful of Sonny hopefuls, Bret Davidson stood near the front of the line wearing an orange patterned dashiki, shaggy brown hair and mustache. The 39-year-old stuntman and part-time actor from Tujunga said he is constantly mistaken for the ‘70s showman and late congressman.

“I get it all the time, everywhere I go,” he said. “One night I went out to a nightclub and this man insisted I was Sonny Bono and wouldn’t leave without an autograph. His girlfriend was the same way. When my wife and I finally convinced them I wasn’t Sonny, they just said, ‘Golly, if someday they ever do a film about Sonny and Cher, you’ve got to play Sonny.’ And so here I am.”

Davidson said he used to watch the couple’s 1970s variety show and had been practicing his impersonation and rendition of the tune “And the Beat Goes On” all week. “I bought a CD, tried to remember Sonny’s moves and will just go from there,” he said. “It would be an honor to play him.”

Cher wannabes came in all shapes and sizes; one was even nine months pregnant. Barbara Delgado, 27, of Riverside, is two weeks from delivering but heard about the audition from an aunt Tuesday night and drove up with her husband to give it a try.

“I haven’t practiced or anything, but people have told me I look a lot like her,” she said. “Who knows, maybe they’ll need a pregnant Cher.”