Monday, October 23, 2006

CHER & HER BAGEL BOY AND
ANNIE OAKLEY & HER SITTING BULL

The all-time biggest targets of tabloid trashing are perennially hot Cher AND legendary, long dead Annie Oakley.

Cher began as a singing duo with Sonny the year of President Kennedy’s assassination (1963) and Annie Oakley was born the year Lincoln was elected President (1860). Yet these two entertainers share the distinction of being the most admired and most maligned celebrities of their era.

Generous and driven workaholics, they never cared much for drinking, drugging, gambling or staying up late. But the tabloid press fastidiously ignored all that and clobbered them anyway.

Both of these superstars began life destitute, but determined to be stars. Fatherless at an early age, they were 15 years old when they met men 12 years older who married them and guided them to fame and fortune.

Proof positive that absentee dads are a powerful thing long after they’ve vanished.

For almost 20 years, Annie Oakley dazzled the world with her shotgun genius as the star of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. The diminutive damsel took aim and the bullets whizzed fast and furious, ALWAYS hitting their targets. She nurtured a spotless reputation for decency and fairness. Annie was even adopted by her castmate, the infamous Sioux warrior Sitting Bull, who named her “Little Sure Shot”.

A shocked Annie Oakley awoke one day in 1903 to a screaming headline in two Hearst-owned Chicago newspapers that she was a thief, a cokehead and a jailbird. The story said she stole money from a black man to pay for a coke addiction that had aged her beyond her years.

Though the story was totally untrue, Hearst newspapers picked it up and ran the piece coast-to-coast. This was the modus operandi of William Randolph Hearst, the father of “yellow journalism”. The tabloid tycoon actually did the p.r. that launched the Spanish-American War just for personal power and wealth. Déjà vu all over again?!

For the next six years, Annie Oakley devoted herself to shooting down Hearst’s lies by filing 55 lawsuits against his newspapers across the country. “These terrible lies nearly killed me,” she lamented. Though she won all but one lawsuit, she lost much of her fortune on legal fees and her health suffered. BUT SHE FOUGHT THE TABLOIDS AND WON!

While an old Indian chief adopted Annie Oakley as a daughter, the part-Cherokee Cher chose to adopt a bevy of beautiful boys as her lovers. The tabloids ragged on her endlessly about this proclivity. The tabloid stinkers dubbed her favorite boy toy “The Bagel Boy” after they got wind of his former profession.

Word is that when Cher first eyed Bagel Boy’s chiseled features and sinewy, slim body, she gave her bodyguards orders to: “Undress him, bathe him, and bring him to my tent.”

The paparazzi pursued the two lovebirds until they forced the Bagel Boy out of Cher’s Holmby Hills nest. Tabloid love sure HURTS.

Judging from the scandal sheets, Cher’s major crime appears to be financing countless Beverly Hills plastic surgeons and their extended families. Let’s see, at last count the gossipmongers allege: removal of two ribs, chin implants, brow lifts, a nose job, neck tightening, breast & buttock implants, collagen injections into her lips, botoxed forehead, and tattoos in highly sensitive, obscene body cavities.

Hey, forget about the Oscar, the Grammy's and the Golden Globes awarded to her in a 40-year career. Cher should get a Purple Heart and the Medal of Honor for keeping up the morale of the country and the troops through at least four wars. Staying a full-fledged skinny sex symbol into your sixties really HURTS. And deserves props.

Cher got fed up in 1981 and sued STAR magazine for misuse of her image. She spent more on legal fees than the half million plus bucks she got in a settlement. BUT SHE FOUGHT THE TABLOIDS AND WON!

Still, Cher and many other stars are often spotted at newsstands shamelessly buying the tabloids. Proving what millions of ordinary folks know: Guilty pleasures are indestructible and live on. A million years from now after global warming and the dreaded nuclear winter, all that will survive are the cockroaches, the Star and the Enquirer.

(c)2006, Sistarrs International

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's not all that will survive....you forgot death and taxes.

I love this quote from Cher: "The trouble with some women is that they get all excited about nothing...and then marry him." and "A girl can wait for the right man to come along, but in the meantime she can have a wonderful time with all the wrong ones!"

Gotta love this woman...she's made of strong stuff....and silicone too

Anonymous said...

Who knew they had tabloids in Annie Oakley's days. you gals hit a home run again!! Here's some gossip for you: Cher is Jessica Simpson's new friend. They go shopping in Beverly Hills & have lunch in Malibu. Who says different generations can't be buds?!!

Anonymous said...

I've always loved Cher. She is larger than life and NEVER gives up. I didn't know much about Annie Oakley, but feel I know her now.
That these ladies have so much in common is mind-boggling!!

Anonymous said...

I really dug your parallels between Cher & Annie Oakley and their "old men". I didn't know that Sitting Bull from Custer's Last Stand was Annie's adoptive dad & pal. Just heard the pod and am lol with thoughts of Annie on Sitting Bull's lap "playing with his feathers and other sundry things". Keep them coming PLEAAASSSEEEE!!!!

Anonymous said...

Soo many facts I didn't know. It made me go to the pods & I loved them even more!! You gals are really hysterical. You make me laugh all the time. Thanks!!

Anonymous said...

Damn what crazy stuff...whoever said truth is stranger than fiction was right on! Wonderful job.

Anonymous said...

I'm a Starr Secrets pod freak, but I got real curious after laughing my ass off about knowing more about Sitting Bull & Annie and that hottie bagel boy. Well I'm now a blog fan too. Sign me up!

Anonymous said...

Reading that crack by Cher to her security people on meeting her Bagel Boy: "Undress him, bathe him & bring him to my tent" cracked me up big time. I loved hearing about Annie Oakley & Sitting Bull. It made me want to HEAR it and I gotta say that the sounds of the disco, rifle shots and Sitting Bull's hilarious crack about his Little Sureshot made me subscribe to your pods. WOWEEEEEE!!
You guys are crack shots yourself. You always hit a bulls eye...

Anonymous said...

Awesome and totally fabulous, girls.History and show biz with whipped cream...delicious!! They had coke in the Wild West, wow!!

Anonymous said...

Is Cher off doing another Farewell Tour? Whatever happened to her Bagel Boy? Annie's Frank must've been hot!!