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00:00Women who change the world.
00:30A girl can wait for the right man to come along, but in the meantime, that doesn't
00:35mean she can't have a wonderful time with all the wrong ones.
00:39Cher Cher, born May 20, 1946, is a singer and actress whose successful career has spanned
00:46more than 50 years.
00:48She is among the few people that have won Emmy, Grammy, and Academy Awards.
00:52Her worldwide record sales have exceeded 100 million, and she has reached number one
00:58on at least one billboard chart every decade from the 1960s through the 2010s.
01:05Born Cherilyn Sarkeesian, Cher's father was a truck driver, and her mother was a model
01:10and bit part actress.
01:12Her parents divorced when she was just 10 months old.
01:15Dropping out of school at age 16, Cher moved to Los Angeles with a friend.
01:20She took acting classes and worked to earn money to support herself.
01:24Cher met Sonny Bono in 1962, when he was an aspiring songwriter and promotions manager
01:30for producer Phil Spector.
01:32Cher appeared on multiple recordings as a backup singer, including the Ronettes' Be My Baby,
01:38and the Righteous Brothers' You've Lost That Love and Feeling.
01:42Phil Spector also produced Cher's first record, an unsuccessful single titled Ringo I Love You,
01:48and released under the name Bonnie Jo Mason in 1964.
01:52For the latter part of the 1960s, following her initial solo success, Cher balanced solo
01:58hits like Bang Bang, My Baby Shot Me Down, with her Sonny and Cher successes, I Got You Babe,
02:04and the beat goes on.
02:05However, by the end of the decade, the commercial fortunes of the duo and Cher as a solo artist
02:11both faded.
02:12In 1971, Cher launched the first of her many comebacks.
02:16The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour debuted on TV in August 1971, and Cher followed it with
02:23her first number one pop hit single, Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves.
02:27In the course of three years, she released four top ten hits, and three of them went all
02:32the way to number one.
02:34After another fade in popularity with rock music experiments in the late 1970s, Cher jumped
02:39on the disco bandwagon, and returned to the top ten with Take Me Home.
02:44Her comeback was short-lived, and her ill-fated rock group Black Rose failed to chart with their
02:49self-titled album.
02:50Cher and Sonny Bono conducted their own marriage ceremony in late 1964.
02:56She encouraged him to perform with her as a duo, because it helped ease her stage fright.
03:01Amid professional difficulties in the late 1960s, Sonny began dating other women, and the
03:06relationship began to disintegrate.
03:08In an attempt to win Cher back, Sonny officially married her, and their child, Chastity Bono,
03:14was born March 4, 1969.
03:17In the early 1970s, in the wake of their success as television stars, the marriage of Sonny
03:22and Cher suffered again.
03:24In 1974, Sonny filed for separation, and Cher countered with divorce proceedings.
03:31Cher divorce was finalized in June, 1975.
03:35Four days later, she married rock musician Greg Allman, of the Allman Brothers Band, with
03:40whom she had Elijah Blue, born in July 1976.
03:44Cher and Greg Allman divorced in 1979.
03:47At the time, she was living with KISS leader, Gene Simmons.
03:51Cher has been celebrated for representing female independence in male-dominated industries.
03:56Her choices to perform hard rock music, embrace disco, and wear outlandish outfits, are all
04:01her own.
04:02As the oldest woman to hit number one on the pop chart when she was 52, Cher also proved
04:08that entertainment industry boundaries can be flexible.
04:12Cher continually reinvented her image to follow trends and remain in the spotlight, even when
04:17commercial success was elusive.
04:19In the 1980s, she proved her versatility as an entertainer.
04:23By winning an Academy Award for acting, the New York Times dubbed her the queen of the
04:28comeback.
04:29Cher is also considered to be an icon of the gay community.
04:33She is celebrated by gay men for her sense of style and her durability in the entertainment
04:38spotlight.
04:39She is frequently the subject of imitation by drag queens.
04:42Cher also embraced the LGBT community when her oldest child came out as gay, and later
04:47transitioned from female to male as Chaz Bono.
04:53Women who changed the world.
04:58Women who changed the world.
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