Cher shows no signs of slowing

Cher, pictured at the world premiere of the film Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again in London, has picked up numerous awards in film and music.

If Madonna is the Queen of Pop, then Cher is surely the Empress of Entertainment, surveying the spoils of a showbiz career that has reaped a best actress Oscar, three Golden Globes, an Emmy, a Grammy and a number one record in each of the last five decades.

And with an acclaimed movie role this summer, a new album of Abba covers on the way and a Broadway musical about her life on the horizon, the 72-year-old icon shows no signs of slowing down.

“It seems I have a bunch of new fans, young ones, little ones. It’s great. I honestly didn’t expect it,” she enthuses, a playful grin fleetingly snapping the aristocratic aura.

A post-war baby boomer of Armenian, European and Cherokee heritage, the performer was born Cherilyn Sarkisian in southern California.

To a certain generation she will always be an icon of ’60s counterculture and the unique contralto voice who, along with late former husband Sonny Bono, gave the world I Got You Babe.

But she has been shocking and delighting since ditching her folksy girlnext-door Sonny and Cherera image to emerge as the siren in a hardly-there body suit and leather jacket in the 1989 Turn Back Time video.

Believe brought Cher to a new generation of fans in 1998, with its innovative deployment of the robotic, digitally-enhanced vocal for which she is now famous. –