‘Beat Goes On’ Serves Duo Sonny Side Up

In 1965, if you said that Cher would outlast Paul McCartney and that Sonny Bono would go further in politics than Abbie Hoffman, you’d have been committed to the funny farm, bell-bottoms and all. Even Nostradamus couldn’t have predicted the enigmatic success of Sonny and Cher.

Yet Sonny and Cher have stayed in the American pop-culture spotlight for 35 years by continually reinventing themselves in music, television, motion pictures, books, politics and their stormy private lives. They proved to be anything but a one-hit wonder.

But it’s Sonny’s point of view that gets center stage in the ABC film “And the Beat Goes On: The Sonny and Cher Story,” which airs tonight at 9. Based as it is on the late Congressman Bono’s book of the same title, the movie is a mostly affectionate look at the couple’s years together.

“This may be Sonny’s side of the story,” says executive producer Larry Thompson, “but I also know that it’s the truth because I was there.”

Thompson, who represented the duo during their heyday and whose production company produced the film, wanted to tell the story he believes is virtually unknown--the one about Bono’s marketing savvy and his dogged determination to drive the couple to the top of the pop music charts.

The general perception, Thompson suggests, is that Cher was the whole show. But the thread running through the movie is Sonny’s unfailing drive in the face of rejection, financial woes, the emergence of acid rock and an always volatile relationship with Cher.

The film opens with a snapshot look at Bono’s appearance on David Letterman’s show in the late ‘80s, long after the couple split. At the time, Cher had been nominated for an Oscar for her performance in “Moonstruck,” and Sonny hadn’t undertaken his political career, which began in 1988 when he became mayor of Palm Springs. Letterman recounts the rise, and downfall, and asks Bono: “What happened?”

Unfolding like a long flashback, “And the Beat Goes On” attempts to answer that--from the $80 piano Sonny set up in a garage for writing songs and the bowling alley where the two first performed as Caesar & Cleo to the Bel-Air mansion and limo lifestyle.

But it was in the bowling alley that Bono discovered exactly what connected with the audience--Cher as the beauty with the big voice and big attitude and Sonny as second banana. An innate ability to make fans speculate on what they would do, say or wear next became as central to the act as the music. As portrayed in the film, Bono embraced the role, despite what it did to his public image, because it worked.

Behind the scenes, Bono wrote and produced most of the hit songs, including their signature “I Got You Babe” in 1965. “Cher got most of the limelight,” says Thompson, “because Sonny intuitively knew what would sell.”

Casting became a critical consideration for the ABC movie with a nationwide search conducted to find relative unknowns who could qualify as Sonny and Cher look-alikes. Thompson and crew found their Cher, though, was already in Hollywood.

Renee Faia, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Cher, began her film career doing art direction and set design, including working on “Jurassic Park” and “A Few Good Men.” She broke into acting with a minor part in the 1995 film “The American President.”

The role of Sonny went to Jay Underwood, who was in the Oscar-nominated film “Afterglow.” Underwood, though, may be best known to younger viewers as the android teenager in the Disney Channel series “Not Quite Human.”

“Playing a cultural icon like Sonny Bono was absolutely surreal,” says Underwood. “We were shooting in Sonny and Cher’s old Bel-Air mansion, and the wardrobe people really had their work cut out for them. They gave me this outrageous bobcat vest and told me to be very careful with it because it was an original piece of Sonny’s ‘60s wardrobe.”

Faia says the idea of playing Cher was at least as intimidating. “It’s a big challenge to play someone who, to this day, remains a household name,” says Faia, who studied countless hours of archived footage with Underwood to capture the quirky nuances of Cher, including her trademark eye rolling and lip pursing.

Though the film opens with Bono at one of his lowest points, it ends in a very different place. There is footage of the real Sonny urging us to “Believe in magic, and it will happen. Thank you for letting it happen to me.”