Cher was born Cherilyn Sarkisian in El Centro, California, on May 20, 1946.[2] Her father, John Sarkisian, was an Armenian-American truck driver with drug and gambling problems; her mother, Georgia Holt (born Jackie Jean Crouch), was a former model and retired actress who claims Irish, English, German, and Cherokee ancestry.[3][4] Cher's father was rarely home when she was an infant,[5] and her parents divorced when Cher was ten months old.[2] Her mother later married actor John Southall, with whom she had another daughter, Georganne, Cher's half-sister.[6]
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When Cher was in fifth grade, she produced a performance of the musical Oklahoma! for her teacher and class. She organized a group of girls, directing and choreographing their dance routines. Unable to convince boys to participate, she acted the male roles and sang their songs. By age nine, she had developed an unusually low voice.[9] Fascinated by film stars, Cher's role model was Audrey Hepburn, particularly due to her role in the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's. Cher began to take after the unconventional outfits and behavior of Hepburn's character.[10] She was also inspired by Marlene Dietrich, Bette Davis, and Katharine Hepburn.[11] She was disappointed by the absence of dark-haired Hollywood actresses whom she could emulate.[10] She had wanted to be famous since childhood but felt unattractive and untalented, later commenting, "I couldn't think of anything that I could do ... I didn't think I'd be a singer or dancer. I just thought, well, I'll be famous. That was my goal."[12]
Classic Cher, a three-year concert residency at both the Park Theater at Monte Carlo Resort and Casino, Las Vegas, and The Theater at MGM National Harbor, Washington, opened in February 2017.[247] At the 2017 Billboard Music Awards, Cher performed "Believe" and "If I Could Turn Back Time", her first awards show performance in more than 15 years, and was presented with the Billboard Icon Award by Gwen Stefani, who called her "a role model for showing us how to be strong and true to ourselves [and] the definition of the word Icon."[248]
Time magazine's Cady Lang described Cher as a "cultural phenomenon [who] has forever changed the way we see celebrity fashion."[313] Cher emerged as a fashion trendsetter in the 1960s, popularizing "hippie fashion with bell-bottoms, bandanas, and Cherokee-inspired tunics".[314] She 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.[314] Avedon took the controversial photo of Cher in a beaded and feathered nude gown designed by Bob Mackie for the cover of Time magazine in 1975;[315] Billboard magazine's Brooke Mazurek described it as "one of the most recreated and monumental looks of all time."[316] Cher first wore the gown to the 1974 Met Gala. According to Vogue magazine's André Leon Talley, "it was really the first time a Hollywood celebrity attended, and it changed everything. We are still seeing versions of that look on The Met red carpet 40 years later."[316] Billboard wrote that Cher has "transformed fashion and [become] one of the most influential style icons in red carpet history".[316]
Cher's "ability to forge an immensely successful and lengthy career as a woman in a male-dominated entertainment world"[382] has drawn attention from feminist critics.[426] According to author Diane Negra, Cher was presented in the beginning of her career as a product of male creativity;[427] Cher remembers, "It was a time when girl singers were patted on the head for being good and told not to think".[167] However, her image eventually changed due to her "refusal of dependence on a man and the determination not only to forge a career (as an actor) on her own terms but to refuse the conventional role assigned to women over forty years old in an industry that fetishises youth", wrote author Yvonne Tasker.[428] She was featured in the 16th-anniversary edition of Ms. magazine as an "authentic feminist hero" and a 1980s role model for women: "Cher, the straightforward, tattooed, dyslexic single mother, the first Oscar winner to have entered into matrimony with a known heroin addict and to have admitted to being a fashion victim by choice, has finally landed in an era that's not afraid to applaud real women."[429]
Alec Mapa of The Advocate elaborates: "While the rest of us were sleeping, Cher's been out there for the last four decades living out every single one of our childhood fantasies ... Cher embodies an unapologetic freedom and fearlessness that some of us can only aspire to."[339] Rolling Stone's Jancee Dunn wrote, "Cher is the coolest woman who ever stood in shoes. Why? Because her motto is, 'I don't give a shit what you think, I'm going to wear this multicolored wig.' There are folks all over America who would, in their heart of hearts, love to date people half their age, get multiple tattoos and wear feathered headdresses. Cher does it for us."[431] Alexander Fury of The Independent wrote that Cher "represents a seemingly immortal, omnipotent, uni-monikered level of fame."[325] Bego stated: "No one in the history of show business has had a career of the magnitude and scope of Cher's. She 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."[432] Lynch wrote that "the world would certainly be different if she hadn't stayed so irrevocably Cher from the start."[379] 2ff7e9595c
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