In part one of Cher's new memoir, the star reveals all about her childhood, her heady ascent into fame and a Salvador Dali orgy

Among the many highs of a career that stretches back more than 60 years, Cher's 1996 interview with Dateline never fails to delight. Abandoned by Cher's father, Armenian hustler Johnnie Sarkisian, Cher's mother Georgia Pelham scraped by as a singer, waitress and occasional bit player on the periphery of 40s and 50s Hollywood — where she was replaced for a role in The Asphalt Jungle by a young actress named Marilyn Monroe. She walked in on a Salvador Dali orgy During the late 60s, Cher, Sonny and his poker buddy, Francis Ford Coppola, were invited to dinner at the New York home of surrealist Salvador Dali. While Sonny and Francis perched uncomfortably on a sofa eating chocolate replicas of Dali's melting clock-face, Cher encountered one of the artist's colourful, battery-operated fish — which she assumed to be a bath toy. A furious Cher marched up to Spector's mansion, which she describes as being "like an old haunted house", where the producer — who was convicted of murdering girlfriend Lana Clarkson in 2003 — picked up a revolver and began twirling it in front of her.