From the archives: Life and death of Sonny Bono

This story was originally published in Newsday on Jan. 5, 2007.

Sonny Bono had three careers - showman, businessman and congressman - but he always played the same character: a folksy, outwardly bumbling guy who masked a surprisingly street-wise and savvy man.

Bono, 62, died Monday in a skiing accident near Lake Tahoe, Nev. His body was found on the slopes of the Heavenly Ski Resort late in the afternoon, about two hours after his family reported he had not returned from the last downhill run of the day.

At a news conference yesterday, Douglas County Sheriff Ron Pierini said Bono died of head injuries after skiing into a tree sometime after 1:30 p.m. Monday local time. He was reported missing hours later by family members with whom he was vacationing at the resort.

"It was an accidental situation," said Pierini. "He apparently was skiing down an area, the Orion, and struck a tree." He said that Bono, an experienced skier, was going about 20 to 30 mph and that he did not appear to have been impaired by drugs or alcohol, although complete toxicology tests will take about three weeks.

According to the autopsy report, Bono died of "blunt-force trauma to the head," police said. His body was found by the ski patrol at approximately 6:50 p.m., and he was pronounced dead at the scene.

Sgt. Lance Modispacher of the Douglas County Sheriff's Department said that Bono's body was found on a wooded area on the side of an intermediate ski slope and that it appeared Bono had been "tree-skiing" on fresh powder that had fallen the night before. He said tree-skiing, deliberately skiing in a wooded area, was popular at Heavenly.

"He wasn't breaking any rules," Modispacher said. "We do it all the time. The only thing we recommend is that you not outski your ability."

Modispacher said the accident probably happened between 1:30 and 2 p.m. "If you were on the ski run right on the edge where the tree line is and you were looking for him, you wouldn't see him," he said. "It's just one of those things. The poor guy was enjoying himself, tripped up and hit a tree."

Tributes to Bono poured in yesterday from all facets of his life and careers. President Bill Clinton, who ordered flags to half-staff in the nation's capital, said Bono "made us laugh even as he brought his own astute perspective to the work of Congress."

"He earned respect by being a witty and wise participant in policy-making processes that often seem ponderous to the American people," Clinton said.

"Sonny was one of the first true multimedia artists," said Michael Greene, president of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. "He crossed from folk singer to pop duo to television personality to motion pictures, so in that regard he was an important figure. I think we all kind of took him lightly because he aw-shucked and guffawed in his comedic role."

"I can't say I always agreed with his politics," added Greene, noting that Bono was a conservative who wanted to eliminate funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. "But he always was a gentleman."

True to his conservativism, Bono was opposed to homosexual rights even though his daughter, Chastity Bono, is a lesbian activist. Chastity Bono said in a statement that although she had differed with her father on gay rights, "he was very supportive of my personal life and career and was a loving father. I will miss him greatly."

House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said Bono was a "kind soul with a rare ability to make people laugh."

Bono made them laugh even in the most tense political moments. In July, when Rep. Bill Paxon (R-Amherst) and others led an aborted coup against Gingrich, Republicans held a five-hour meeting complete with bitter words and tears. At midnight, according to Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), Bono told the group a story that became a metaphor for the struggles of the party.

Bono recalled how after his singing career collapsed and he was reduced to doing guest spots on the TV show "Fantasy Island," he had one line to say, but blew it and was screamed at by Herve Villechaize, the actor who played Tattoo. King recalled Bono's using the story to illustrate to the Republicans that things are never as bad as they seem. "People laughed and walked out shaking hands," King recalled.

Bono, who was born Salvatore Bono in Detroit on Feb. 16, 1935, to Sicilian immigrants, moved with his family to California as a child. A high-school dropout, he started writing songs and singing in the 1960s. Between stops as a meat delivery truck driver on Sunset Boulevard, he would sing to music executives.

He wrote a few hit songs, such as "Needles and Pins" for the Searchers, but his career didn't take off until he borrowed $175 in 1964 to record "Baby Don't Go" with teenage runaway Cherilyn LaPiere Sarkisian, then his girlfriend. He married Cher, and they hit the pop charts with his songs, "I Got You Babe" and "The Beat Goes On." Records of 10 of Bono's songs went gold.

As their singing career faded, Bono engineered a television career for them as singing hosts of the "Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour," which featured Bono playing the bumbling straight man to Cher's stinging jokes. The show ended in 1974, and their marriage broke up, as well.

Yesterday Cher was flying to Los Angeles after canceling an appearance in London, where she was to have opened Harrods' winter sale. Television pictures showed her dabbing her eyes as she walked through Heathrow Airport.

After his divorce and after kicking around Hollywood for a few years - rich, but apparently washed up - Bono opened successful Italian restaurants in Los Angeles and Palm Springs.

The restaurant business led to politics after Bono got into a fight with the city of Palm Springs over permits for putting up a sign. He ran for mayor and won in 1988. After a long-shot Senate campaign in 1992, when he finished a respectable third in the Republican primary, he ran successfully for Congress in 1994.

Bono arrived in Washington facing cynical colleagues who thought he was a fluke. But he had earned their respect and was the second-most-sought-after fund raiser in the Republican Party after Gingrich.

"Sonny was very much in demand because people knew him, and he maintained a very full schedule of appearances," said Republican National Committee spokesman Mike Collins.

At one of his first meetings on the House Judiciary Committee in 1995, Bono complained that his colleagues "break down words to the nth degree, and sometimes I find it disgusting."

Rep. Charles Schumer (D-Brooklyn) upbraided the newcomer by reminding him that the committee was making "constitutional law, not sausage."

But Bono eventually won Schumer over. "When Sonny came to Congress, I looked at him as just another Hollywood politician," Schumer said yesterday. "Working together on the Judiciary Committee, I came to admire and respect him. Sonny was a moderate voice in the midst of an often intolerant committee majority. He was a friend, and I will miss him."

On the Judiciary Committee Bono authored one legislative initiative: A bill stipulating that only a three-judge panel, rather than a single federal judge, can block implementation of a state referendum that has won at the ballot box but is challenged in court. Bono's bill came in the wake of California Proposition 187, a 1994 state ballot initiative to disqualify illegal immigrants from receiving most public services, which was blocked by a federal judge. The House passed the Bono measure last year, but the Senate never took it up.

Generally a reliable conservative, Bono endorsed abortion rights, putting him at odds with many in his party.

Shortly after arriving in Washington in January, 1995, Bono turned opinion in his favor with a tour de force speech at the Washington Press Club Foundation's Congressional Dinner. Before an audience of the most powerful in Washington, Bono lampooned them all. He compared appearing at the black-tie dinner to "working clubs."

He said then that Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), one of the fastest and most glib talkers in Congress "does the best Shecky Green I've ever heard," and he described having heard Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), once a presidential candidate, telling a crowd: "You cain't eat corn if you ain't a pig!"

As Gramm, in the audience, roared along with the crowd, Bono recalled looking at his wife, Mary, and asking, "What the hell does that mean?"

Yesterday Gramm said Bono "didn't take himself seriously, but he took issues seriously. He became loved and respected because he could laugh at himself and laugh at us. But he remained very goal-oriented."

In addition to Chastity, his daughter with Cher, Bono had two children with Mary, whom he married in 1986. They are Chianna, 6, and Chesare, 9. He also had a daughter, Christine, from a marriage prior to that with Cher. Funeral arrangements were not immediately available.