Rare Photos of Baby Cher With Mom Georgia Holt

Georgia Holt was born Jackie Jean Crouch in Kensett, Arkansas in 1926 to a 13-year-old mother. She claims to be of English, German, Irish, French, Dutch and Cherokee descent. She frequently moved back and forth between her separated parents. Holt has estimated that she attended 17 junior high schools. Her father taught her how to sing and play guitar.

Strikingly beautiful, Georgia Holt sought fame in Hollywood as a singer and actress. She married five men; one of them twice. After wedding her first husband John Sarkisian, she seriously considered abortion. They had daughter Cher (born Cherilyn Sarkisian; May 20, 1946), and divorced soon after Cher’s birth. Struggling financially, Holt briefly placed Cher in a Catholic orphanage, where nuns urged her to give up the baby for adoption.

“I heard the abortion story when I was a teenager,” cher said. “The orphanage story has been a touchy one for my mom her whole life, and she didn’t want to talk about it. I said, ‘Mom, why didn’t you just march in and take me?’ She said, ‘I didn’t have the power. I didn’t have any money or a job, and the church was so strong. I’d go see you every day and you’d be crying. You don’t know what it was like.’ It was harder for women then.”

Holt's mothering skills? Imperfect but loving and patient, said Cher, describing her parenting abilities as similarly flawed.