Most people know Cher for her sultry voice, decades of hits, and memorable movie performances.
But there's a lot more to this legendary diva than just the major headlines. So keep watching
to discover some things you might not know about Cher.
Cher was born on May 20, 1946, in El Centro, California, to parents Georgia Holt and John
Sarkisian. But it almost didn't quite turn out that way, as her mother has revealed that
she considered having an abortion before giving birth to Cher. Though she did end up going
through with the pregnancy, that wasn't the last of her troubles.
When Cher was a young child, her mother divorced her father and had a hard time financially.
With few options available, she sent Cher to a Catholic orphanage, where nuns took care
of her for a short period of time until her mother was able to support her again. In the
TV documentary Dear Mom, Love Cher, the singer explained that her mother didn't have a job
or enough money to properly care for her. But Cher isn't embarrassed about her past.
As she put it,
"So I come from a poor white trash background. It doesn't make any difference."
Cher has been coping with learning disabilities for most of her life, as she has both dyslexia
and dyscalculia, which made both reading and math difficult for her in school. She did
most of her learning by listening, and the school administration wrote in her report
cards that she wasn't living up to her potential. She had such a hard time that she failed several
classes and ended up dropping out of high school during her junior year.
But it wasn't until she had children of her own that she realized she had a learning disability.
Her son Chaz also had a tough time reading, and when he was 10, Cher sought help and learned
that he had dyslexia. Doctors asked about her own struggles in school, and she realized
that she had the same problems as her child. She's revealed that she often transposed numbers
and has even had problems dialing long-distance phone numbers. She's described the realization
as like a light bulb going off. As she wrote in her autobiography The First Time,
"It was like a big, Ohhh... Now I understood everything, why I had so much trouble with
school. It all fit together."
Cher's mother is 95 years young, and as of 2021, she's still going strong. Talent runs
in the family, as Holt was an actress, model, and singer in her younger days. Born in Kensett,
Arkansas, Holt appeared in several films and TV shows in the 1950s. She met Cher's father
John when she was a teenager. He was charming and they got married quickly in Reno because
he was very persuasive. Alas, their relationship was doomed from the start, and she left him
the day after their wedding. As she explained to People Magazine in 1978,
"I knew I didn't want to be married. But he told me to try it for three months, and if
I didn't like it, then I could walk out."
Three months later, she was pregnant with Cher, and the couple split after 12 months.
Since then, Holt has been married seven times to six different men. Then in 2013, she did
something incredible. At the age of 86, she made her Billboard chart debut, as she hit
number 43 on the Top Country Albums charts with Honky Tonk Woman, which includes covers
of the songs "Love Me Tender" and "Cryin' Time." As Georgia Holt has proven, age is
just a number, and it's possible to accomplish great things even in your twilight years!
Cher started her solo music career in the 70s, she won an Oscar in the 80s, and she's
continued her mainstream success through the 90s and beyond. She's sold more than 100 million
albums over the course of her career, and she knew she wanted to be a star from a very
young age. When she was 4 years old, she had a formative experience at Grauman's Chinese
Theatre in Los Angeles. As she recalled on CBS Sunday Morning in 2013,
"It was breathtaking. And there were statues everywhere. It was just like going to heaven."
Cher saw movies like Dumbo and Cinderella there, and she was positively hooked, as she
instinctively knew that she was meant to be in show business. Her first acting role was
the 1982 movie Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, and she followed that
up with 1983's Silkwood and then Mask two years later. And then in 1988, she won an
Academy Award for Lead Actress for Moonstruck, perhaps the most iconic role of her career.
"Snap out of it!"
Cher was a cinematic force to be reckoned with, but she was forced to stop acting when
she contracted Epstein-Barr virus, symptoms of which include fatigue, inflammation, swollen
lymph nodes, fever, and rash. The virus made her so sick for two years that she was unable
to work. She was offered several roles during this time, but she had to turn them down,
which made her very upset. When she finally recovered, she essentially had to start from
the beginning to find work again, so she focused her energy on music instead.
While discussing this period with The New York Times in 2018, Cher also recalled how
early in her career she had a hard time getting people to take her seriously. Even her famous
acquaintances wouldn't help her out. She approached director Mike Nicols for a part in his film
The Fortune, but he turned her down because he didn't feel she was right for the role.
So she responded,
"You know what? I’m very talented, and one day you’re going to be sorry."
It's no exaggeration to say that she's backed that attitude up in the years since.
Mike Nichols may have passed on Cher for The Fortune, but he went on to cast her in his
1983 film Silkwood, alongside Meryl Streep. The two women became bosom buddies almost
instantly. On the first day they met on set, Streep gave Cher a huge hug. As Cher explained
to Vanity Fair in 2018,
"She's all communication and warmth and friendship, with a great sense of humor."
