Gilbert Hartmann LaPiere, adoptive father of Grammy- and Oscar-winning singer/actress Cher, died Tuesday in his hometown of Oklahoma City. He was 88.
LaPiere was born June 29, 1923 in Irvington, N.J., to Tillie and Albert LaPiere. He attended grade school and high school in Newark, N.J., according to his obituary in The Oklahoman and on NewsOK.
He attended the University Of Missouri School of Mines at Rolla, Mo., and graduated with a degree in petroleum engineering. World War II interrupted his college education; he enlisted in the Army Air Corps and became a bombardier on B-24s in the Western Pacific arena, accumulating 35 missions and surviving “ditching” his airplane into the ocean after a bombing mission.
After graduating from college, he went to work as an evaluation engineer for City Service Oil Co. in Bartlesville and was later offered the same position at the Chase Bank in New York City. He worked on oil and gas loans, mergers and sales for major oil and gas companies and independent producers.
In 1952, he accepted the position of managing the Oil and Gas Department for W.E. Hutton and Co. on Wall Street, advising on oil and gas stocks as well as public offerings. After Hutton, he was employed as a vice-president of the newly formed oil and gas division of the Union Bank of California. Later, he decided to go into business for himself as a financial oil and gas consultant, mostly working as a “troubleshooter,” helping companies and independent operators to establish financial stability, merge or sell.
Cher was born Cherilyn Sarkisian May 20, 1946 in El Centro, Calif. Her biological father, John Sarkisian, who left the family when she was a little girl, was a truck driver who married and divorced her mother twice. Cher’s mother, Georgia Holt, was married six times; her fifth husband, LaPiere, adopted Cher, according to the star’s Hello magazine biography.
At age 16, Cher moved to Los Angeles, where she met entertainer and songwriter Salvatore “Sonny” Bono, according to Encyclopædia Britannica. The couple married in 1964, began singing together, and scored their first big pop hit came in 1965 with “I Got You Babe,” which sold more than three million copies. The duo went on to score a number of hits, and in 1971 they launched the television variety show “The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour,” which ran until 1974. Cher and Sonny divorced in 1974, though they appeared as cohosts of another TV show, “The Sonny and Cher Show,” in 1976–77. More
