--Costume and fashion
designer Bob Mackie is a nine-time Emmy winner, three-time Oscar nominee and
number one on the speed dial of a jaw-dropping array of celebrities. Now,
Mackie is the costume designer for The Cher Show, creating and revisiting looks
for the three stars portraying Cher, the superstar he has dressed in sequins
feathers beads and sometimes very little for over half a century.
[music]
["If I Could Turn Back Time" from the Cher Show]
--Tell me about your first encounter with Cher.
--Well my first encounter was she was
a guest on The Carol Burnett Show in 1967. So, I've known her a long long time.
She came in for a fitting and she and Sonny were both on the show, and then
they were in the the Show Boat finale. So, she loved that. It was like real show
business for her. There was a bead coming off of a beaded dress Carols and I was
trying to tie it off in the hallway. And she says, I loved beaded dresses!
I said You do? And she said, One day,
when we get enough money, I want you to make me one. I said, Well, when you're
ready, I'm ready. --Tell me what appealed to
you about working with Cher at that time?
--When I knew that I was going to be working with her the first time, I
thought, Oh, she's a Saltine kind of goth, kind of weird...I did we didn't know what
to think of her. I mean, Sonny and Cher became like the world's first hippies.
And the clothes changed and everything, but I always thought she was going to be
just kind of sullen because all the pictures, you know, she's you know looking
at the camera and with her hand upon Sonny's shoulder to make him look even
shorter. And she wasn't at all. She was delightful and cute and a little Audrey
Hepburn esque kind of girl. But, she had this black,
black hair and beautiful beautiful skin, and long neck, and just like somebody you
want a dress really.
--Cher inspired Mackie with her unconventional look that was
not the standard of the day.
--Pretty girls in those days were all kind of boopsie
and blonde and had a big front and a flip. So, you know, that wasn't anything
like Cher at all, and I was like quite fascinated with her. And and as it worked
out, the minute she hit the TV screen on a regular basis, all of a sudden the
flips were kind of you know we're disappearing, and long straight hair
parted in the middle became the only hairdo there was on the young, the young
women in the country. --Tell me about dressing three women as
Cher.
--It's tricky because they're not Cher. They're not necessarily built like
Cher or look like her, yet they're playing her and they're playing three
different age places. They all look young but the so does Cher! So you know what's
the difference? --Mackie is so important in Cher's life and
career that he's not just the costume designer of The Cher Show. He's also a
character, played by Michael Beresse. -- I'm in a fitting with Bob Mackie, who's
designing clothes for me to wear as Bob Mackie in a scene that takes place in a
fitting. And it's just the whole process of it could have been so fraught and
difficult, but Bob Mackie is the nicest man in the world, and he made me feel so
at home and so comfortable from the get-go. So, I have to say, it's a
responsibility but I also feel very at ease with him. And I'm very grateful that
he is that kind of person. --So, what is it like for you to be portrayed in a
Broadway musical?
--Well, it's the last thing I ever thought in the world would
ever happen. But it was kind of fun in a way you know, but it's still confuses
me sometimes, especially when they introduce the Cher called Lady in the in
the show. She comes out and she introduces, Ladies and gentlemen, Bob
Mackie. You know, it makes it kind of like just
twitch a bit because I'm sitting in the audience and and Michael's up there
taking the bow and I'm like, Oh, yeah. Right right okay. But I never quite get used to that.
It's weird. -- He was very aware that I was
watching him while we were interacting,
so he was not very Bob around me initially. I could see that he was like,
He's watching me and I'm watching him.
And he's a very joyful person, but he
also is extremely structured, very organized. His construction is stunning. I
mean, they all look like they're just gonna disintegrate, and then you get
close to the garments and their impeccably constructed. He's really a genius and has
a respect for old Hollywood.
--Was it fun to dress yourself in the Broadway show?
--Well, I just I thought, What would I put on him? Or me? What would I wear? And then
I was saying well it's supposed to be the 70s, so I put a turtleneck on him and
a sport coat, and that's kind of what I wore. But, you know, he has a snakeskin jacket
at one point and a turquoise jacket in another. It's a little more than I used to
dress.
--Literally, the first thing he said to me: Just so you know, I would never
wear anything I've designed for you. Which, I thought, is true. He would never
ask for that kind of attention that he affords all of us who are lucky enough
to wear his designs. -- Mackie is known
for his outrageous, body bearing
ensembles. But, as the designer of the show, he also had simpler tasks.
--There's one one scene, which is sort of interesting.
She's going off to New York to audition for Robert Altman. And I put her in just
just jeans and a little jean jacket and a t-shirt because, to me, she should have
been down and kind of simple and, you know, hoping that she couldn't do the
audition and get the part in the play. And when when Cher saw it, she thought, Well,
why why has she got those Kmart jeans on? You know, why is she so simple? I didn't
dress like that! And I said, Oh, but this is for the show. It's for that so she
looks vulnerable. And she went, Oh.
And of course I knew in my heart, I knew that
even even at her penniless moment in time, there was probably 400 outfits in
the closet that she could have put on. But it just seemed right for the time.
--It sounds like she has a lot of opinions.
--Oh, she has a lot of opinions. Nothing
intimidates her. She says, I don't want to ever, don't, don't ever dress me like
a housewife, unless I'm playing one, of course. But she doesn't want to ever look
ordinary. --He doesn't like his clothes to
ever appear vulgar. He has such a strong
sensibility about shape and body, and he makes everybody he designs clothes for
feel beautiful, regardless of their shape. But I also learned a lot about his life
and his losses and his difficulties, and it hasn't all been sunshine and rainbows
for Bob. And I think that's something that he and Cher have in common.
--She just realizes that I kind of understand her. You know, I have lots of
other clients who are not like her at all.
But she's kind of the the most notorious, I guess. [laughs]