Cher

Born: May 20 1946
Where: El Centro, California, USA

The Oscar-winning singer's cinema career couldn't possibly compete with her sensational real life.

Parents who married and divorced three times, the record for the oldest woman to top the charts (I Believe) and the distinction of making the first video to be banned by MTV.

However, her offscreen exploits have threatened to overshadow an impressive film career, including a best actress Academy Award for Moonstruck.

She was also Oscar-nominated for Silkwood - her breakthrough picture - and was named best actress at Cannes for 1985's Mask.

Born Cherilyn Sarkisian, Cher ran away from home as a teenager and met Sonny Bono (her husband from 1964-75) when he was general assistant to record producer Phil Spector.

Work as a backup singer for Spector groups like the Ronettes and the Crystals led to the recording of her first single for the producer, Ringo, I Love You.

Cher and Bono then joined forces and came to prominence singing the hit singles Baby, Don't Go, I Got You Babe and The Beat Goes On.

Even while married to Sonny, Cher began recording solo, enjoying success throughout her career for songs like Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves.

Sonny and Cher appeared as themselves in the groovy feature films Wild on the Beach and Good Times after which Cher made her acting debut in the coming of age film scripted by Bono, Chastity.

She made her stage debut in the Robert Altman-directed Come Back to the Five & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean and reprised her role for his 1982 film version.

No one really took her seriously as an actress until Mike Nichols' Silkwood, in which she was Oscar-nominated as Meryl Streep's blue-collar lesbian friend.

Despite her battles with director Peter Bogdanovich, she continued her growth as the biker mother of a horribly disfigured child in Mask.

Her increased stature brought Cher starring roles in three 1987 features: The Witches of Eastwick, Suspect and Moonstruck.

In the latter, she triumphed - picking up a best actress Oscar - for her performance as a revitalized Italian woman.

She then disappeared from the screen (but hardly out of the headlines) until 1990 when she appeared as a loopy romantic mother in Mermaids.

Next came cameos as herself in Robert Altman's The Player in 1992 and Ready-to-Wear (Pret-a-Porter).

After years selling hair products on TV, starting her own mail order business and undergoing numerous plastic surgeries, Cher returned to the screen as a wealthy wife whose husband wants to kill her in Faithless.

Subsequent appearances include Franco Zeffirelli's Tea With Mussolini in 1999 and she sent herself up in the Farrelly Brothers comedy Stuck on You.