Cher

Cherilyn Sarkisian was born in El Centro, California, on May 20, 1946. Her father, John Sarkisian, was an Armenian-American truck driver with drug and gambling problems; her mother, Georgia Holt, was a former model and retired actress who claimed Irish, English, German, and Cherokee ancestry.

When Cher was in fifth grade, she produced a performance of the musical Oklahoma! for her teacher and class. Fascinated by film stars, Cher’s role model was Audrey Hepburn, particularly due to her role in the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

When she was 16, Cher dropped out of school and moved to Los Angeles with a friend. She took acting classes and worked to support herself, dancing in small clubs along Hollywood’s Sunset Strip and introducing herself to performers, managers, and agents.

Cher met Sonny Bono in November 1962 when he was working for record producer Phil Spector. Cher became Sonny’s housekeeper. Cher and Sonny became close friends, eventual lovers, and performed their own unofficial wedding ceremony in a hotel room in Tijuana, Mexico, on October 27, 1964.

Sonny introduced Cher to Phil Spector, who used her as a backup singer on many recordings, including the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” and the Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'”. Spector also produced her first single, “‘Ringo, I Love You’“, which Cher recorded under the name Bonnie Jo Mason. The song was rejected by many radio stations programmers as they thought Cher’s deep contralto vocals were a man’s vocals; therefore, they believed it was a male homosexual singing a love song dedicated to the Beatles drummer Ringo Starr.

In late 1964, the pair emerged as a duo called Caesar & Cleo, releasing the poorly received singles “Do You Wanna Dance?”, “Love Is Strange”, and “Let the Good Times Roll”.

Cher later signed with Liberty Records’ Imperial imprint at the end of 1964, and Sonny became her producer. The single “Dream Baby”, released under the name “Cherilyn”, received some airplay. Her second single a cover version of Bob Dylan‘s “All I Really Want to Do” peaked at number 15 on the US Billboard Hot 100 in 1965.

In early 1965, Caesar and Cleo began calling themselves Sonny & Cher and following the recording of “I Got You Babe”, they travelled to England in July 1965 at the Rolling Stones‘ advice; Cher recalled, “they told us … Americans just didn’t get us and that if we were going to make it big, we were going to have to go to England.” “I Got You Babe” reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Sonny and Cher’s first album, Look at Us (1965), spent eight weeks at number two on the Billboard 200, behind the Beatles’ Help!

Sonny and Cher charted ten Billboard top 40 singles between 1965 and 1972, including five top-ten singles.

In 1971 CBS head of programming Fred Silverman offered Sonny and Cher their own television program after he noticed them as guest-hosts on The Merv Griffin Show. The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour premiered as a summer replacement series on August 1, 1971, and had six episodes. Because it was a ratings success, the couple returned that December with a full-time show. Watched by more than 30 million viewers weekly during its three-year run, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour was praised for the comedic timing, and deadpan Cher mocking of Sonny about his looks and short stature.

Cher and Sonny had had marital problems since late 1972, but appearances were maintained until 1974. “The public still thinks we are married,” Sonny wrote in his diary at the time”. In February 1974, Sonny filed for a separation, citing “irreconcilable differences”.

During the divorce proceedings, Cher had a two-year romantic relationship with record executive David Geffen, who freed her from her business arrangement with Sonny, under which she was required to work exclusively for Cher Enterprises, the company he ran. Geffen secured a $2.5 million deal for Cher with Warner Bros Records.

On February 16, 1975, Cher returned to television with a solo show on CBS called Cher. Some of her special guests included Elton John, David Bowie, Glen Campbell, Ray Charles and Labelle. The show was produced by Geffen and centred on Cher’s songs, monologues, comedy performances, and her variation of clothing. During the show’s run, it received the most fan mail of any CBS program at the time.

On June 30, 1975, four days after finalising her divorce from Sonny, Cher married rock musician Gregg Allman, co-founder of The Allman Brothers Band. She filed for divorce nine days later because of his heroin and liquor problems, but they reconciled within a month. They had one son, Elijah Blue, on July 10, 1976.

Beginning in 1978, she had a two-year relationship with Kiss member Gene Simmons. Also that year, she legally changed her name from Cherilyn Sarkisian La Piere Bono Allman to Cher, to eliminate the use of four surnames.

In 1981, Cher released a duet with musician Meat Loaf “Dead Ringer for Love”. There is no footage of Cher and Meat Loaf ever performing this song live together, with Cher only appearing in the music video.

Director Mike Nichols, who had seen Cher onstage in Jimmy Dean, offered her the part of Dolly Pelliker, a plant co-worker and Meryl Streep’s lesbian roommate in the film Silkwood, (1983). Her next film, Mask (1985), reached number two at the box office and for her role as a drug addict biker with a teenage son who has a severe physical deformity, she won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress.

By the end of the 1980s, Cher was receiving attention for her controversial lifestyle, including her tattoos, plastic surgeries, exhibitionist fashion sense, and affairs with younger men. She had romantic relationships with actors Val Kilmer, Eric Stoltz, and Tom Cruise, hockey player Ron Duguay, film producer Josh Donen, Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora, and Rob Camilletti, a bagel baker 18 years her junior whom she dated from 1986 to 1989.

Cher’s 19th studio album Heart of Stone (1989) was certified triple platinum by the RIAA. The music video for its second single, “If I Could Turn Back Time”, caused controversy due to Cher’s performance on the battleship USS Missouri, straddling a cannon, and wearing a leather thong that revealed her tattooed buttocks.

Her first film in three years, Mermaids (1990), paid tribute to her own mother in this story about a woman who moves her two daughters from town to town at the end of a love affair. Mermaids was a box office success and one of the two songs Cher recorded for the film’s soundtrack, a cover version of Betty Everett’s “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss)”, topped the UK Singles Chart for five weeks.

Cher turned down leading roles in such films as The War of the Roses and Thelma & Louise.

Alongside Chrissie Hynde, Neneh Cherry, and Eric Clapton, she topped the UK Singles Chart in 1995 with the charity single “Love Can Build a Bridge”.

Cher’s 22nd studio album Believe (1998) marked a musical departure for her, as it comprises dance-pop songs. Believe was certified quadruple platinum by the RIAA and went on to be certified gold or platinum in 39 countries, selling 10 million copies worldwide. The album’s title track reached number one in 23 countries and sold over 10 million copies worldwide. It also topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for four weeks, selling over 1.8 million units in the US and the song earned Cher the Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording and the 1999 Billboard Music Award for Hot 100 Single of the Year.

In 1999 she sang on the television special VH1 Divas Live 2, which attracted 19.4 million viewers. According to VH1, it was the most popular, and most-watched program in the television network’s history.

In June 2002, Cher embarked on the Living Proof: The Farewell Tour, announced as the final live concert tour of her career, although she vowed to continue making records and films. Initially scheduled for 49 shows, the worldwide tour was extended several times. By October 2003, it had become the most successful tour ever by a woman, grossing $145 million from 200 shows and playing to 2.2 million fans. Forbes named Cher the highest-paid female musician of 2003, earning $33.1 million.

On December 2, 2018, Cher received a Kennedy Center Honors prize, the annual Washington distinction for artists who have made extraordinary contributions to culture.

As a solo artist, Cher has sold 100 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. Her 1971 single “Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves” was called “one of the 20th century’s greatest songs” by Billboard magazine. Her 1998 song “Believe” is the biggest-selling single of all time by a female artist in the UK. Cher is the only solo artist to have a number-one single on a Billboard chart in seven consecutive decades, from the 1960s to the 2020s.