CHER
The beat goes on … and on … and as strong as ever for this superstar entertainer who has well surpassed the four-decade mark while improbably transforming herself from an artificial, glossy “flashionplate” singer into a serious, Oscar-worthy, dramatic actress … and back again! Cher manages to rise like a phoenix from the ashes each time she is down and counted out, somehow re-inventing herself with every changing decade and finding herself on top all over again. As a singer, Cher is the only performer to have earned “top 10” hit singles in four consecutive decades!
The daughter of a truck driver, John Sarkisian, and an Arkansas-born mother, Georgia Holt (the former Jackie Jean Crouch), Cher was born in El Centro, California, on May 20, 1946. Cher is of Armenian heritage on her father’s side, and of English and German, with more distant Irish, Dutch, and French, heritage on her mother’s side. Cher’s mother, who had aspirations of being an actress and model herself, paid for Cher’s acting classes despite her daughter having undiagnosed dyslexia, which acutely affected her studies. Frustrated, Cher quit Fresno High School at the age of 16 in search of her dream. Meeting the quite older (by 11 years) Sonny Bono in 1962 changed the 16-year-old’s life forever.
At first, Cher sang solo with Sonny behind the scenes writing, arranging and producing her songs. The records went nowhere. Sonny then decided they needed to perform as a team so they put out two songs in 1964 under the recording names of Caesar and Cleo (“The Letter” and “Baby Don’t Go”). Again, no success. The changing of their names, however, seemed to make a difference and in 1965, they officially took on the music world as Sonny & Cher and earned instant rewards. By the end of the 1960s, Sonny & Cher’s career had stumbled as they witnessed the American pop culture experience a drastic evolutionary change. The couple maintained their stage act and all the while Sonny continued to polish it up in a shrewd gamble for TV acceptance. Behind the scenes, though, it was a different story. A now-confident Cher yearned to be free of husband Sonny’s Svengali-like control over her life and career. The marriage split at the seams in 1974 and they publicly announced their separation. Cher found mild success with the “top 10” disco hit “Take Me Home” in 1979, but not much else. Not one to be counted out, however, the ever-resourceful singer decided to lay back and focus on acting instead.
At age 36, Cher made her Broadway debut in 1982 in what was essentially her first live acting role with “Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean”. During the 1990s Cher continued to veer back and forth among films, TV specials and expensively mounted concerts. In January of 1998, tragedy struck when Cher’s ex-husband Sonny Bono was killed in a freak skiing accident. That same year the duo received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for their contribution to television. In the meantime, an astounding career adrenalin rush came in the form of a monstrous, disco-flavored hit single (“Believe”). The song became a #1 hit and the same-titled album the biggest hit of her career. “Believe” reached #1 in 23 different countries.
Having little to prove anymore to anyone, Cher decided to embark on a “Farewell Tour” in the early part of the millennium and, after much stretching, her show finally closed in 2005 in Los Angeles. It didn’t take long, however, for Cher to return from this self-imposed exile. In 2008, she finalized a deal with Las Vegas’ Caesars Palace for the next three years to play the Colosseum. Never say never. Cher returned to films, co-starring opposite Christina Aguilera in Burlesque (2010). However, she’s recently made another come back by starring the Mamma Mia as Donna’s mother (2018)
