Dec 31, 2017 3 min read

Salvatore “Sonny” Bono, of the duo Sonny and Cher, only had one hit as a solo artist, “Laugh At Me,” which was a semi-protest song he wrote after being refused service at a restaurant because of his “hippie” appearance. But in a way, laughter was his professional calling card. When he and Cher sang their hit songs, including “I Got You Babe” and “The Beat Goes On,” Sonny was always smiling, and on their hit television shows, “The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour” and, later – after an amicable divorce – “The Sonny and Cher Show,” Sonny willingly played for laughs as the smiling, bumbling butt of Cher’s jokes and putdowns.

Behind the scenes, however, Sonny was a shrewd businessman who successfully avoided the pitfalls that come with a musical career, and after Cher became a successful solo act, Sonny became a successful businessman, owning several popular restaurants.

It was while in the restaurant business that he turned to politics, having been frustrated at the bureaucratic roadblocks government officials in Palm Springs, Calif., put in his way in trying to open a restaurant there. He successfully ran for mayor of Palm Springs, serving from 1988 to 1992, before seeking, but failing to procure, the Republican nomination for a U.S. Senate seat. He won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives two years later, representing California’s 44th district, in part thanks to a “Republican revolution,” led by eventual House Speaker Newt Gingrich, that gave Republicans control of the House.

In Congress, Bono co-sponsored just one major piece of legislation, the Copyright Term Extension Act, which extended the number of years an artist’s work enjoyed copyright protection. Although it didn’t pass, after his tragic death, this week in 1998, the bill was reintroduced and passed, and was called the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act in his honor. Bono died unexpectedly after crashing into a tree while skiing.

In the many eulogies to him, it was noted that, as with his entertainment career, he was always an upbeat, smiling, optimistic person who made everyone around him feel better. The Washington Post noted in its obituary, “Bono brought to Congress a rare skill: He could make lawmakers – even the most pompous among them – laugh at themselves.”

So go ahead, he would say, laugh at me, or laugh with me – whatever lifts your spirits.

And reflecting that humor, his tombstone reads, “AND THE BEAT GOES ON.”

And laugh, or smile, at this. To this day he is the only member of Congress to have recorded a No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.