Birthday Girl: The Beat Goes On

Cher by Avedon, Mononym to Mononym

She's been famous, in different ways in each, in six different decades.  She is perhaps the most self-aware of performers, one laugh ahead of her worst critics and always ready to admit that she's an unlikely bet to have become both one of the greatest and most durable of stars. 

Early on, before settling on her defining monosyllablism, she was briefly known profressionally as Bonnie Jo Mason, Cherilyn, and Cleo.  She's got her Oscar, not to mention a shelf-full of lesser honors, not to mention a fortune conservatively estimated in the hundreds of millions.  Notwithstanding that she headlined a multi-year, multi-continent Farewell Tour once upon a time earlier this century, she's getting ready to hit the road again this fall.  Just as well; the world could always use a little more Cher.

She's 66 today, and that seems like the most improbable thing of all.