The actress and musician Cher accepted the Academy Award for Best Actress on April 11, 1988 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles for her work in the 1988 film Moonstruck.
On May 20, 1946, Cherilyn Sarkasian, who would later marry Sonny Bono, initially rose to fame as the taller half of the 1960s singing duo Sonny and Cher. The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, their television show, ran from 1971 to 1974, when the pair broke up after having one kid, Chastity. The two had their first hit, “I Got You Babe,” in 1965. By then, Cher had begun a solo music career and had achieved success with songs like “Gipsies, Tramps and Thieves” (1971), “Half-Breed” (1973), and “Dark Lady” (1974). Cher, her short-lived solo TV project, and her second marriage to musician Gregg Allman both had less success.
By the end of the 1970s, Cher had a stalled career and was a single mother (she and Allman had a son named Elijah Blue together). She started her training at New York City’s renowned Lee Strasberg Actors Studio, where she soon secured a role in Robert Altman’s 1982 film Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. In her new guise as a serious actor the next year, Cher won a Golden Globe and received an Oscar nomination for her supporting performance in the Meryl Streep film Silkwood. In Mask (1985), she gave another highly praised performance as the mother of a youngster with severe facial defects. Cher raised a commotion at the Oscars when she appeared in a show-stopping black dress, complete with an exposed midriff and a huge feathered headpiece, even though she didn’t receive an Academy Award nod for that role. The outfit was created by Bob Mackie, who first worked with Cher on The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour.
The Witches of Eastwick, starring Jack Nicholson, Susan Sarandon, and Michelle Pfeiffer; Suspect, featuring Dennis Quaid; and Moonstruck were just three of Cher’s high-profile films that year. The previous movie, which was directed by Norman Jewison, had Cher as a widow who develops feelings for the brother of her ex-fiance (Nicholas Cage). Moonstruck took home three awards at the 60th annual Academy Awards ceremony, including Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress (Olympia Dukakis), and Best Original Screenplay. Cher did not let us down as she accepted her golden statuette while donning a black mesh Bob Mackie.
Her 1986 self-titled album had smash singles written with Michael Bolton (“I Found Someone”) and Jon Bon Jovi (“We All Sleep Alone”), and she released another million-selling album, Heart of Stone, in 1988. Cher’s music career was thriving at the time she won the Oscar. After her subsequent film, Mermaids (1990), her acting career virtually came to a halt, but in the late 1990s, she stormed back onto the pop charts with the irresistible hit single “Believe,” and she has since remained an unstoppable figure of modern culture and entertainment.
