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Cher gained popularity in 1965 as one-half of the folk rock husband-wife duo Sonny & Cher after their first hit, "I Got You Babe". Learn other 49 interesting things about Cher.
1. Cher born Cherilyn Sarkisian is an American singer, actress, entertainer and fashion icon.
2. Described as embodying female autonomy in a male-dominated industry, she is known for her distinctive contralto singing voice and for having worked in numerous areas of entertainment, as well as adopting a variety of styles and appearances during her five decades long career, which has led to her being nicknamed the Goddess of Pop.
3. Cher gained popularity in 1965 as one-half of the folk rock husband-wife duo Sonny & Cher after their first hit, "I Got You Babe".
4. Cher began her solo career simultaneously, releasing in 1966 her first million-seller song, "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)".
5. After the duo had lost its young audience owing to their monogamous, anti-drug lifestyle during the period of the sexual revolution and the rise of the drug culture, she returned to stardom in the 1970s as a television personality with her shows The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, watched by over 30 million viewers weekly during its three-year run, and Cher.
6. Cher became a fashion trendsetter by wearing elaborate outfits on her television shows.
7. While working on television, she established herself as a solo artist with the number-one singles "Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves", "Half-Breed", and "Dark Lady".
8. After her divorce from Sonny Bono in 1975, Cher's much-publicized personal life led to a decline in her career, although she launched a minor comeback in 1979 with the disco-oriented album Take Me Home and earned $300,000 a week for her 1980-1982 residency show in Las Vegas.
9. In the early 1980s, Cher made her Broadway debut, and then starred in the film Silkwood, which earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1983.
10. Cher starred in films such as Mask, The Witches of Eastwick, and Moonstruck, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1988.
11. Cher made her directorial debut in the 1996 film If These Walls Could Talk.
12. At the same time, she established herself as a rock singer by releasing platinum albums such as Heart of Stone (1989) and top-ten singles such as "I Found Someone" and "If I Could Turn Back Time".
13. Cher reached a new commercial peak in 1998 with the song "Believe", which features the pioneering use of Auto-Tune, also known as the "Cher effect".
14. Her 2002-2005 Living Proof: The Farewell Tour ended up as the highest-grossing music tour by a female artist then.
15. In 2008, she signed a $180 million deal to headline the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for three years.
16. After seven years of absence, she returned to film in the 2010 musical Burlesque.
17. Cher's first studio album in 12 years, Closer to the Truth (2013), became her highest-charting solo album in the U.S. to date.
18. Biographer Mark Bego wrote, "No one in the history of show business has had a career of the magnitude and scope of Cher's."
19. Cher has won an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, a special CFDA Fashion Award, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Cannes Film Festival award, among several other honors.
20. Cher has sold 100 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time.
21. Cher is the only artist to date to have a number-one single on a Billboard chart in each of the past six decades.
22. Cher was born Cherilyn Sarkisian in El Centro, California, on May 20, 1946.
23. Her father, John Sarkisian, was an Armenian-American truck driver with drug and gambling problems, and her mother, Jackie Jean Crouch, was an occasional model and bit-part actress who claimed Irish, English, German, French, Dutch and Cherokee ancestry.
24. Cher's father was rarely home when she was an infant, ultimately divorcing Crouch when Cher was ten months old. They married and divorced twice more.
25. By then living in Los Angeles, Crouch was pursuing an acting career while working as a waitress. She changed her name to Georgia Holt and earned minor roles in films and on television.
26. Holt secured acting parts for her daughters as extras on television shows such as The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.
27. Although her mother's romantic relationship with Southall ended when Cher was nine years old, she considers him her father and remembers him as a "good-natured man who turned belligerent when he drank too much".
28. As Holt remarried and divorced, the family moved from place to place (including New York, Texas and California) and often had little money.
29. Cher remembered using rubber bands at one time to hold her shoes together.
30. At one point, Holt had to put Cher in an orphanage for several weeks. Although they met every day, both Holt and Cher found the experience traumatic.
31. Cher's family first noticed her creativity when in the fifth grade, she produced for her teacher and class a performance of the musical Oklahoma!.
32. She organized a group of girls, directing and choreographing their dance routines. Unable to convince boys to participate, she acted the male roles and sang their songs.
33. By age nine, she had developed an unusually low voice.
34. Fascinated by film stars, Cher's role model was Audrey Hepburn, particularly due to her role in the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's.
35. Cher began to pattern her outfits and behavior after the eccentric, fast-living character portrayed by Hepburn.
36. Cher had wanted to be famous since childhood but felt unattractive and untalented, later commenting, "I couldn't think of anything that I could do ... I didn't think I'd be a singer or dancer. I just thought, well, I'll be famous. That was my goal."
37. In 1961, Holt married bank manager Gilbert LaPiere, who adopted Cher (under the name Cheryl LaPiere) and her half-sister, Georganne, and enrolled them at Montclair College Preparatory School, a private school in Van Nuys, whose students were mostly from affluent families.
38. The school's upper-class environment presented a challenge for Cher; biographer Connie Berman wrote, "[she] stood out from the others in both her striking appearance and outgoing personality."
39. Despite not being an excellent student, Cher was intelligent and creative, according to Berman. She earned good grades, excelling in French and English classes.
40. As an adult, she discovered that she had dyslexia.
41. Cher achieved notoriety for her unconventional behavior: she performed songs for students during the lunch hours and surprised peers when she wore a midriff-baring top, being the first young woman in her social circle to do so.
42. Cher has employed various musical styles, including folk, pop, punk rock, arena rock, power ballads, disco, new wave, and hip hop; she said she has done this to "remain relevant and do work that strikes a chord".
43. Cher has a distinctive contralto singing voice, described by author Nicholas E. Tawa as "bold, deep, and with a spacious vibrato".
44. The 1998 song "Believe" has an electronic vocal effect proposed by Cher, and was the first commercial recording to feature Auto-Tune-an audio processor originally intended to disguise or correct off-key inaccuracies in vocal music recordings-as a deliberate creative effect.
45. After the success of the song, the technique became known as the "Cher effect" and has since been widely used in popular music.
46. Cher emerged as a fashion trendsetter in the 1960s, popularizing the jet black long hair and "hippie fashion with bell-bottoms, bandanas, and Cherokee-inspired tunics".
47. Cher began working as a model in 1967 for photographer Richard Avedon after then-Vogue editor Diana Vreeland discovered her at a party for Jacqueline Kennedy that year.
48. In May 1999, after the Council of Fashion Designers of America recognized Cher with an award for her influence in fashion, Robin Givhan of Los Angeles Times called her a "fashion visionary" for "striking just the right note of contemporary wretched excess".
49. Cher has attracted media attention for her physical appearance-particularly her youthful looks and her many tattoos.
50. Cher's primary philanthropic endeavors have included support of health research and patients' quality of life, anti-poverty initiatives, veterans rights, and vulnerable children.
Source: Wikipedia.org
