Cher is your 2024 recipient of the IHeartRadio Icon Award. Not much of a shocker. The American singer is the only artist in history to have a #1 single on the Billboard charts in seven consecutive decades. Cher’s career can be traced back to the 1960s, when alongside partner Sonny Bono she recorded her first #1 hit: “I Got You, Babe.”
Fellow American Icon Merryl Streep was on hand to present the award to Cher. Streep’s accolades in acting rival Cher’s in music; her resume includes 21 Academy Award and 33 Golden Globe nominations. Streep honored Cher by revisiting her fandom and their relationship, which goes back over four decades:
“I first met [Cher] 40 years ago, when we made a film about an activist called Silkwood. And in the movie, we held on to each other. And we rocked on a porch swing in a little house in Sherman, TX on an October night. And I sang her a lullaby. But all I could think of as we were going back and forth was ‘I Got You, Babe.’ Let’s take a look at this year’s IHeartRadio Icon. My friend, Cher.”
Why were Cher & Meryl Streep in Sherman, TX on a fall night in 1982? Why, because of an Austin College Kangaroo of course.
Kangaroo Lee Mayes arrived on campus in the fall of 1962. Mayes was a native of Grayson County, having spent his youth in Denison. At AC, Mayes pledged the Drake fraternity alongside Richard Barrett Faulkner. He was also active in AC theatre. The Kangaroo newspaper reported in December of 1964 on the successful opening night of “Christmas in the Marketplace” by noting that “Lee Mayes [and others] supported the production end.”
Mayes carried his interest in production of the arts from Sherman to Los Angeles after graduation. He developed a relationship with Hollywood Director Mike Nichols, famous for iconic films such as The Graduate (1967), Working Girl (1988), The Birdcage (1996), Angels in America (2003), and Charlie Wilson’s War (2007). Mike Nichols won the Best Director Oscar for The Graduate; he is one of only 19 people in the world with EGOT status (winner of an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, & Tony).
In 1982, Nichols was hired by ABC Motion Pictures to direct “Silkwood,” the story of the mysterious death of nuclear power plant whistle blower Karen Silkwood in small town Oklahoma. Nichols hired Mayes as the film’s location manager, with instructions to head to Oklahoma and find a small town that looked just like the town of Karen Silkwood.
Grayson County’s Lee Mayes scoured the state of Oklahoma in search of that perfect small town. He then humorously reported back to Nichols that he had found the perfect Oklahoma small town in his home of Grayson County, Texas.
From the 1982 “Daily Oklahoman:”
“An official of ABC Motion Pictures thinks [Texas] looks more like Oklahoma than Oklahoma does. ABC location manager Lee Mayes – a Denison, TX native – said he favors the area around Howe for the ‘Oklahoma’ scenes. ABC will film the movie [Silkwood] for 20th Century Fox. The movie will be directed by Mike Nichols. Mayes, Nichols, and several of the ABC crew visited Grayson County recently to look over the area.”
“Silkwood” was a critical and commercial success, earning Oscar nominations for Streep (Best Actress), Cher (Best Supporting Actress), and Nichols (Best Director). The Silkwood cast and crew lived in Sherman that fall, making the five-minute trip to Howe, TX every day for shooting. Numerous scenes of Howe, TX are included in the movie.
Lee Mayes has enjoyed a nearly four-decade career in Hollywood, serving as executive producer, production manager, or location manager in nearly 40 films. His most famous work as executive producer is probably the 1994 football classic Rudy; other Mayes projects include Places in the Heart, Ragtime, Multiplicity, Scary Movie, and 2 Fast 2 Furious.
In her remarks, Streep mentioned her love of Cher’s “I Got You Babe” before she began her career in acting. Cher’s signature song was released in 1965, the year before Streep’s graduation from high school and Mayes’s graduation from AC. We have Lee Mayes (AC ’66) and his boss Mike Nichols to thank for the collaboration of these two female American icons, a collaboration which got its start on a front porch not far from ol’ Austin College.
A h/t to Martha Stephens, who shared the Streep video and got this Roo Tale rolling.
