Cherilyn Sarkisian

Cherilyn Sarkisian is the birth name of the American singer and actress known publicly as Cher. She was born in 1946 in El Centro, California, to a teenage mother of mixed English, Irish, German, and Cherokee ancestry and an Armenian-American father. After her parents separated she grew up between California stepfathers and her mother's modest acting and modeling work.

She left school at sixteen and moved to Los Angeles, where she met the songwriter and producer Sonny Bono. The duo Sonny and Cher reached international audiences in 1965 with the single I Got You Babe, and through the late 1960s and early 1970s they hosted The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour on CBS.

As a solo artist she scored hits including Gypsys, Tramps and Thieves, Half-Breed, Dark Lady, and the 1998 dance single Believe, whose vocal effect helped popularize Auto-Tune in pop music. As an actress she earned an Academy Award for Best Actress for Moonstruck in 1988, with further acclaimed performances in Silkwood, Mask, and The Witches of Eastwick.

She has also written a memoir, The First Time, and produced the Broadway jukebox musical The Cher Show based on her life. Her concert residencies in Las Vegas and her global Farewell Tour have drawn millions, and she has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The name Cherilyn combines Cher, a short form of names such as Cheryl, with the suffix lyn, common in twentieth-century American feminine names. She has carried the shortened form Cher through more than six decades in music, film, and television.