Photo Credit: By Casablanca Records - Original photo from Light Show, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27282928
If you say “Cher” in 2021, you may think about her music, her wardrobe, her acting, and her association with the LGBTQIA community. Over four decades in the public eye, she has changed her image and her level of engagement in social and political issues.
Did her parents know that she would become a world icon when Cherilyn Sarkisian was born on May 20, 1946? Her mother, Georgia Holt (Jackie Jean Crouch), had the entertainment bug and paid for acting classes for Cher. Cher’s father, John Sarkisian, was an Armenian-American truck driver who abandoned the family yet would later sue Cher for talking about how his choices had affected his ex-wife and two daughters. After a few difficult years, Holt remarried a banker, Gilbert LaPiere. School wasn’t easy, because Cher had dyslexia, but there were no academic programs designed for most learning disabilities until much later in the 20th century. At the age of 16, she left school and turned to entertainment to start a career.
It didn’t take her long to get jobs, but her big break came at Gold Star Studios in Hollywood in 1962, when she met Sonny Bono, who was working for Phil Spector. Cher became a session or backup singer, but she was also writing music with Bono. By 1964, the couple married and would later go on to have one child, Chaz Bono. It took a bit of effort and a couple of name changes, but in 1965, they became Sonny & Cher, and their music took off. The couple became fashion and music influencers throughout their marriage and career, earning six top-10 hits on the American Billboard charts as well as dozens of other charting songs. The duo had two television shows: The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour (1971-1974) and The Sonny and Cher Show (1976-1977).
Sonny and Cher divorced in 1975, but Cher married singer and songwriter Gregg Allman that same year. Allman is the father of Cher’s second child, Elijah Blue Allman, but the couple divorced in 1979. Cher has not remarried since, though she has been connected to several men, older and younger, at various points in her life. When criticized for her personal romantic choices, she has stood up for her right to love whom she wants.
Chaz came out to his parents a couple of times, first as a lesbian in 1995 and then as a transman starting in 2008. Cher struggled with accepting the sexual orientation news but immediately supported her first son’s second coming out. It took time, but eventually Cher seems to have become an accepting parent and a supporter of LGBTQIA rights. She has spoken at PFLAG conventions and won the GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) Vanguard Award in 1989. It isn’t only her support of equal rights and her son that made her an icon, but also her refusal to bow to Hollywood or record industry patriarchal standards about what roles she should take, what her songs should sound like, and what her clothes should look like.
Cher’s career has had ups and downs in both music and acting over the decades. Most of her acting credits on IMDb are as herself, but she has also had her share of acting roles, some of them quite memorable. She also developed stage and nightclub acts in every decade of her career. During that time, she has won legions of fans and awards from organizations around the world. Among the dozens and dozens of honors she has received, some that stand out are Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival for the movie Mask in 1985, the 1988 Oscar for Moonstruck, the 2015 Inspiration Award from the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), and the Icon Award from the Billboard Music Awards in 2017.
While Cher has been outspoken in terms of liberal and progressive political and social issues, she hasn’t been universally seen as a feminist. Some defend the celebrity’s feminist status, but Cher has taken actions that others have viewed as anti-feminist, such as her choices about clothing and cosmetic surgery. Perhaps her choices and words have led others to so label her, but at her core, Cher has not allowed others to run her life for decades and has tried to help others out when she feels moved to do so – in effect, she has benefited from feminism as well as been a feminist model for others.
When the CoVID-19 pandemic put the halt on her Las Vegas residency, Cher continued to speak out about politics, music, animal rights, men, and doing what she considers necessary to look good. She has the power to speak her mind because of the work she’s put in, but the fact that she chooses to advocate for what she does reflects her personal growth as much as the loyalty of her fans. Much of her early life and career was dramatized in the 2018 Broadway production The Cher Show, if you would like to learn more in a fun musical way. Also, the May 2021 issue of Peoplemagazine is a special edition that celebrates her career, because she turns 75 today.