Cher and Paul Giamatti: A Missed Connection

Plus: Valentine's Day links!

Two ships passing in the night. (Source.)

When my husband and I got married in 2019, we I accidentally chose “Fernando” as the soundtrack for the First Dance.

Yes: Perfection.

Initially, I had intended to buck tradition and not do the whole song-and-dance routine. I had been to a lot of weddings. I’d seen a lot of couples swaying to “What a Wonderful World.” We were going to be different! We were going to throw a nice dinner party with speeches and dancing afterward: As a group.

The DJ, a cheeky, British Bill Nighy type, missed the memo. He summoned us to his side while our family and friends sat down at long tables bedecked with wildflowers, twinkle lights glowing above. There was a small stage on the premises, but I did not expect that it would be put to use.

“What’s your wedding song?” the DJ asked.

Uhhhhhhhh. We don’t have one?

But this is the moment I have in my schedule for The First Dance, he explained, pointing toward the stage. You’ll do it there.

Generally, I dislike surprises. I have a cautious personality. With matters of the heart, I tend to avoid big, splashy, grand gestures. I don’t want to embarrass myself, although I have often done so unwittingly. At the same time, I never worried about embarrassing myself in front of my spouse, a perpetually bemused Steve Martin type who is comfortable in his skin. Let’s put it this way: When we met, I felt relaxed enough to be silly — à la, “Waiter, there is too much pepper on my Paprikash” — and rather than look at me weird, he took the cue like an improv comedian and said, Yes, and…

I surveyed the scene. The temperature in Palm Springs hovered near 90 degrees. The overall vibe: Happy, sweaty, Mamma Mia. My inner theater kid pictured Cher serenading Andy Garcia in the 2018 sequel to the ABBA-inspired musical:

I looked at the groom.

“What about ‘Fernando’ — the Cher version?”

The reference flew over his head. But he went with the idea. We sprinted past the tables, jumped onstage and improvised. Everyone thought we planned it.

---

And so, Cher will always be one of those famous people that I love, no matter what. Another is Paul Giamatti. Color me surprised to see those two wildly disparate personalities co-starring in my favorite gossip headline from the past week — a week in which pro football and celebrity merged to dominate the news cycle in spectacular ways! CC: Taylor and Travis and Usher and Usher’s new wife, etc.

Enter Giamatti, a welcome jolt of normalcy amid the brouhaha, the sort of Everyman who wins a Golden Globe and brings it to In-N-Out afterward. In a new appearance on Howard Stern’s Sirius XM radio show, he revealed that none other than Cher has inexplicably been trying to get in touch with him.

“Every now and then,” Giamatti said, Cher’s handlers will relay an urgent message from the 77-year-old icon. “She really needs to talk to me — like it’s important, like it’s crucial, that she talks to me. … Why does she want to talk to me? Nobody will tell me.” He will give her a call, but “then I never hear anything. And then a year will go by and then it happens again.”

At one point, someone at Giamatti’s podcast (yep, he has one) intervened on his behalf and put in a request to speak with Cher. This prompted her to call Giamatti directly and leave a cryptic voicemail, saying only: “I hear you wanna talk to me.”

He called her back but she didn’t pick up.

The silence is “killing me,” he confessed to Stern. “I'm dying to know what she wants to talk to me about. I mean, it would be great! I'd love to talk to her about anything. I don't care, it'd be fantastic."

According to People, the New York Times of celebrity magazines, Cher tweeted about Giamatti two years ago, praising his acting in the 2008 HBO miniseries John Adams. “PAUL GIAMATTI,& LAURA LINNEY’S WORK”TRULY OSCAR WORTHY,” she raved.

Perhaps she wants to congratulate him on his 16-year-old presidential role? Or his Oscar-nominated performance as a cantankerous boarding-school teacher in The Holdovers? Or get his real feelings about Pinot Noir? Or hire him to manage her career, since he’s always playing managers? Or just shoot the shit? Either way, I must get to the bottom of this. I’ve reached out to Cher’s publicist, Liz Rosenberg, for comment. On the off chance, I shall update accordingly.

---

Happy Valentine’s Day, however you celebrate (or don’t)! If you’re new to You’ve Got Mail: The Newsletter, here are some seasonally appropriate dispatches:

• “The Best Romantic Comedies Ever Made”

• “The Meg Ryan We Remember”

• “She’s Got Standards”

• “Nora Ephron and Butter: A Love Story”

• “Much Ado About Glen Powell”

• “Moira Kelly and ‘The Cutting Edge’”

• “Jennifer Lopez Says Yes to the Dress”

And if you’re single and on the apps, check out Sonia Weiser’s deep dive on the “banter” phenomenon for The Los Angeles Times. It is a delicious read (and I’m very happy to make a brief cameo). Meanwhile, watch this space: Next week is all about This Is Me… Now: A Love Story. Yours in bouquets of newly sharpened pencils, Erin.