Dear, an exceptional life | The Montreal Journal

The incomparable and unique Cher, who has often been noted for her eccentricities, has managed to carve out a niche for herself as a singer, actress and entertainer. Today, at 78, she has just published an autobiography that takes your breath away, her life is so full of twists and turns.

Cher's life is so rich and intense that it will take two volumes to tell it.

In this first part, which is almost 500 pages long, the star reveals himself in complete frankness from his childhood until the end of the 1970s.

The star with 100 million albums sold worldwide wanted to become famous from a young age. Just like her mother, she had a beautiful voice.

Although she knows how to dream big, Cherilyn Sarkisian LaPiere, her real name, does not have an easy childhood.

Abandoned by her father before her birth in 1946 in El Centro in southern California, Cher grew up with her mother Georgia, who had no choice but to work as a waitress. What followed was a difficult relationship between the girl and her mother, who had not had it easy either.

Cher even had to reside in an orphanage. “I understood why I always hated being left,” Cher writes.

So, Cher's mother remarried five times hoping for a better life. As a child, Cher saw one of them hit her mother, pin her against the wall and drag her to the ground. She nevertheless learned to love this stepfather who will do little better for her, correcting her with his belt.

“To this day, I still can't stand the sound of a belt sliding through the loops of pants,” Cher confides in her memoir.

Sonny and Cher

Cher left her family at the age of 16 for Hollywood, hoping to make a career in the world of cinema. Unfortunately, there will be many refusals.

She turns to New York, always hoping that luck will turn in her favor… But nothing is easy.

Nevertheless, the plays on Broadway were a real revelation for her. The world of entertainment intoxicates him. But getting a job is difficult.

Then there is the meeting with Sonny Bono, full of bite and passion, but which is also a devastating relationship. They married in 1964. It was in 1971 that the show Sonny and Cher s’amorce.

The show was so successful that it ranked among the top 10 TV shows in the United States. It's more than anything Cher had secretly dreamed of.

But their separation as a couple in 1974 ruined everything.

Ups and downs

After her divorce from Sonny in 1975, Cher managed to do her own show without Sonny, The Cher Show in 1975 which was very successful. But Cher, after causing a scandal with her sulphurous outfits, returns to square one after two seasons. It's because she is pregnant with her second child and we don't like seeing her like this.

Cher also makes the press gossip with her love life. But she is passionate. Three days after her divorce, she married musician Gregg Allman.

Despite her tumultuous married life, she still wants to make films and become an actress.

“For five years, I tried everything to land real roles, but I couldn’t even convince an agent to represent me,” she writes.

But Cher has character and she lets it be known.

“I was angry, upset, and I don't know where I found the guts, but, in a moment of triumph of my cheeky self over my shy self, I said to an Oscar-winning director, I have a lot of talent, and one day you will bite your fingers.”

She was told she was too big, too old, too everything in fact and her private life with Sonny was the target of mockery. However, we know that she will be an Oscar winner a few years later, in addition to winning an Emmy and a Grammy.

Cher, always in search of glory and very determined, will be able to pull herself together. Unable to land a role, she decides to return to what she does best, singing and giving shows.

The book ends on a happy note for Cher, as she lands a first Vegas residency at Caesars Palace and Lake Tahoe in 1979 with a four-year contract.

Despite some criticism in the media who considered her finished, Cher doesn't care. “It was what paid the bills… and people loved it,” she writes, adding that she even broke the attendance record set by Frank Sinatra who was on the same stage just before her.

We are awaiting its second slice of life which should appear sometime in 2025.

Cher: The Autobiography – Part I
Harper Collins
485 pages
With photo book