Biographic - Sunday July 29, 2018 Comic Strip Licensing and Permissions

Transcript

Cherilyn Sarkisian, born in El Centro, California, on May 20, 1946, was only 16 years old when she met music biz hustler Salvatore "Sonny" Bono. Sonny was working for record producer Phil Spector, and he persuaded Spector to use Cher as a session singer. Under the pseudonym Bonnie Jo Mason, she recorded a lovely ode to a Beatle, "Ringo, I Love You" before she teamed up with Sonny to release an album as Caesar and Cleo. Success came in 1965 when, as hippie duo Sonny and Cher, they topped the charts with "I Got You Babe" while introducing the world to beads and bell-bottom pants. By the late 1960s, the hits had dried up. Sonny and Cher reinvented themselves as TV stars, with a weekly variety show that earned a slew of Emmy nominations and provided Cher with a platform for solo chart success. But by the mid-1970s, the marriage was failing. Just days after an acrimonious divorce was finalized, Cher married rocker Gregg Allman, but the union was short-lived. Following a successful debut on the Broadway stage, she set her sights on movies- and almost immediately earned an Academy Award nomination for 1983's "Silkwood." 1987 saw her star in "The Witches of Eastwick" "Suspect" and "Moonstruck" the last earning her a best actress Oscar. Her musical career continued with such hits as 1989's "If I Could Turn Back Time" and 1998's worldwide mega-smash "Believe" when "You Haven't Seen The Last Of Me" topped the dance charts in 2011, she became the only artist to have had a No.1 single on Billboard in each of those past six decades. Her three-year Las Vegas residency at Caesar's Palace swelled her vast fortune by $180 million! Having starred opposite Christina Aguilera in the 2010 movie "Burlesque" she has returned to the silver screen in "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again." Her 2018 concert schedule includes five nights in Washington, D.C. an Australian tour and a Las Vegas residency, meanwhile, "The Cher Show" a musical that traces her incredible life and career- will hit the Broadway stage in November.

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