Actress, music icon Cher turns 65

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Music icon Cher, the rare celebrity to have earned both Oscar and Grammy glory, turns 65 this week with undiminished adoration from millions of fans around the world.

Before Madonna or Lady Gaga, there was Cher, a forerunner of the current crop of musical divas, with her fondness for head dresses, sequined gowns and a fearlessness of harnessing her sexuality as part of her carefully crafted public persona.

Throughout her career, Cher has sold more than 100 million records, but she said in a recent interview that her most recent hit — last year’s “You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me” — has particular poignancy at this moment in her career.

“That song, for me, had a lot of meaning,” she told a California newspaper last year, saying that it reminded her that “I have to kind of move over.”

“Not that I’m doing it gracefully, because you’d have to pull me over kicking and screaming,” she said in her interview with the Fresno Bee.

Cher is a singular character on the American cultural landscape for her longevity and her ability to reinvent her career over a career spanning six decades.

Even the pop stars of the moment, not known generally to show deference to their musical elders, pay homage to Cher.

“How could you not learn from Cher with her work ethic and the way she commands attention when she walks into a room, but exudes such peaceful tranquility and love for everyone?” said singer Christina Aguilera.

Cher was born Cherilyn Sarkisian on May 20, 1946 to an Armenian truck driver who abandoned the family when she was just two-years-old, and a mother who cobbled together a living as a sometime actress model.