Five decades of Cher outfits
The entertainer has sold 100 million albums worldwide, but Cher is not just known for her voice. Her fashion - with many outfits credited to her longtime designer Mackie - has made a statement (sometimes loudly) of Cher's unique sense of style, color, show-biz glamor, and an outsized sense of humor.
By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan
Initially billed as Caesar and Cleo, Sonny and Cher recorded "Baby Don't Go" in 1964, and had their first big hit with "I Got You Babe," from their 1965 album, "Look at Us."
Cher told Anthony Mason that in the early years of Sonny & Cher they were banned from TV shows "because of the way we looked ... People forget it was a time where, you know, Steve and Eydie Gorme were doing one thing, and The Beatles had nice little hairdos and little round collars. Hippies wouldn't be in for a long time. And Sonny and I were wearing Eskimo boots and elephant bells."
"Whose idea was that, by the way?" Mason asked.
"It was mine," Cher said. "I had two friends, Bridget and Colleen, and they were making these things. And we got together [and][ we would just sew all the time. And no matter what I put Sonny in, he'd just do it. He just loved it. Just thought it was the most fun thing in the world. He would wear anything."
Cher and designer Bob Mackie first crossed paths when Sonny & Cher appeared on "The Carol Burnett Show" in the 1960s. When the singing duo got their own series in 1971, Cher asked Mackie to design her outfits. Their collaboration continues to this day.
Cher said that before her variety show, "Sonny and I wore clothes, but they were so kind of unisex, you know? Some people don't even know I was a girl!
"Then, Bob Mackie went, 'Okay, here I have my perfect hanger, and I'm gonna have the best time of my life.' And then it started to be a big deal for me because it was a big deal for people. It gets interwoven in you."
"Bob [Mackie] used to say - and I always felt it - 'There's nothing that I can put her in that she doesn't feel fine in,'" Cher told Anthony Mason. "And I always felt fine. I would just look and go, 'Oh, that's fun.' I have this thing about, 'Oh, that's fun,' or, 'Oh, that's beautiful.' "
"It's a double-edged sword," Cher said of her outrageous costumes. "It's a good thing, and then it's a bad thing, too."
"Where you feel like you have to top yourself somehow?" asked Anthony Mason.
"Or keep up. I mean, I topped myself a lot, you know? And now, I'm just treading," she laughed. "I'm happy if I can just tread!"
and a bit of a tramp.
She was a V-A-M-P ... Vamp."
Cher as Cleopatra in a blackout skit on "The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour."
Their variety show shut down when the couple divorced in 1974, and each went their separate TV ways - with "The Sonny Comedy Revue" and "Cher." The two re-teamed for the short-lived "The Sonny & Cher Show" in 1976.
Anthony Mason asked Cher to comment on a remark made about her wardrobe: "I think the reason she wears those gowns is to protect who she is, to distract people."
"I don't know. That's very smart," she replied.
Was it correct? "No," she said. " 'Cause clothes don't do anything. Clothes are nothing. Clothes are pretty. They're just to keep you warm, to keep you cool, or to be attractive."
Cher recalled, "Stanley Donen said, 'Oh my God, this is the best' - I was going out with Josh Donen at the time, and Josh was, like, totally freaked out when I walked out of the bathroom in this. And Stanley went, 'Oh, she's fabulous.'"
"How many Bob Mackie dresses have you worn?" correspondent Anthony Mason asked Cher. "It must be like hundreds? Is it thousands?"
"How many stripes on a zebra?" she laughed.
By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan