116 Facts About Cher

Cher is an American singer, actress and television personality.

Cher is known for her distinctive contralto singing voice and for having worked in numerous areas of entertainment, as well as adopting a variety of styles and appearances throughout her six-decade-long career.

Cher subsequently garnered critical acclaim for her performances in films such as Silkwood, Mask, The Witches of Eastwick, and Moonstruck, the last of which won her the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Cher contributed to the soundtrack for her next film, Mermaids, which spawned the UK number-one single "The Shoop Shoop Song ".

Cher made her directorial debut with a segment in the abortion-themed anthology If These Walls Could Talk.

Cher reached a new commercial peak in 1998 with the dance-pop album Believe, whose title track topped the Billboard Year-End Hot 100 chart of 1999 and became the biggest-selling single of all time by a female artist in the UK.

Cher's achievements include a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, an Academy Award, three Golden Globe Awards, a Cannes Film Festival award, the Billboard Icon Award, and awards from the Kennedy Center Honors and the Council of Fashion Designers of America.

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.

Cher's father was rarely home when she was an infant, and her parents divorced when Cher was ten months old.

Now living in Los Angeles, Cher's mother began acting while working as a waitress.

Cher changed her name to Georgia Holt and played minor roles in films and on television.

Cher organized a group of girls, directing and choreographing their dance routines.

Cher began to take after the unconventional outfits and behavior of Hepburn's character.

Cher was inspired by Marlene Dietrich, Bette Davis, and Katharine Hepburn.

Cher was disappointed by the absence of dark-haired Hollywood actresses whom she could emulate.

Cher said she was going to be a movie star and we knew she would.

Cher earned high grades, excelling in French and English classes.

At age 16, Cher dropped out of school, left her mother's house, and moved to Los Angeles with a friend.

Cher took acting classes and worked to support herself, dancing in small clubs along Hollywood's Sunset Strip and introducing herself to performers, managers, and agents.

Cher's friend moved out, and Cher accepted Sonny's offer to be his housekeeper.

Spector produced her first single, "Ringo, I Love You", which Cher recorded under the name Bonnie Jo Mason.

The song was rejected by many radio stations programmers as they thought Cher's deep contralto vocals were a man's vocals; therefore, they believed it was a male homosexual singing a love song dedicated to the Beatles drummer Ringo Starr.

Cher disguised her nervousness by looking at Sonny; she later commented that she sang to the people through him.

Cher signed with Liberty Records' Imperial imprint in the end of 1964, and Sonny became her producer.

Cher expanded her creative range by designing a clothing line.

Cher's following releases kept her solo career fully competitive with her work with Sonny.

Cher, released in 1966, contains the Burt Bacharach and Hal David composition "Alfie", which was added to the credits of the American version of the 1966 film of the same name and became the first stateside version of the popular song.

In 1969, she was dropped from Imperial Records while Sonny and Cher had been dropped from Atco; however, the label wanted to sign Cher for a solo album.

Cher adopted alluring, low-cut gowns that became her signature outfits.

The Bob Mackie-designed clothing Cher wore was part of the show's attraction, and her style influenced the fashion trends of the 1970s.

In 1971, Sonny and Cher signed with the Kapp Records division of MCA Records, and Cher released the single "Classified 1A", in which she sings from the point of view of a soldier who bleeds to death in Vietnam.

In 1972, Cher released the all-ballad set Foxy Lady, demonstrating the evolution of her vocal abilities, according to Bego.

At Sonny's insistence, in 1973 Cher released an album of standards called Bittersweet White Light, which was commercially unsuccessful.

In 1974, Cher released the song "Dark Lady" as the lead single from the namesake album.

On February 16,1975, Cher returned to television with a solo show on CBS.

When she was single or casually dating, Cher always seemed to pose more of a threat to the status quo than she did when she was Sonny's wife.

On June 30,1975, four days after finalizing her divorce from Sonny, Cher married rock musician Gregg Allman, co-founder of The Allman Brothers Band.

Cher filed for divorce nine days later because of his heroin and liquor problems, but they reconciled within a month.

In 1976, Mego Toys released a line of toys and dolls in the likeness of Sonny and Cher, which coincided with the popularity of The Sonny and Cher Show.

The miniature version of Cher ended up being the highest selling doll of 1976, surpassing Barbie.

Cher returned to prime time television with the ABC specials Cher.

Cher included rock songs, which made the disco release seem unfocused and led to its commercial failure.

In 1980, alongside Italian record producer Giorgio Moroder, Cher wrote her last Casablanca disco recording, "Bad Love", for the film Foxes.

Cher formed the rock band Black Rose that year with her then-lover, guitarist Les Dudek.

In 1981, Cher released a duet with musician Meat Loaf called "Dead Ringer for Love", which reached number five on the UK Singles Chart and was later described by AllMusic's Donald A Guarisco as "one of the more inspired rock duets of the 1980s".

Everyone kept saying, 'Cher, there are people who would give anything to have standing room only at Caesars Palace.

Cher recalls attending a film preview during which the audience laughed when they saw her name in the credits.

Cher attended the 58th Academy Awards in a tarantula-like costume, later deemed by Vanity Fair Esther Zuckerman as Cher's "Oscar revenge dress".

Cher was one of the few people I've really wanted to have on the show.

Cher had romantic relationships with actors Val Kilmer, Eric Stoltz, and Tom Cruise, hockey player Ron Duguay, film producer Josh Donen, Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora, and Rob Camilletti, a bagel baker 18 years her junior whom she dated from 1986 to 1989.

At the 1989 People's Choice Awards, Cher won the Favorite All-Around Female Star Award.

Cher clashed with the film's first two directors, Lasse Hallstrom and Frank Oz, who were replaced by Richard Benjamin.

One of the two songs Cher recorded for the film's soundtrack, a cover version of Betty Everett's "The Shoop Shoop Song ", topped the UK Singles Chart for five weeks.

Cher made cameo appearances in the Robert Altman films The Player and Pret-a-Porter.

In 1996, Cher played the wife of a businessman who hires a hitman to murder her in the Chazz Palminteri-scripted dark comedy film Faithful.

Cher made her directorial debut with a segment in the abortion-themed anthology If These Walls Could Talk, in which she starred as a doctor murdered by an anti-abortion fanatic.

Cher's music played a large role in the American TV series The X-Files episode "The Post-Modern Prometheus", which aired in November 1997.

That month, Sonny and Cher received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Television.

Later that year, Cher published The First Time, a collection of autobiographical essays of "first-time" events in her life, which critics praised as down-to-earth and genuine.

Seven months later, Cher released the compilation album The Greatest Hits, which sold three million copies outside of the US up until January 2000.

Cher was named the number-one dance artist of 1999 by Billboard.

Cher's highly anticipated dance-oriented follow-up to Believe, Living Proof, entered the Billboard 200 at number nine and was certified gold by the RIAA.

In June 2002, Cher embarked on the Living Proof: The Farewell Tour, announced as the final live concert tour of her career, although she vowed to continue making records and films.

Cher played herself in the Farrelly brothers comedy Stuck on You, mocking her public image as she appears in bed with a much younger boyfriend.

Cher premiered the lead single "Woman's World" on the season four finale of the talent show The Voice, her first live TV performance in over a decade.

Cher later joined the show's season five as judge Blake Shelton's team adviser.

On June 30,2013, Cher headlined the annual Dance on the Pier benefit, celebrating Gay Pride day.

Cher embarked on the Dressed to Kill Tour in March 2014, nearly a decade after announcing her "farewell tour".

Cher quipped about that fact during the shows, saying this would actually be her last farewell tour while crossing fingers.

On May 7,2014, Cher confirmed a collaboration with American hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan on their album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.

Cher recorded two ABBA songs for the film's soundtrack: "Fernando" and "Super Trouper".

On March 4,2018, Cher headlined the 40th Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

In September 2018, Cher embarked on the Here We Go Again Tour.

The Cher Show, a jukebox musical based on Cher's life and music, officially premiered at the Oriental Theatre in Chicago, on June 28,2018, and played through July 15.

The Cher Show is set to launch a UK and Ireland tour in 2022.

On December 2,2018, Cher received a Kennedy Center Honors prize, the annual Washington distinction for artists who have made extraordinary contributions to culture.

In October 2019, Cher launched a new perfume, Cher Eau de Couture, which was four years in the making.

On February 4,2020, Cher was announced as the new face of fashion brand Dsquared2.

Cher appeared in a voice-over role as a bobblehead version of herself in the animated feature film Bobbleheads: The Movie.

In January 2022, Cher appeared as the star of MAC Cosmetics' "Challenge Accepted" campaign alongside rapper Saweetie.

Cher has employed various musical styles, including folk rock, pop rock, power ballads, disco, new wave music, rock music, punk rock, arena rock, and hip hop; she said she has done this to "remain relevant and do work that strikes a chord".

Cher's music has mainly dealt with themes of heartbreak, independence, and self-empowerment for women; by doing so, she became "a brokenhearted symbol of a strong but decidedly single woman", according to Out magazine's Judy Wieder.

Cher has a contralto singing voice, described by author Nicholas E Tawa as "bold, deep, and with a spacious vibrato".

Cher continued to use Auto-Tune on the albums Living Proof, Closer to the Truth, and Dancing Queen.

For Moonstruck, Cher was ranked 1st on Billboards list of "The 100 Best Acting Performances by Musicians in Movies", and her performance was described as "the standard by which you mentally check all others".

Cher was ranked 17th on VH1's list of the "50 Greatest Women of the Video Era".

Cher began working as a model in 1967 for photographer Richard Avedon after then-Vogue magazine editor Diana Vreeland discovered her at a party for Jacqueline Kennedy that year.

Cher has engaged in a transformational technology that is dramatic and irreversible.

Cher liked to do things for the shock they created.

Cher was the inspiration for Mother Gothel, a fictional character who appears in Walt Disney Pictures' animated feature film Tangled.

Cher is considered a gay icon, and has often been imitated by drag queens.

Cher has been a vocal supporter of American soldiers and returning veterans.

Cher has contributed resources to Operation Helmet, an organization that provides free helmet upgrade kits to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Cher has contributed to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, which serves military personnel who have been disabled in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and those severely injured in other operations.

Cher has engaged in the construction of houses with Habitat for Humanity and served as the Honorary National Chair of a Habitat's elimination of poverty housing initiative "Raise the Roof", an effort to engage artists in the organization's work while on tour.

In 2016, after the discovery of lead contamination in the drinking water of Flint, Michigan, Cher donated more than 180,000 bottles of water to the city as part of a partnership with Icelandic Glacial.

In 2017, Cher weighed in on the need to protect elder rights as she executive produced Edith+Eddie, a documentary about a nonagenarian interracial couple.

In November 2020, Cher joined Four Paws International and traveled to Pakistan to advocate for and work with the country's government to have Kaavan, an elephant who had been confined to a zoo for 35 years, transferred to a wildlife sanctuary in Cambodia.

Cher has said that she is not a registered Democrat, but has attended many Democratic conventions and events.

Cher has commented that she did not understand why anyone would be a Republican because eight years under the administration of George W Bush "almost killed [her]".

On October 27,2003, Cher anonymously called a C-SPAN phone-in program to recount a visit she made to maimed soldiers at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and criticized the lack of media coverage and government attention given to injured servicemen.

On Memorial Day weekend in 2006, Cher called into C-SPAN's Washington Journal endorsing Operation Helmet, a group that provides helmets to help soldiers avoid head injuries while in the war zone.

In September 2013, Cher declined an invitation to perform at the 2014 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Russia due to the country's controversial anti-gay legislation that overshadowed preparations for the event.

In September 2020, Cher raised nearly $2 million for Joe Biden's presidential campaign at a virtual, LGBTQ-themed fundraiser.

Cher is commonly referred to by the media as the "Goddess of Pop".

Cher has repeatedly reinvented herself through various personas, for which Professor Richard Aquila from Ball State University called her "the ultimate pop chameleon".

Cher's goal has always been to be a good actress, not just a rich and famous one.

Cher has been a teenage pop star, a television hostess, a fashion magazine model, a rock star, a pop singer, a Broadway actress, an Academy Award-winning movie star, a disco sensation, and the subject of a mountain of press coverage.

Cher is one of the few artists to win three of the four major American entertainment awards, and one of five actor-singers to have had a US number-one single and won an acting Academy Award.

In 1988, Cher became the first performer to receive an Academy Award for acting and a RIAA-certified gold album in the same year since the inception of gold awards in 1958.

Cher is the only artist to have a number-one single on a Billboard chart in six consecutive decades, from the 1960s to the 2010s.

Cher has held US Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles over the longest period of time in history: 33 years, seven months and three weeks between "I Got You Babe", which topped the chart for the first time on August 14,1965, and "Believe", whose last week at number one was April 3,1999.

In 2010, Cher received the honor of placing her handprints and footprints in cement in the courtyard in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

Cher had been selected for the honor as a solo artist in 1983, but forfeited her opportunity by declining to schedule the mandatory personal appearance.

In 2003, Cher appeared at number 41 on VH1's list of "The 200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons", which recognizes "the folks that have significantly inspired and impacted American society".

Cher was featured on the "100 Greatest Movie Stars of our Time" list compiled by People.