Songwriter Diane Warren will do anything to get a great singer to record one of her tunes – up to and including latching onto their leg and refusing to let go until they agree. Such was the case with Cher, who initially hated the Warren song “If I Could Turn Back Time.”
That skirmish is one of the revealing anecdotes shared in the Oscar-contending documentary Diane Warren: Relentless, which charts her astonishing career.
“Literally, in the studio,” she grabbed hold of Cher’s limb until she complied, Warren recalled as she appeared at Deadline’s Contenders Documentary event along with director Bess Kargman. “[Cher] was like, ‘Let go of my f*cking leg!’ ‘Yeah, when you say you’ll try the song,’” Warren recalled retorting. “When I said I’d pay for the track, bitch said she’d try it. But it’s all good. It all worked out.”
Things have worked out very well indeed for Warren, who has earned a Grammy, an Emmy and a record 16 Oscar nominations, as well as an honorary Academy Award. Her publishing company is valued at half a billion dollars. Along with Cher, her songs have been recorded by Aerosmith (“I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”), Toni Braxton (“Un-Break My Heart”), Celine Dion (“Because You Loved Me”), Beyoncé (“I Was Here”) and so many others. As the documentary explores, Warren entered the music business without any connections.
“My dad sold insurance. … I was [growing up] in Van Nuys — which, by the way, it was like being in Montana or something,” Warren said. “It’s like being somewhere that’s not L.A. or California. It was not that many miles away but in a way a million miles away.”
That posed a major obstacle to success, but a bigger one came in the form of Warren’s mother Flora, who did not warm to her daughter’s aspirations as a musician.
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“Her mom really, really didn’t support her,” Kargman noted, “like screamed at her father for getting [Diane] a guitar, screamed at her for practicing her music in the house, screamed at her.”
Warren explained: “It wasn’t my mom thinking I wasn’t talented, it was just like, ‘How are you going to make a living?’ She thought I’d be there with a guitar and a cup. … I don’t lose sight of this for a second, that I’m one in a billion. … There was a lot of doors shut on me.”
Warren also was bullied as a child and discouraged in her musical pursuits by other adults.
“She also got kicked out of her first music class,” Kargman noted. “The teacher said she had no future in music. … She’s a miracle to me. What she has overcome and how fearless and fierce, also how self-deprecating she is, it’s so refreshing. She’s truly humble.”
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“I’m not all that impressed with myself,” Warren commented. “If I’m done with the song, even if it’s great, I’m like, ‘OK, what’s next?’ It’s always what’s next.”
The song Warren wrote for the documentary, “Dear Me,” is being submitted for Oscar consideration as Best Original Song. If the tune performed by Kesha goes on to earn an Oscar nomination, it would mark Warren’s ninth consecutive nomination in the category and 17th Academy Award nomination overall.
“I’ve never written a song for a movie about myself,” Warren noted. “It was like, ‘What do I do for a movie about me?’ And then it was so clear, like a lightning bolt went off. I’m like, ‘I want to write a song to that young girl, that young girl that sat and felt like shit and felt so alone and the kids were super mean to, and that really felt misunderstood and unseen and unheard.’ And I wanted to write a love song to her.”
Check back Tuesday for the panel video.
