Cher turns back time with Part One of her memoir, taking us on a trip that predates the diva and ends (for now) on the verge of her acting career. It’s a delicious, chronological telling of her roots to the shape of things to come.

Even before we meet the “baby clinging unhappily to the rails of my crib in a Catholic children’s home in Scranton, Pennsylvania,” Cher tells us about her family history: a hardscrabble family knocked about by life. Her great-grandparents lived in a log cabin and made their own medicine from natural herbs. They were so poor that her grandfather once put down a kitten who snuck a sip from the family’s milk bucket as they didn’t have the means to share. That poverty would follow them for generations and would shape the relationships that her mother sought later in life.

"Cher turns back time with Part One of her memoir, taking us on a trip that predates the diva and ends (for now) on the verge of her acting career. It’s a delicious, chronological telling of her roots to the shape of things to come."

Once widowed, Cher’s great-grandmother, Margaret, had to disperse the family, sending them to other relatives. Her grandmother, Lynda, met Roy, and her mother, Jackie Jean, was born. Jackie Jean, who later changed her name to Georgia, was a natural performer who became the family breadwinner when her dad took her around to saloons to sing while he passed the hat --- or passed out from having too much to drink. Georgia grew up thinking that marrying a man who could take care of her was the answer to life, but like her grandmother before her who lost a man and then children, Georgia had to give up her daughter after a failed marriage. This separation would scar Cher for life.

Georgia grew into a beauty determined to succeed in Hollywood. What follows when she finally reunites with Cher and does make it to Los Angeles are wonderful stories of the glitz and glam that one would expect of an up-and-coming “It” girl --- acting classes with the likes of Robert Mitchum and Rod Steiger, commercials for Beech-Nut gum, a theater production of Oklahoma!, a spot on “I Love Lucy,” losing The Asphalt Jungle to Marilyn Monroe, and more.

A young Cher was a constant companion to her mother’s auditions and plays, learning her first Shakespearean monologue while sitting in a dark theater watching Georgia rehearse. Cher’s aversion to being left alone meant that she was always at her mother’s side. She later would discover why she hated to be by herself.

For Georgia, security came in the form of multiple marriages and stepfathers for Cher, one of whom gave her a half-sister, Gee. But despite these relationships, Cher’s recollections of her childhood are of the three women in the house. The men were always transient and rarely enough to make her mother happy, no matter how wealthy they were --- and some of them were very rich.

Growing up Hollywood-adjacent (there were several moves out of Tinseltown and then back), Cher had her fair share of brushes with the famous --- a play date with Liza Minnelli and kisses from Warren Beatty among them. And then there was Sonny Bono, who worked with Phil Spector. Cher and Sonny started as platonic roommates, living together when she was only 16 and in need of a place to stay. They became fast and reliable friends. It was only after Cher left that they realized how much they had grown to care for each other, and a romance bloomed.

Sonny’s work with Spector would be the catalyst that put Cher behind a microphone, first as a backup singer and then as a duet. The ups and downs of their career and their marriage were painful, but they parented one child together, Chas. Even after their divorce, their bond as friends was strong.

Cher’s romances with David Geffen and Gregg Allman are well-known. But less so is her scrappy independence and grounded nature. For a child who was moved around often, fathered by many, and clothed in thrift store finds for years, Cher was resilient and resourceful, and ultimately a survivor. She learned from the mistakes of her mother and her own miscalculations to become an icon --- of beauty, fashion, talent and so much more.

The book ends as Cher’s life is about to really take off. I look forward to Part Two, which will be available in November 2025.