´óÏó´«Ã½

A global music and fashion icon, Cher is the only solo artist in history to have clocked up number ones on the US Billboard charts in seven consecutive decades. She’s starred in films including Silkwood, Mask and Moonstruck and has won an Academy Award, three Golden Globes and the best actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Cher met Salvatore 'Sonny' Bono when she was 16, they later topped the charts in the US and UK with I Got You Babe in 1965. After their divorce she went on to have a successful solo career. In 1998 she released her dance-floor anthem Believe which remains the biggest-selling number one by a solo female artist in British chart history.

Here are nine things we learned from Cher’s Desert Island Discs…

Cher was an Elvis fan from a young age. “Most of my friends loved him, I wanted to be him,” she says. When she was 11, she pleaded with her mum to see Elvis perform in Los Angeles. “We didn't have a lot of money, but my mom said, ‘Okay, fine.’ Because my mom loved him, which I felt great about because my girlfriends’ mothers didn't like him... They didn't like all of the gyrations and they didn’t understand the music, and my mom knew everything about music and loved music.”

Recalling the performance, she says: “It was just amazing, and he came out in his gold suit and I'm looking at the way he came out in the dark, and then they flash the lights, and I was thinking, ‘That must be amazing to be on that stage.’ And I just said, ‘Mom, I'm going to do that!’”

Her second disc is Love me Tender which was released in 1956.

2. She spoke her mind from a young age – much to her grandmother’s delight

She went to several schools when she was growing up and on one occasion she expressed her forthright opinion about a “sharing day”. Cher picks up the story:

Cher in the Desert Island Discs studio.

When I saw him, everyone else disappeared and he wasn't handsome, he just was so electrifying.

Cher on meeting 'Sonny' Bono.

“I was little and it was a new school and I got there and I don't remember if it was summer that they were sharing, or just stories they were sharing, and it was like, ‘Oh, we did this and my parents did so-and-so, and then we went to blah, blah, blah… and I was so happy and I'm happy to be back at school… so I just stood up and I went, ‘I'm not really happy to be here, I think all you guys are stupid and I'm leaving.’ And I walked out the front door and went home to my grandmother's. And I told my grandmother what I’d done and she was hysterical. She said, ‘Baby, that's the greatest thing I've ever heard.’”

3. When she first met Sonny, he pretended he had a very famous relative

Cher met Sonny Bono in a coffee shop when she was 16. She recalls, “When I saw him, everyone else disappeared and he wasn't handsome, he just was so electrifying. Dressed unbelievably… He was wearing this beautiful mohair suit and a mustard shirt with a white collar and a mustard tie… and he had the most beautiful fingers I'd ever seen.”

But it wasn’t just Sonny’s outfit that attracted her, she says he was also “really charming” – and a joker. “He told me that his family name had been Bonaparte [as in Napoleon], but that his father, when they came to America [from Sicily], changed it to Bono. It was crazy… But I mean, he wasn't trying to impress me. He just was being stupid!”

4. Her vocal talent was discovered while she was doing the housework

Cher became Sonny’s housekeeper and personal assistant and one day he overheard her singing. She explains, “I was making the bed and I’m singing away and I see him peek his head around the door jamb and he said, ‘Was that the radio?’ and I said ‘No’. And he said, ‘Was that you?’ and I said ‘Yeah’, and he said, ‘You can sing’, and I said ‘Yeah’. And he said, ‘Cher, no I mean you can actually sing’… and then he told Philip [producer Phil Spector who was Sonny’s boss] that I could sing, so one day [the singer] Darlene [Love] had car trouble and Philip said, ‘Sonny said you can sing – get out there’ [into the recording studio] and I’m about to try to explain what my vocal accomplishment is and he said, ‘I just need noise – get out there.’”

5. She sang on her fifth disc and instantly knew it would be a hit

For her fifth track, Cher chooses You've Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ by the Righteous Brothers. “I sang background [vocals] on it… Sonny, me and Darlene and a bunch of tall guys. And I knew Bobby [Hatfield] and Billy [Medley], so I was so happy.”

Cher on Top of the Pops, 1966.

All of a sudden I hear the beginning of it… and we’re all standing and everyone just stopped… and the whole world stopped.

Cher on hearing You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ for the first time.

“There was a lot of people in the studio and everybody was packing up and Billy was getting ready to go in and do the vocal. I went out to do something and then I came back later and I walked in and there were a couple of people in the booth, because Philip [Spector] didn’t like people [being in there] but Brian Wilson always came, so we walk back in and all of a sudden I hear the beginning of it… and we’re all standing and everyone just stopped… and the whole world stopped. And Billy was singing, and we all knew that this was going to be one of the great songs.”

You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ was produced by Phil Spector and released in 1964. It reached number one in February 1965 in both the United States and the United Kingdom.

6. She wasn’t impressed with I Got You Babe when she first heard it

Cher says Sonny often woke her in the middle of the night to test out new songs.

She says, “He would say, ‘Come here for a second’, like I’m awake, ‘Cher, sing this’, and so I would just sing the melody he wanted and then I’d go back to sleep and then this one night he woke me up and he said: ‘Cher I need you to listen to this and I need you to sing this and so I'm listening, and it’s like OK, and I went back to bed. And an hour later, ‘Cher! I need you to come here and sing this.’ So I went back in and I said, ‘I don't think much of this song’, and I went back to sleep. It was I Got You Babe.”

I Got You Babe was the first single taken from Sonny and Cher’s debut studio album Look at Us which was released in 1965. The single reached number one in the US and UK where it knocked the Beatles off the top slot.

7. One of her most famous dresses was made from an illegal fabric

Designer Bob Mackie created some of Cher’s most boundary-pushing looks, including the so-called “naked dress” which she wore to the 1974 Met Gala. Cher explains, “I actually was naked underneath it.” The fabric it was made of was illegal in America because it’s highly flammable. “It’s called soufflé. It’s brilliant. Marlene Dietrich brought it to him [Bob] so you put it on, and then you take a spray bottle and you spray it, and then Bob would just press it to my skin. So then, it would dry on your skin and all you could see were sequins. You couldn't see fabric.”

8. Audiences initially laughed at her first foray into acting

Cher’s first major film role was in Silkwood in 1983, alongside Meryl Streep and Kurt Russell. The film was directed by Mike Nichols and Cher played Dolly Pelliker. She says, “Before the movie came out it was horrible because Mike called and said the trailer’s in and go and see it because we’re getting great reactions to it so my sister and my manager and I went to one of the big theatres and we’re sitting… and then Meryl comes up and big applause, big applause and then Kurt’s name comes up big applause, big applause and then my name comes up and the whole audience laughs… and my sister was crying and I bit the inside of my cheek for a minute and then I thought, ‘You can’t argue with what everyone’s thinking and that’s OK, but sad and I called Mike and he said ‘Well you know, they might laugh before, but they'll be clapping at the end.’”

He was right. Cher received an Oscar nomination and won a Golden Globe for her performance.

9. She plays the beauty game by her own rules

Cher says the scrutiny she receives as a woman in the public eye isn’t fair, but accepts it as part of the job. “It's a bitch. But I'm in it, so I play by the rules. I play by my own rules, but still, there's a standard to keep up and if you can do it, you do it for as long as you can – because, it's more fun!”