Singer-actress Cher amazed and angered people 18 years ago when she thanked her hairdresser — but not her director — when she won the best actress Oscar for Moonstruck.
Now she is apologizing for it. Not publicly, but privately to Toronto filmmaker Norman Jewison, who calls her performance in his film “her best piece of work.”
The apology, better late than never, arrived this month. “She wrote me a letter,” Jewison tells the Sun, “and I think the letter was probably prompted by the DVD.”
Moonstruck is out in a new Deluxe Edition today with separate commentaries by Jewison and Cher edited into one track as part of the bonus materials.
“The letter,” says Jewison, “was all about how much Moonstruck meant to her and how it changed her life and how she never had the opportunity when she got the Academy Award to thank John Patrick Shanley (the screenwriter), and to thank me, and to thank Vincent Gardenia and Nicolas Cage, because she froze and she ended up thanking her hairdresser and her makeup man. And everyone wondered what happened.”
What happened, Cher told Jewison, was that she became “so overwhelmed with the moment” because she thought she had lost. Especially when presenter Paul Newman took a breath before announcing the name. Cher knew “you don’t have to take a breath to say Cher,” Jewison reported. “She was that tuned in and then her mind just went crazy!”
Jewison is happy now with the apology and with the legacy of the film. “The cast in Moonstruck is probably the best ensemble casting I’ve ever had.” Cher included.
