Cher - Early Life

Early Life

Cher was born Cherilyn Sarkisian in El Centro, California, on May 20, 1946. Her father, John Sarkisian, was an Armenian American truck driver riddled with drug and gambling problems, and her mother, Georgia Holt (born Jackie Jean Crouch), was an aspiring actress and model with Irish, English, German and Cherokee descent. Cher's parents had a stormy relationship, eventually divorcing in Reno, when Cher was ten months old. Holt and John married and divorced two more times. The third of Holt's eight marriages was to actor John Southall, the father of Cher's half-sister, actress Georganne LaPiere. Although their marriage ended when Cher was nine years old, she considers Southall her real father and remembers him as a "good-natured man who turned belligerent when he drank too much". As Holt married and divorced, the family moved from place to place (including New York, Texas and California) and often had little money. At one point, Holt had to put Cher in an orphanage. Although they met every day, Holt and Cher found the experience traumatic.

Cher's family noticed her creativity when she produced the musical Oklahoma! in school for her teacher and class. According to biographer Connie Berman, "Cher got a group of girls together and directed and created the dance routines. Since she couldn't get the boys to take part, Cher acted the men's roles and sang their songs. Even at that age, she had an unusually low voice." Cher was fascinated by movie stars, with her role model being Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's. She began to pattern her outfits and behavior after the "eccentric, fast-living young woman" character portrayed by Hepburn. She remembers being disappointed that there were no dark-haired actresses she "could copy or even aspire to be like". She has said, "All I saw was Doris Day and Sandra Dee ... In the Walt Disney cartoons, all the witches and evil queens were really dark. There was nobody I could look at and think, 'That’s who I'm like.'" Despite the difficult times and the instability of her mother's marriages, Cher wanted to be famous since childhood, but felt that she was "unattractive" and "not very talented". She later commented in an interview, "I couldn't think of anything that I could do ... I didn't think I'd be a singer or dancer. I just thought, well, I'll be famous. That was my goal."

In 1961, Holt married bank manager Gilbert LaPiere, who adopted both Cher and her half-sister and enrolled them in a private school, Montclair Prep, in the prosperous community of Encino, Los Angeles. Like Cher's stepfather, the fathers of Montclair Prep students were financially successful. Such "posh" surroundings presented a challenge for Cher, as Berman wrote she "stood out from the others in both her striking appearance and outgoing personality." A former classmate recalled, "I'll never forget seeing Cher for the first time. She was so special ... She was like a movie star, right then and there ... She said she was going to be a movie star and we knew she would." Despite not being a top student, Cher was considered intelligent and creative. She usually got good grades and did well in French and English. Later, as an adult, she would discover that she suffered from dyslexia. She also achieved notoriety for her unconventional behavior: she would entertain other students during lunch hour performing songs and shock a few when she'd wear a midriff-baring top, being the first young woman in her crowd to do so. She recalled later, "I was never really in school. I was always thinking about when I was grown up and famous."