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Bono gave up show business to become a restaurateur in the early '80s. The career switch landed him in Palm Springs, Calif., where his efforts to revamp his restaurant brought him into conflict with city zoning officials. He took on and took over city hall, becoming mayor in 1988. Bono found he had a taste for politics. A run for the Senate failed, but two years later the G.O.P. takeover of Congress swept him into the House as the Representative from California's 44th district. He was re-elected in '96. Bono sat on the House Judiciary Committee as one of the group's two nonlawyers. He was, from time to time, made fun of by his Judiciary peers, but the former songwriter eventually proved himself with his expertise on intellectual-property issues. "He had a native intelligence that caused him to be very effective," says committee chairman Orrin Hatch. "He was bluntly honest."
He also had a subtle, charming guile. In his eulogy last week, Newt Gingrich recalled how Bono defused a tense congressional meeting with a joke at his own expense. Even Cher couldn't stay mad at him. (Bono jokingly explained away her barbs as proof she was really still in love with him. And after last week's tribute--the final episode of the Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour--who's to say he was wrong?) He recognized few barriers. Parties at his Georgetown home were smorgasbords of Republican stalwarts consorting with Bono pals like Democratic Congressman Barney Frank and John Waters, who directed Bono in Hairspray, a 1988 film starring the drag queen Divine.
Waters poses a delicious what-if. "Even though I didn't agree with some of his politics, I'm sorry that he didn't get the White House," he says. "In my mind it would have been wonderful anarchy to have Sonny Bono as President."
--With reporting by Laird Harrison/South Lake Tahoe and Chandrani Ghosh/Washington