Sonny Bono will be buried in this desert resort, a fitting resting place for the man who found respect as he entered the world of politics and left behind Hollywood and his image as a bell-bottomed buffoon.

Grief-stricken constituents and colleagues remembered him Tuesday as a cheerful, down-to-earth man who championed Palm Springs first as mayor and then as a congressman."Sonny was a no-frills kind of guy. He shot straight from the shoulder. You knew exactly where you stood with him," said Michael Allen, president of the Palm Springs Chamber of Commerce.

The 62-year-old Bono was killed Monday when he slammed into a tree at the Heavenly Ski Resort near Lake Tahoe. His death, caused by head and neck injuries, came less than a week after Michael Kennedy, the son of the late Robert F. Kennedy, died in a similar accident at Aspen, Colo.

Mourners, including Bono's ex-wife Cher and their daughter, Chastity Bono, arrived late Tuesday at Bono's home here, 100 miles east of Los Angeles. A public vigil will be held at St. Theresa's Roman Catholic Church on Thursday, with a public funeral the next day.

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Bono moved to Palm Springs in 1979 and opened an Italian restaurant, shedding an entertainment career he began as a songwriter before playing the bumbling sidekick guy to his striking, sharp-tongued wife on "The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour," which ran on CBS from 1971 to 1974.

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