When Cher won her Oscar for Moonstruck, she was up against Streep, who was nominated for
Ironweed. Streep was thrilled for her former co-star and enthusiastically cheered her on
during the show. During her acceptance speech, Cher said,
"I feel so unbelievable that I did my first movie with her, and now I was nominated with
her, and I feel really thankful."
The two friends have worked together numerous times throughout the years. They appeared
together for an environmental benefit called "Mothers and Others" and reunited in 2018's
Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again. During the premiere, Cher told Entertainment Tonight that they
were still friends after all these years and mentioned that Streep was wonderful on their
first film together. As she put it,
"She was unbelievable, because I had no idea what I was doing."
Cher has dated many famous men throughout the years, including record producer David
Geffen in the early 70s while she was going through a divorce with her first husband,
Sonny Bono. In the 2001 Geffen biography The Operator, Cher is quoted as saying,
"I was the first person to share his bed and to share his life. People don’t believe
that, or they don’t want to believe it, or they don’t understand how it could be.
But we were really crazy about each other."
"He was such a wonderful boyfriend. We had- we had such a great time together."
Then in 1975, Cher married rocker Gregg Allman, but she filed for divorce nine days later
because of his drug and alcohol abuse. They reconciled, had a son, and split up again
in 1977. Soon after, she hooked up with Gene Simmons of Kiss. But their relationship wasn't
very serious, and she eventually moved on to guitarist Les Dudek and New York Rangers
hockey player Ron Duguay before dating actor Val Kilmer, who's 13 years her junior.
Moving onto the mid-80s, Cher even dated Tom Cruise. In 2008, she told Oprah Winfrey that
she was crazy about him but that they had a hard time making their relationship work
around their schedules, so they split after just a few months. She's also been linked
to the likes of Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora, actor Warren Beatty, and musician
Eric Clapton.
"I've had just the greatest lovers ever!"
You might be familiar with Cher's son Chaz, but she also has another son, Elijah Blue,
whose father is Gregg Allman. In a 2014 interview with Entertainment Tonight, Elijah discussed
his childhood and how he thought that his parents rejected him. As he recalled,
"When you go to boarding school at 7 years old, it's kind of hard to feel like you're
not being shunned."
When Elijah visited his parents in New York on the weekends, he would get into a lot of
trouble. He started buying and using drugs when he was just 11 years old and eventually
became a heroin addict. As an adult, he made peace with his upbringing, but he's also said
that his parents' way of dealing with his problems wasn't the best solution.
Elijah and Chaz were close for a while, but they grew apart when their lives went their
separate ways. Elijah and his mom's relationship became strained after he and his wife moved
in with her and things didn't work out so well. Mother and son have worked through a
lot of their issues, but some of them remained unresolved. Regardless, he still cares deeply
for her. As he put it to Entertainment Tonight,
"You know, she's really talented. She's gorgeous – I mean, she's Cher. What's not to love?"
"Mommy!"
"Yeah?"
"I want to play my guitar."
"You what?"
It can be challenging to remain popular and relevant over the course of multiple decades.
That's why comeback stories such as Cher's are so impressive. In the late 90s, pop music
was having a moment, and Cher smartly got in on the action when she released the dance
song "Believe" in 1998.
What set this particular song apart was its use of Auto-tuned vocals, which emphasized
Cher's already awesome voice. It wound up holding the number 1 spot on the U.K. charts
for seven straight weeks. In fact, it was such a massive hit that it became the top-selling
single by a female artist of all time in the United Kingdom. And there's more: at 52 years,
Cher became the oldest woman to ever top the Billboard charts. All told, "Believe" reached
number 1 in over 23 countries and sold more than 11 million copies worldwide.
Cher has been entertaining fans for over half a century, so you might expect that she'd
have a bit of an ego. After all, she's a talented singer and actress who has a bunch of awards
under her belt, including an Academy Award, a Grammy, two Golden Globes, an Emmy, and
three Billboard Music Awards. That's enough to make anyone believe that they're better
than all the people around them! But on more than one occasion, Cher has instead demonstrated
that she's in fact a little self-conscious about her talent, or at least she isn't very
impressed by it. She may have millions of fans, but she apparently doesn't feel the
same about herself as they feel about her. For example, in a 2013 interview on CBS Sunday
Morning, reporter Anthony Mason said to her,
"My sense is that you've always kind of underestimated your own voice."
To which the singer responded,
"I'm not a huge Cher fan."
In another interview three years later, she revealed similar sentiments, telling The Today
Show,
"I've never really been in love with Cher. She's all right, but it's like I'm not a huge
fan."
Cher also admitted that she finds it tough getting older. As she put it,
"I look in the mirror, and I see this old lady looking back at me – I have no idea
how she got there."
While Cher may be a little hesitant to praise herself, she luckily still has millions of
fans who are perfectly willing to do that for her!
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