Boone, Cherry (7th July 1954-Present)

She is a singer and author born Cheryl Lynn Boone, known as Cherry, in Denton, Texas to a family where her father was the singer Pat Boone, her sisters are the singers Debby, Laury and Lindy Boone and her grandfather was the country music singer Red Foley.

In the 1970s she co-founded the family singing group The Boones who performed many songs with their most successful being the cover of “Hasta Manana” that had previously been recorded by ABBA. Albums they released were the 1976 Glass Castle and 1978’s First Class. Cherry also wrote songs for the children’s LP Ants’hillvania released in 1981 and sang backing as a member of The Boones on her sister Debby’s album You Light Up My Life.

With her sisters she appeared on several television shows during the 1970s that include The Merv Griffin Show, Flip, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Perry Como’s Springtime Special, The Bob Braun Show and with their father in the Pat Boone and Family TV movie and subsequent holiday TV specials.

She married Dan O’Neill in October 1975 with their ceremony officiated by the founder of the Church on the Way. The couple have four sons and a daughter and went on to convert to Catholicism. Dan was a co-founder of Mercy Corps relief organisation.

In the early 1980s she went to New York City to take resident therapy for anorexia nervosa. She had met the singer Karen Carpenter in 1982 while she was still undertaking therapy but she died in 1983 from complications of the complaint. By this time Cherry had recovered and she wrote and published he book Starving for Attention which detailed her life as an anorexic and her subsequent recovery. Two years later Cherry and Dan wrote Dear Cherry: Questions and Answers on Eating Disorders which had been written to respond to questions and letters she had received after the publication of her previous book. Another follow-up publication was Living on the Border of Disorder: How to Cope with an Addictive Person.

Sources:

Boone, Cherry (7th July 1954-Present)

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