Happy Birthday Cher, one of the great musician-actor-celebrities of American pop culture. Born May 20, 1946 as Cherilyn Sarkisian, Cher sang her way into millions of hearts with hits like “I Got You Babe” as one half of Sonny & Cher. Later, her solo career yielded hits like ‘Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves” and “If I Could Turn Back Time.” She’s had a Number-One single each decade from the 1960s to the 2010s and has sold more than 100 million records, earning a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award and an Academy Award along the way. Rolling Stone magazine called her “the one-woman embodiment of the whole gaudy story of pop music.”
But in the early 1960s she was just an ambitious high school dropout living with a friend in Los Angeles when she met Sonny Bono, a songwriter and record producer. Cher sang backup on a few Phil Spector recordings, and by 1964 her friendship with Bono flowered into love and they performed their own unofficial wedding ceremony.
They began performing as Sonny & Cher in 1965, with hits including “The Beat Goes On” and “Baby Don’t Go.” These and many others are collected onThe Best of Sonny & Cher: The Beat Goes On. In addition to releasing top hits, the couple set fashion trends including bell-bottoms, vests and other Mod elements. They appeared in their first film, singing together in Wild on the Beach (1965).
In 1966 Cher sang the theme song for the movie Alfie, starring Michael Caine. Sonny & Cher starred in a zany movie, Good Times (1967) when their pop fame was at its hottest. But fame is fickle, and by the late 1960s the couple was slipping. Cher recorded a solo album in 1969, 3614 Jackson Highway, but it wasn’t a hit.
In 1970 the couple tried television withThe Sonny & Cher Nitty Gritty Hour, and it was so successful that they were offered their own weekly series. The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour ran from 1971 to 1974 and brought the couple new stardom. The humor, the songs and the guest stars clicked, and more than 30 million viewers watched the weekly antics. Cher’s revealing costumes, designed by Bob Mackie, probably drew as many viewers as any other element of the show. But the grueling demands of the show, plus continuing to make records and touring, took their toll on the couple, and they divorced in 1974, the same year the show was cancelled.
After they split, Cher hosted her own variety show, Cher, from 1975 to 1976. But she found the work demands overwhelming and agreed to reunite with Sonny for The Sonny & Cher Show, which ran from 1976 to 1977. It was the first mainstream American television show starring a divorced couple. Cher continued to record and release music albums through the late 1970s and early 1980s but failed to find the commercial success of her earlier years.
Cher played her first serious film role in Come Back to the Five & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982), with a cast including Sandy Dennis and Karen Black. Cher is a wisecracking waitress in the low-budget film directed by Robert Altman, shot on one set to make it look like the stage play from which it was adapted.
Cher’s film career was off and running, and she followed this up with Silkwood (1983), in which she played the friend of the title character, who was played by Meryl Streep. The film, about a whistle-blower in a nuclear power plant, was a big success, and Cher was nominated for an Academy Award for Supporting Actress.
She next appeared in Mask (1985), which rose to number-two at the box office, a huge hit. In her first starring role, Cher plays the mother of a teen-age boy who suffers from a disfiguring disease that makes him an outcast at his school. The film’s commercial and critical success helped to boost Cher’s career, and in 1987 she appeared in no less than three films.
Suspect starred Cher as a public defender with Liam Neeson as a deaf-mute homeless man as her client in a tense courtroom drama-murder mystery. Dennis Quaid is a juror who provides romantic interest for Cher. The Witches of Eastwick showcased Cher with Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer as three divorcees who fall for Jack Nicholson as the mysterious new man in town. And Moonstruck earned Cher her Academy Award as a widower who falls in love with her fiancé’s younger brother, played by Nicolas Cage.
In 1989 Cher recorded the album “Heart of Stone,” which featured the hit single “If I Could Turn Back Time.” And in 1990 she starred in Mermaids, as a carefree single mother with a neurotic 15-year-old daughter, played by Winona Ryder, and Christina Ricci as her 9-year-old daughter in her film debut.
Again, her demanding work routine was too much for her health, and Cher developed chronic fatigue syndrome in the early 1990s. It left her too exhausted to continue recording albums and making movies, and instead she turned to infomercials to earn money. She was viewed as a sell-out and became the butt of jokes on Saturday Night Live and elsewhere.
By 1996 she returned to filmmaking in the dark comedy Faithful, as the wife of straying Jack, played by Ryan O’Neal, who hires hitman Chazz Palminteri to knock off his wife for the insurance money. That same year Cher directed and starred in one episode of If These Walls Could Talk, about three women and their experiences with abortion in the 1950s, 1970s and 1996. It was a surprise hit for HBO and was the highest-rated film for the cable network up to that time.
Cher never stopped recording albums, although many of her efforts fell flat. That changed in 1998 when she released Believe, her 22nd studio album. It was certified quadruple platinum and sold 10 million copies worldwide. The title track earned Cher a Grammy award and her Do You Believe? Tour, which ran from 1999 to 2000, was sold out in city after city. A documentary, Cher: Live in Concert from the MGM Grand, was a big hit for HBO.
In 1999 she co-starred inTea With Mussolini, about a wealthy American traveling in Italy in 1935.
In 2002 Cher embarked on what was promoted as her final concert tour. It was such a big hit it was extended again and again, and by October 2003 she had performed to more than 2 million fans. NBC aired a special about the phenomenon, called Cher: The Farewell Tour in 2003, and it earned her an Emmy Award. Also in 2003 she released The Very Best of Cher, a collection of hits from her entire career, which was certified double platinum. Her Farewell Tour lasted through 2005, but her retirement lasted only until 2008, when she began a three-year performance residency at the Colosseum at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.
And of course more was to come. In 2010 she starred in Burlesque, as Tess, the owner of a burlesque club where Christina Aguilera gets a job as the star performer. Cher appeared in Dear Mom, Love Cher, in 2013, a documentary about her mother, Georgia Holt. In 2014 she embarked on the Dressed To Kill tour, again promising it would be her last. By November that year she had to cancel the remainder of the tour due to health issues.
In 2018 she released Dancing Queen, her 26th studio album, on which she sings songs by ABBA. Other recent projects include a perfume introduced in 2019 called Cher Eau de Couture, and lending her voice to the animated movie Bobbleheads: The Movie in 2020.
But will she ever retire for real? Don’t bet on it.
To learn more about Cher, try Cher: Strong Enough (2020), a musical documentary that features interviews with Cher from throughout her career, plus clips of some of her songs. Or try “The First Time” (1998), in which Cher reveals the details of her volatile life, including her years with Sonny Bono, stories about her childhood, and her professional experiences.
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