Cher, who turns 75 on Thursday, has spent decades turning heads with her deep resonant voice, stage presence, style and humor.
Born Cherilyn Sarkisian on May 20, 1946, in El Centro, California, she began her career as a backup singer for studio recordings.
She came onto the scene in the 1960s, as half of Sonny & Cher. The husband-wife duo gained popularity in 1965 after their song “I Got You Babe” peaked at number one on the U.S. and U.K. charts. By the end of 1967, they had sold 40 million records worldwide and became rock’s “it” couple.
A few years later, they debuted as hosts of “The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour,” which ran from 1971 to 1974 when the show was canceled due to the couple’s divorce.
The pair reunited in 1976 for “The Sonny & Cher Show,” which ran for two seasons, ending in 1977.
From Variety, “On Feb. 29, 1972, Cleveland Amory in TV Guide gushed, “Is there anything she can’t do? She can sing any song, do any skit, wear any clothes and frankly, we’d tune in if all she did was to sing that ‘V-A-M-P’ song every week.”
Cher continues to have a successful solo career as a recording artist, actor, fashion icon, television show host, pop star, director, philanthropist and advocate.
She is, to date, the only female artist to have a Billboard number-one single for six decades straight, from the 1960s to the 2010s.
Cher revealed her proudest career moment to ET in 2018, “The Academy Award,” the singer said of her 1988 win for Best Actress in “Moonstruck.” “As [Paul Newman] opened the thing and pulled out the card I went deaf and, when he took a breath, I thought, ‘It’s not because you don’t need a breath to say Cher.’ And then when I won it, it was one of the most thrilling moments of my life.”
In April, Cher surprised a fan who has Alzheimer’s with a touching video call.
This month, Cher was featured in Pink’s music video for the single, “All I Know So Far.”
She was also just invited to join RuPaul’s “Drag Race.”
RuPaul, who is a longtime fan of Cher, received the award for Best Host at the “MTV Movie & TV Awards: Unscripted” on Monday. He tributed the icon and then made a bold request.
“I want to thank MTV... for making our little show so much fun to do,” RuPaul began. “But I gotta say in all these years of hosting a television show, I learned how to do this from a woman who is phenomenal and I want to thank her...So Cher, why don’t you shnapoutofit and come do our show, man?”
And to cap off Cher’s birthday month, the documentary “Cher & the Loneliest Elephant” airs Thursday on the Smithsonian Channel.
From NPR, “It’s a film about the years-long effort to save Kaavan, a 4-ton, malnourished elephant who had been kept in chains for decades in a run-down area of the Islamabad Zoo in Pakistan before he was moved to a wildlife sanctuary in Cambodia last year.”
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