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Bang bang
The first instalment of Cheryl Sarkisian’s turbulent life story: the music years.
By Sylvie Simmons.
Cher: The Memoir Part One ★★★★
Cher
HARPER COLLINS. £25
AT 78, AFTER six decades in showbiz, Cher tells all. At least the first part of all. Like Churchill, the life of the mononymous singer/actress/entertainer calls for volumes. Part 1 – essentially Cher The Music Years – starts with her birth in 1946 and ends in the late ’70s as she makes her move into film.
The first eight chapters are devoted to her childhood. If you want to get straight to the music that’s Chapter 9, where a very young Cher meets Sonny Bono, who sticks around for the rest of the book. But her childhood is packed with stories. Back in the ’40s Cher’s mother, a young bar-room singer and wannabe actress, gets pregnant. On the operating table of an illegal abortionist, she changes her mind. Cheryl Sarkisian is born – and dropped off at a nun-run Catholic home so that her mum can keep her nightclub job.
The years that follow are no less unstable. Her mum marries seven or eight times, which makes for a lot of moving house, from hovels to mansions, and a lot of different daddies for Cher. Her biological father was John Paul Sarkisian, a flashy, drug-taking, Armenian gambler, even more self-centred than her mother. He ran off when Cher was born, reappearing later in the story, unimproved.