Cherilyn Sarkisian

In 1964, she secretly married Sonny Bono in a hotel room in Tijuana, Mexico. They had a child together.

After divorcing her first husband, she married Gregg Allman on June 30, 1975 and they had a child together. The marriage ended in a divorce in 1979.

Cher was born as Cherilyn Sarkisian in El Centro, California to John Sarkisian, a truck driver and Jackie Jean Crouch, an actress and model. Her parents got divorced when she was just ten-months.

She attended the Montclair Prep private school in Encino, Los Angeles, where she fared well in French and English. In school, she would perform on songs during the lunch break for her fellow students.

At the age of 16, she moved to Los Angeles with a friend and enrolled herself for acting classes, while she simultaneously worked as a dancer in clubs to earn a living.

In 1962, she met singer, Sonny Bono, who introduced her to record producer Phil Spector, who employed her as a backup singer and also produced her debut single ‘Ringo, I Love You’.

In 1964, she worked with Sonny Bono to form the group called ‘Caesar & Cleo’. They came out with the singles ‘Do You Wanna Dance?’, ‘Love Is Strange’ and ‘Let the Good Times Roll’.

In the late 1960’s, she signed a contract with ‘Liberty Records' Imperial’ and the label released her solo single titled ‘Dream Baby’. The song was successful regionally and received airtime in Los Angeles.

On October 16, 1965, she came out with her debut solo album ‘All I Really Want to Do’. The album was produced by her husband Sonny Bono and received positive reviews.

In 1965, they changed their name from ‘Caesar & Cleo’ to ‘Sonny& Cher’ and recorded the hit song ‘I Got You Babe’. That year, they also came out with their debut studio album ‘Look at Us’.

In April 1966, her second album ‘The Sonny Side of Ch�r’, one of her successful albums, was released under the Imperial Records label. The album ‘Where Do You Go’ and the hit song, ‘The Girl from Ipanema’.

One of her most popular and successful albums ‘All I Really Want to Do’ peaked at number 16 on the ‘Billboard 200’ and the title track of the album was her first solo hit that featured on Canadian, Dutch and Swedish single charts.

One of Sonny & Cher’s hit singles ‘I Got You Babe’ peaked at the number one position for three weeks on the ‘Billboard Hot 100’. One of their bestselling albums, it sold 1 million copies in the U.S and is also featured at number 444 on the ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine’s list of ‘500 Greatest Songs of all time’.