Blogs on Cher’s Birthday (And that Accent Thingie)

There were some blogs loving on Cher on her birthday which was last Wednesday.

Cher clips galore can be found on both:

• http://friedababbley.blogspot.com/2009/05/if-i-could-turn-back-time.html
• http://marcharshbarger.blogspot.com/2009/05/groovy-gal-cher.html

The text below was excerpted from the second link:

“Cher has always and forever will be one of the grooviest gals around…Here are 10 Groovy Facts about Cher…”

[These 10 fun-facts seem designed to serve as a Cher mini-biography–or a biography presented as a fun 10-item list. Neato.]

1) She was born Cherilyn Sarkisian on May 20, 1946, in El Centro, California. Her father was an Armenian refugee, while her mother was of Cherokee, English and French descent.

2) She was an introverted young girl with an active imagination, but after watching Disney’s Dumbo at Hollywood’s Grauman’s Chinese Theater, she broke out of her shell and dreamed of becoming a singing and dancing animal.

3) Due to severe, undiagnosed dyslexia, a frustrated Cher quit high school at 16 (she was later diagnosed at age 30). While she was in high school, she had a brief relationship with actor Warren Beatty.

4) In 1962, a 16-year-old Cher met 27-year-old Salvatore "Sonny" Bono, who was an assistant to record producer Phil Spector and offered the runaway a spare bed in his apartment. He assured her that he "didn’t find her attractive in the slightest". They became fast friends and eventually lovers before marrying in Tijuana, Mexico, on October 27, 1964 (they divorced in 1975).

5) Following an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in the fall of 1965 in which Sullivan pronounced her name 'Chur' during their introduction, she began spelling her name with a (misleading) acute accent: Chér (in 1979 she legally changed her name to Cher, with no surname or middle name).

6) Sonny and Cher caught the eye of CBS head of programming Fred Silverman in 1971 while guest-hosting The Merv Griffin Show, and he offered the duo their own variety show, The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, which debuted on August 1, 1971, as a summer replacement series (it ran from 1971-74 and 1976-77).

7) She and Sonny performed together for the last time during their appearance on Late Night With David Letterman on November 13, 1987, in which they sang "I Got You, Babe".

8) Cher auditioned for the role of Bonnie Parker in 1967's Bonnie and Clyde, was offered the part of Thelma in 1991's Thelma & Louise, and wanted to play Morticia in 1991's The Addams Family. And her Oscar-winning role in 1987's Moonstruck was originally intended for Sally Field, who turned it down.

9) "Believe", the Grammy Award-winning title track from her 1998 album, made Cher the oldest woman (at age 52)to have a number one hit in the Hot 100 rock era. It also gave her the distinction of having the longest span of #1 hits (more than 33 years). She is also the only female artist to have solo Top 10 hits in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.

10) Following her rocky relationship with Sonny and before her marriage to Gregg Allman in 1975, Cher turned down a romantic weekend in Las Vegas with Elvis Presley because she was too nervous about spending the night with The King. She still regrets turning him down as well as Marlon Brando, who also asked her out. However, she did have a passionate fling with a 23-year-old Tom Cruise when she was 39.

All the rest of that list is some same-ole-same-ole but the accent thing has been bugging me for decades!!

What was that about? Was it French 'cause it wasn’t proper French. I can see how some pronunciation notation might have been necessary for the likes of Ed Sullivan types but it was needed more to introduce the soft sounding “ch” part of this exotic new name. Maybe there was a fear peeps would pronounce her name like “shear”. Was this Sonny’s idea or Chér's? And honestly, I don’t care how incorrect it was, I LOVED IT. Why did it disappear all of the sudden?

Trivia question for you: can you guess which album her name first appeared naked?