Georgia Holt, the seven times-married mom of Cher who frolicked as a mannequin, actress and singer-songwriter, has died, her daughter announced Saturday evening on Twitter. She was 96.
“Mother is gone,” Cher wrote.
A rep for the Oscar-winning singer-actress confirmed Holt’s dying to The Hollywood Reporter on Sunday morning. No particulars of Holt’s dying have been instantly accessible.
Holt appeared briefly in such movies as A Lifetime of Her Personal (1950), Grounds for Marriage (1951), Father’s Little Dividend (1951) and Artists and Fashions (1955) and on TV exhibits like The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and, as a “Jacques Marcel” mannequin, on I Love Lucy (within the hilarious 1956 episode “Lucy Will get a Paris Robe”).
Holt was provided a contract by Columbia Information, and, in 1980, recorded an album, Honky Tonk Girl, backed by members of Elvis Presley’s band. It included a duet with Cher, “I’m Simply Your Yesterday”; covers of “Love Me Tender” and “Cryin’ Time”; and unique tunes written by Holt.
“I do know {that a} document firm may need to signal me simply because I’m Cher’s mom,” she instructed Folks journal in 1978. “I’d wish to have a profession, however I’m not going to be a novelty or a flash within the pan. Lots of people say I can do it.”
Nonetheless, the album was not launched till spring 2013, shortly after the grasp tapes have been rediscovered in Holt’s storage. Cher took the tapes to her musical director, Paul Mirkovich of The Voice, and “he went in and took all of it aside and put all new music in it,” she instructed Jay Leno on The Tonight Present. “Mainly, we simply stored Mother’s voice and put every little thing else new on it.”
Additionally in 2013, mom and daughter appeared (with Cher’s half-sister, actress Georganne La Piere) within the Mom’s Day Lifetime documentary Pricey Mother, Love Cher.
A yr later, Holt appeared as a visitor choose alongside her grandson Chaz Bono on Brand TV’s RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Holt was born Jackie Jean Crouch on June 9, 1926, in Kensett, Arkansas. Her mom was simply 13 on the time and her father, a baker and an alcoholic, wasn’t a lot older.
“After I was little I used to be a singer,” she stated in a 2013 interview. “After I was 7, my father used to place me up on high of the old school bars. They used to have sawdust on the ground and spittoons. It was in the course of the Despair. We had no cash and no meals — nicely, we received beans, however that was it.”
She carried out with bandleader Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys at age 10 after which hitchhiked to California together with her dad and her brother. She as soon as stated that she had attended 17 completely different junior excessive faculties rising up.
Whereas working in a doughnut store in Fresno, California, she met truck driver John Sarkisian, and shortly they have been off to Reno, Nevada, to be married.
“I left him the day after [the wedding],” she instructed Folks. “I knew I didn’t need to be married. However he instructed me to attempt it for 3 months, and if I didn’t prefer it, then I may stroll out. Effectively, earlier than three months was out, I used to be pregnant with Cher.”
Cherilyn Sarkisian was born on Might 20, 1946, in El Centro, California, and spent a while in a Catholic orphanage, the place nuns urged her mom to surrender her child for adoption, however Holt wouldn’t do it.
Holt gained a number of singing and wonder competitions and labored as a mannequin as she made her option to Hollywood. She stated that she was given an element in John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle (1950), however her agent referred to as to say she was being changed by Marilyn Monroe.
Courtesy of Photofest
Holt was married 3 times by the point she was 21. Her husbands have been Sarkisian, John Southall, Joseph Harper Collins, Chris Alcaide, banker Gilbert La Pierre (who adopted Cher and Georganne), Sarkisian once more and Hamilton Holt.
She additionally had a latest and longtime relationship with former antiques seller Craig Spencer.
