The Honorable Sonny Bono (1935-1998) was a pop singer, occasional actor and, towards the end of his life, a member of the US House of Representatives who guest starred in Template:SMDM.
Bono rose to fame in the mid-1960s as a member of the husband and wife singing duo Sonny and Cher, who scored their biggest hit with "I Got You Babe." In the early 1970s, the pair found renewed success on TV, starring in the comedy variety series The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour. However their marriage collapsed during the show's run and, in fact, he filmed "The Song and Dance Spy" close to the time his divorce from Cher was finalized in June 1975. On "Spy", he was joined by the woman who would be his third wife, Susie Cohelo (they divorced in 1984).
His role in the series was an homage to his on-screen persona as the co-host of The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, but it was also one of the first times he wasn't appearing as himself in a guest-starring role. While 1974 had seen the quick collapse of his Cher-less The Sonny Comedy Hour, his performance as John Perry on The Six Million Dollar Man would prove to be the first of a long string of nearly annual guest acting appearances he made thereafter on popular television shows (and in films such as Airplane II: The Sequel) until his election to Congress in 1994.
Bono died in a skiing accident near South Lake Tahoe in California. His fourth wife, Mary Bono, completed his term in the House.
