Biography
Cher is an American singer, actor, and TV personality. Cher rose to prominence in 1965 as part of the folk rock husband-wife duo Sonny & Cher, before producing her first solo top-ten songs, “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)” and “You Better Sit Down Kids”. Throughout the 1970s, she had three number-one hits on the US Billboard Hot 100: “Gypsys, Tramps, and Thieves,” “Half-Breed,” and “Dark Lady,” making her the female solo artist with the most number-one singles in US history at the time.
Age
She is 77 years old as of 20 May 2024. She was born in 1946 in El Centro, California, United States. Her real name is Cherilyn Sarkisian.
Family – Education
Her father, John Sarkisian, was an Armenian-American truck driver with drug and gambling issues, while her mother, Georgia Holt (née Jackie Jean Crouch), was a former model and actress with Irish, English, German, and Cherokee ancestry.Her paternal grandparents were Armenian genocide survivors. Cher’s father was rarely around while she was a baby, and her parents divorced when she was 10 months old. Her mother eventually married actor John Southall, and they had another daughter, Georganne, Cher’s half-sister. Holt married bank manager Gilbert LaPiere in 1961, who adopted Cher (now Cheryl LaPiere) and Georganne and put them in Montclair College Preparatory School.
Partner
She is revered by members of the LGBT community for her career accomplishments, sense of style, and longevity. Drag queens frequently impersonate Cher, who is regarded as a homosexual icon.According to Thomas Rogers of Salon, “[d]rag queens imitate women like Judy Garland, Dolly Parton and Cher because they overcame insult and hardship on their path to success, and because their narratives mirror the pain that many gay men suffer on their way out of the closet” .
Elio Iannacci of Maclean’s magazine claims that Cher was “one of the first to bring drag to the masses” when she brought two drag queens to her 1979 Las Vegas residency. Cher’s emergence as a homosexual icon has also been aided by her performance as a lesbian in the movie Silkwood, her move to dance music, and her involvement in social activism.
Will & Grace, an NBC sitcom, acknowledged Cher’s prominence by making her the idol of gay character Jack McFarland. Cher appeared as herself on Will & Grace twice, in 2000 and 2002, giving the episode “Gypsies, Tramps and Weed” (called after her 1971 song “Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves”) the show’s second-highest rating ever. Cher, as the mother of a trans guy, has served as a role model for parents of transgender children.
Believe
Cher’s 22nd studio album Believe (1998) was a musical shift for her, as it featured dance-pop songs, many of which captured the “disco-era essence”; Cher stated, “It’s not that I think this is a ’70s album… but there’s a thread, a consistency running through it that I love.” The RIAA certified Believe triple platinum, and it went on to sell 10 million copies worldwide, earning gold or platinum certification in 39 countries. The album’s title tune peaked at number one in 23 countries and sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. It became Cher’s most successful song to date, as well as the best-selling track of 1998 and 1999 in the United Kingdom and the United States.
“Believe” topped the UK Singles Chart for seven weeks and became the best-selling single ever by a female artist in the country, selling over 1.84 million copies as of October 2018. It also topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for four weeks, selling more than 1.8 million units in the United States by December 1999. Cher won the Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording and the Hot 100 Single of the Year award from Billboard in 1999.
If I Could Turn Back Time
She song “If I Could Turn Back Time” is from her 1989 studio album Heart of Stone.Diane Warren wrote and Guy Roche produced the song, which examines sentiments of guilt and the desire to go back in time to put things right.The pop rock and soft rock tune, which incorporates guitars, piano, and drums, has gotten excellent feedback from music critics.It reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and was Cher’s first number-one hit in Australia.The song also made the top ten of the record charts in Belgium, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.
Marty Callner directed the accompanying music video, which shows Cher performing for the crew of the battleship USS Missouri. Military officials blasted the film, and family groups protested its broadcast, calling it disrespectful to the Navy and controversial. MTV was compelled to broadcast the video after the 9 p.m. watershed.
Cher has played “If I Could Turn Back Time” on seven concert tours, the most recent being the Here We Go Again Tour in 2018-2020, as well as at the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards. The song has been performed by several musicians and is on the soundtrack to Deadpool 2 (2018).
Mask
She played Florence “Rusty” Dennis, Rocky’s semi-unstable (but determined) mother, in the 1985 American historical drama film Mask. Mask is a 1985 American biographical drama film directed by Peter Bogdanovich. It stars Cher, Sam Elliott, and Eric Stoltz, with Dennis Burkley, Laura Dern, Estelle Getty, and Richard Dysart playing supporting roles. Cher got the Best Actress prize at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival. The film is based on the life and early death of Roy L. “Rocky” Dennis, a youngster with craniodiaphyseal dysplasia, a rare genetic illness sometimes known as lionitis due to the disfiguring cranial enlargements it causes.Mask won the Academy Award for Best Makeup at the 58th presentation, and Cher and Stoltz garnered Golden Globe nods for their performances.