📍Encino, Los Angeles, CA 91436, USA
1956 – 1962“Cher was born Cherilyn Sarkisian in El Centro, California, in May 1946. Her mother, Georgia Holt, was a singer, model and actress who married several times, and her Armenian-American father left when she was a baby. Money was often short, and they moved often between California, Texas and New York; at one point, when she was very small, her mother had to leave her in a children's home for a few weeks. When Georgia married a banker, Gilbert LaPiere, who adopted Cher and her half-sister Georganne, the family settled in Encino, a comfortable, sunny suburb in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. Cher was a dreamy, unusual-looking girl who felt like an outsider among the blonde Valley girls. She struggled at school with dyslexia, which was not diagnosed until much later, and she found reading and maths painfully hard. But she was bold and imaginative. She loved films, especially Audrey Hepburn and Dumbo, sang along to records, and was certain she would be famous one day. She went to Montclair College Preparatory School in Van Nuys, and she taught herself to sing by copying the singers she loved. At sixteen she left school and home and moved to Los Angeles to take acting classes. There she met Sonny Bono, who was working for the producer Phil Spector, and she began singing backing vocals on records. As Sonny & Cher they had a worldwide hit with I Got You Babe in 1965. She went on to a career spanning seven decades as a singer, actor and icon, and in her 2024 memoir she wrote frankly about her Valley childhood and her mother's struggles.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
🛰️ Satellite view · © Google