CHER STUNS AT 75
CELEBRATING THE ICONIC STAR AS SHE MARKS A MILESTONE BIRTHDAY
Cher’s career in entertainment has spanned seven decades. During that time, she has reinvented herself countless times – as a folk singer, rock star, Oscar winner, disco queen and the undisputed Goddess of Pop. Over the years, she’s risen the ranks and stood the test of time – and looked good while doing it. “I’ve worked my whole life to keep my strength in my body,” says the star, who celebrates her 75th birthday on May 20. “There are 20-yearold girls who can’t do what I do.”
With her keen sense of social justice combined with a wicked sense of humour (in full flight with her biting social media commentary), she’s said she still feels like “an older teenager” and her fountain of youth
involves keeping things fun. “It can get exhausting being Cher, especially when you’re older and you’re still doing the same things,” she has told WHO’s sister publication People magazine. “But I still have a great time.”
STARTING OUT
Cherilyn Sarkisian was born on May 20, 1946, to John Sarkisian and Jackie Jean Crouch in El Centro, California. By the time she was 10 months old, her parents had split up and her mother, an aspiring actress and singer, would go on to marry seven times (including a brief reunion with Cher’s dad).
“We ate a can of stew or a can of beans one week, but then sometimes we lived in Beverly
Hills. It was a very strange life,” the singer once told Vanity Fair of her nomadic childhood. Her mother helped Cher score some acting gigs as a TV extra and she soon dropped out of school to pursue her own dreams of stardom.
“I was thinking about when I was grown-up and famous, where I’d want to live or who I’d go out with or what kind of dresses I would wear,” she has said. “I wasn’t at high school at all.”
ALWAYS SONNY
Sixteen-year-old Cher first crossed paths with 27-year-old songwriter and record promoter Salvatore “Sonny” Bono in a coffee shop in 1962. They were married in their apartment bathroom in 1964 and the following year their career as the folk-pop duo exploded with the release of their hit song ‘I Got You Babe’.
During their decade together, they spun their witty banter and wild popularity into TV stardom with shows The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour and The Sonny & Cher Show, but their time as a duo ended in 1975 following their divorce. While Cher’s showbusiness career thrived, Bono reinvented himself as a politician but his role as a rising star of the Republican party would be cut tragically short. While on vacation in Aspen, Colorado, in January 1998, he died in a skiing accident. “He was smart enough to take an introverted 16-year-old girl and a guy with a bad voice and turn them into the most successful, beloved couple of our generation,” an emotional Cher said in her eulogy. “He knew what was right for us.”
HIT MACHINE
Cher is the only artist to date to have a number-one single on a Billboard chart in six consecutive decades, from the 1960s to the 2010s. She’s tackled the genres of folk, rock, disco and R&B, and in 1998 at the age of 53, she reached a new commercial peak with the release of her disco album Believe.
Her 2002 Living Proof: The Farewell
“It can get exhausting being Cher” –CHER
Tour was extended many times and is still one of the highest-grossing concert tours of all time, earning $323 million over 326 dates.
TURN BACK TIME
At the 2017 Billboard Music Awards, Cher received the Billboard Icon Award and proved she’d earned the title, performing ‘If I Could Turn Back Time’ in her iconic outfit from the music video, which was shot nearly 30 years earlier. “I really want to be able to get up there in my size 27 jeans, dance around the stage and look good,” she has said of her longevity. “I’m trying to keep the package viable.”
Cher has admitted that part of the process has entailed plastic surgery, but says the extent of her tweaks has been exaggerated. “If I’d had as much plastic surgery as they [say], you know, like I’ve got ass implants and calf implants and cheek implants,” she has said. “I’ve had the same cheeks my entire life.” Besides, she adds, “If I want to put my tits on my back, it’s nobody’s business but my own.”
LEADING LADY
In the 1980s, Cher turned her attention to acting, first on Broadway and then in film. She scored critical acclaim for roles in Silkwood and
Mask, and took home the Academy Award for best actress for the 1987 rom-com Moonstruck.
Most recently, she made her long-awaited return to the big screen in the hit Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, stealing the show with a gloriously camp cameo.
QUEEN OF FASHION
Cher’s bold, iconic looks are often