50 Fun Facts About Cher

What was Cher's birth name?

Cheryl Sarkisian. For decades she was said to be Cherilyn, but when she went to court to become plain Cher she found Cheryl on her birth certificate, to her own mother's surprise.

Cher's father was of which ancestry?

Armenian. Her paternal grandparents survived the Armenian genocide, and in 1993 she flew into Armenia on a relief group's cargo plane carrying 45 tons of medical supplies and other aid.

Cher's first single, a 1964 novelty record, was a love song to a member of which band?

The Beatles. 'Ringo, I Love You' flopped, and Cher has said many radio programmers took her deep voice for a man's and would not play a man's love song to Ringo Starr.

Which record producer was Sonny Bono working for when he met Cher in 1962?

Phil Spector. Through Sonny she became one of his backing singers, and her voice is on the Ronettes' 'Be My Baby' and the Righteous Brothers' 'You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin''.

Before they were Sonny & Cher, the duo recorded under what alias?

Caesar & Cleo. The singles under that name went nowhere in 1964, and their national breakthrough came the next year, after Atlantic's Atco label signed them as Sonny & Cher.

Which 1965 Sonny & Cher hit became emblematic of 1960s counterculture?

I Got You Babe. Sonny wrote it in the middle of the night and woke Cher to sing it; she disliked it and went straight back to bed.

Which moody 1966 song was Cher's first million-selling solo single?

Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down). Sonny Bono wrote it, and Nancy Sinatra's slower cover from the same year found a new audience in 2003, when Quentin Tarantino opened Kill Bill with it.

Which Cher single became her third solo US number one in 1974?

Dark Lady. Its New Orleans fortune teller warns the narrator off her cheating lover, then turns out to be the other woman, and the narrator shoots them both.

Cher's 'Half-Breed' is sung by the daughter of a white father and a mother of which nation?

Cherokee. Lyricist Mary Dean wrote it for Cher just as producer Snuff Garrett had fallen out with Sonny, so the song sat in his desk for months until he could get her back to record it.

Sonny and Cher sank their own money into which 1969 film, written by Sonny to star Cher?

Chastity. It flopped and left them owing back taxes, but the name lasted: their only child, born the same year, was named after the film.

On which network did The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour begin as a summer replacement series in 1971?

CBS. Programming chief Fred Silverman offered the pair a show of their own, and its summer ratings were strong enough to earn it a permanent place in the schedule.

Which 1995 teen comedy named its heroine after Cher?

Clueless. Cher Horowitz says she and her friend Dionne were named after great singers of the past who now do infomercials, a nod to the beauty-product ads the real Cher fronted in the early 1990s.

Which designer created Cher's trend-setting outfits on the Comedy Hour and beyond?

Bob Mackie. Passed over for an Oscar nomination in 1986, she presented an award in his towering feathered headdress and joked that she had received the Academy's booklet on dressing like a serious actress.

Which talk-show host did Cher insult to his face on her first visit to his show in 1986?

David Letterman. He admitted that being called a rude name on his own show hurt his feelings, yet 18 months later she was back, singing with Sonny on his stage for the last time.

Whom did Cher marry on June 30, 1975, within days of her divorce from Sonny becoming final?

Gregg Allman. Within ten days of the wedding she filed for divorce over his drug and drink problems, then thought better of it, and the marriage lasted until 1979.

Which kind of animal was Kaavan, whom Cher helped move from a Pakistani zoo to a Cambodian sanctuary in 2020?

An elephant. Kaavan had spent 35 years in Islamabad's zoo, the last eight without a companion, before a campaign fronted by Cher won a court order for his release.

Cher's former husband Sonny Bono was elected mayor of which California city in 1988?

Palm Springs. He won the office a few months after he and Cher sang together for the last time, in late 1987, and he went on from city hall to the US Congress.

Who played Cher's teenage daughter in the 1990 film Mermaids?

Winona Ryder. Cher drew on her own mother to play a woman who moves her daughters from town to town, and her cover of 'The Shoop Shoop Song' for the film topped the UK chart for five weeks.

Which director cast Cher on Broadway and on film in Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean?

Robert Altman. She had moved to New York in 1982 to study with Lee Strasberg, but won the part at an audition before she ever enrolled, and her performance led straight to her next film role.

Cher earned her first Oscar nomination as Dolly Pelliker, the title character's roommate, in which 1983 film?

Silkwood. Before the film had made her name as an actress, Cher sat in a cinema and heard the audience laugh when her name came up in the credits.

For which 1985 film did Cher win the Best Actress award at Cannes?

Mask. Director Peter Bogdanovich fought the studio after it recut the film and replaced its Bruce Springsteen songs, but Cher refused to back his protest.

Cher won the Academy Award for Best Actress for which film?

Moonstruck. Julie Bovasso, who also acts in the film, doubled as its dialect coach and helped Cher master a Brooklyn accent.

Who plays the fiancé's younger brother Cher's character falls for in a 1987 romantic comedy?

Nicolas Cage. Cher wanted him after seeing the risk he took in Peggy Sue Got Married, where he gave his character a nasal whine modelled on a clay-animation horse.

Who plays the wealthy visitor who seduces Cher, Pfeiffer and Sarandon in The Witches of Eastwick?

Jack Nicholson. He stepped in after Bill Murray, who had been cast first as the devilish Daryl Van Horne, dropped out before filming began.

Cher's If I Could Turn Back Time video, notorious for its outfit, was shot on which battleship?

USS Missouri. The extras were the ship's own sailors, and after two months of complaints that her outfit demeaned the Navy, MTV would show the video only after 9 p.m.

