Cher
May 20, 1946 — El Centro, California
Cher is an American singer and actress dubbed the "Goddess of Pop" whose six-decade career has produced an Academy Award, Grammy, Emmy, and Tony, placing her among the rare performers who have conquered every major entertainment platform.
El Centro to the Sunset Strip
Cherilyn Sarkisian was born May 20, 1946 in El Centro, California, to a mother of Armenian descent. Her childhood was unstable — her parents divorced multiple times — and she moved to Los Angeles at 16 to pursue acting. She met musician Salvatore "Sonny" Bono in 1962, and the two became a performing duo. Their debut single "I Got You Babe" (1965) reached number one on both the American and British charts and made them instant stars. Their variety show, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, ran from 1971 to 1974 and attracted 30 million viewers weekly — making Cher one of the most recognizable faces in America before she had made a single major film.
Solo and on Screen
After the show's cancellation and the end of her marriage to Sonny, Cher launched a solo music career that produced the definitive 1970s hits "Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves" and "Half-Breed," and a later triumphant return with the Bob Mackie–clad club anthem "If I Could Turn Back Time" (1989). In parallel she built a film career that earned her an Oscar: her performance in Moonstruck (1987) was a revelation, warm and funny and precisely calibrated. Along with Janet Jackson, Cher is one of the defining pop artists whose visual persona — bold, transgressive, impossible to ignore — became as central to her impact as the music itself.
Did You Know?
Cher is one of the very few entertainers to have had a number-one single in six consecutive decades — the 1960s through the 2010s. Her 1998 dance track "Believe" was not only a number-one hit in 23 countries but pioneered the heavy use of Auto-Tune as a creative effect, a technique that became ubiquitous in pop music for the following two decades.
Reinvention Without End
Cher's 1998 single "Believe" is one of the best-selling singles of all time, having sold over 10 million copies worldwide, and her Believe Tour remains one of the highest-grossing concert tours ever undertaken by a solo artist. She received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2024. A Tony Award for her Broadway show The Cher Show in 2019 completed her EGOT status. Her autobiography, Cher: The Memoir, Part One, published in 2024, was a bestseller. In her late seventies she continues performing — her persistence a rebuke to every industry that ever suggested she had peaked, a quality she shares with the best artists of any era.