Which style did Cher adopt on Cher (1987), Heart of Stone (1989) and Love Hurts (1991)?

Hair metal. Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora co-produced the first of the three, and swapping pop and disco for big rock ballads gave her a first US top-ten hit in eight years.

Cher's 1989 US top-ten duet 'After All' was sung with which soft-rock singer?

Peter Cetera, once the voice of the band Chicago. The song was the love theme of the film Chances Are, and when it was nominated for an Oscar, James Ingram and Melissa Manchester sang it at the ceremony instead.

Which 1996 television film marked Cher's debut as a director?

If These Walls Could Talk. Cher directed the last of its three stories about abortion, playing a doctor targeted by protesters, and it became the highest-rated film HBO had shown up to then.

How did Sonny Bono die in 1998?

A skiing accident. Sonny, by then a congressman, struck a tree on a slope above Lake Tahoe, and at his funeral a tearful Cher called him the most unforgettable character she had ever met.

Which studio tool, pushed to a robotic extreme on Cher's Believe, gave rise to the term 'Cher effect'?

Auto-Tune. The producers at first claimed they had used a vocoder, to keep their trick secret, and when her label asked for the effect to be toned down Cher answered: 'Over my dead body!'

Which band's version of 'All I Really Want to Do' lost to Cher's on the US chart in 1965?

The Byrds. Cher first heard the Dylan song at one of their club shows, and when the two singles met on the chart the band, who liked her version, simply flipped their record over.

Which Grammy did Believe win?

Best Dance Recording. It was the first Grammy of a recording career that had begun 35 years earlier, and it stood alone until she was given a lifetime achievement award in 2026.

Illness forced Cher to turn down a lead role in which hit film of 1991?

Thelma & Louise. In the early 1990s the Epstein-Barr virus left her too exhausted for films or music, so she paid the bills with infomercials that nearly sank her reputation.

Cher signed a $60 million deal for a 200-show residency at which Las Vegas venue?

Later, Classic Cher played the Park Theater and MGM National Harbor from 2017.

In Burlesque (2010), Cher plays a nightclub owner mentoring an aspiring performer played by whom?

Christina Aguilera, in her first leading role. The film did only modest business in cinemas, yet in 2024 it returned as a stage musical, with Aguilera among its producers.

In the Mamma Mia sequel Here We Go Again, Cher plays Ruby Sheridan, the mother of which character?

Donna. That made Cher the screen mother of Meryl Streep, who is only three years her junior and had first acted alongside her 35 years earlier.

Which 2018 Cher album consists entirely of ABBA covers?

Dancing Queen. Recording two ABBA songs for the Mamma Mia sequel gave her the idea, and the album tied her best placing on the US chart by debuting at number three.

Cher's first Spanish-language recording was a cover of which ABBA song, released for UNICEF?

Chiquitita. ABBA performed it at a 1979 concert for UNICEF and have sent the fund royalties from it ever since, and Cher's Spanish version in 2020 gave its proceeds the same way.

Which lead single from Cher's 2023 holiday album topped two Billboard charts?

DJ Play a Christmas Song. It gave Cher a number one on a Billboard chart in each of seven consecutive decades, from the 1960s to the 2020s, which no solo artist had done before.

In 1965 Sonny & Cher became stars overnight after being thrown out of a hotel in which city?

London. The Rolling Stones had told them to try England because America did not get their look, and press photographs of the Hilton turning them away made them famous by morning.

Which pop star joined Cher to sing 'Believe' at her Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2024?

Dua Lipa. Ten months earlier Cher had said she would not join the Hall for a million dollars after being passed over since 1990; it nominated her two months later, and she accepted.

Who presented Cher with the Kennedy Center Honors in December 2018?

Whoopi Goldberg. Adam Lambert then sang 'Believe' as a slow ballad, leaving Cher in tears and, she said, at a loss for words, and he later released his version as a single.

Cher appears on Wu-Tang Clan's one-copy album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin credited under which name?

Bonnie Jo Mason. Her first producer invented the name in 1964 because he thought her own too exotic to sell, and she revived it decades later for an album pressed as a single copy.

Which fashion magazine put Cher on its US cover five times?

Vogue. By Cher's account its editor Diana Vreeland spotted her at a 1967 party for Jacqueline Kennedy, and Richard Avedon later photographed her for the cover of Time in a beaded, feathered gown.

What learning difference did Cher discover she has, having struggled at school?

Dyslexia. She only learned of it as an adult, years after she had dropped out of school at 16 to take acting lessons in Hollywood.

In which 1967 musical comedy did Sonny and Cher first star on film, playing themselves?

Good Times. It flopped at the box office, yet it was the first feature by William Friedkin, who went on to direct The French Connection and The Exorcist.

On which sitcom does a character take the real Cher for a drag queen until she slaps him?

Will & Grace. Jack, who idolises her and carries a Cher doll around, refuses to believe it even when she sings to prove who she is, so she slaps him.

In 1993 Cher re-recorded her first number-one hit with which cartoon duo?

Beavis and Butt-Head. On the record the pair introduce her as an older 'chick' with tattoos who used to be married to some dork, a joke at her own expense that she played along with.

Cher's 2003 NBC special of her farewell tour won her which award?

A Primetime Emmy. With her Oscar and her Grammy it left her one letter short of an EGOT: the only Tony connected to her went to the actress who played her on Broadway.

Which 2018 Broadway jukebox musical tells Cher's life story?

The Cher Show. Cher herself was one of its producers, and three actresses share the part, playing her at different ages under the nicknames Babe, Lady and Star.