Tina Turner, the revolutionary “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll” who overcame serious personal and professional hurdles to build a remarkable sixty-year career as a singer and actress, died Wednesday. She was 83 years old.
A representative of the “What’s Love Got to Do With It” singer confirmed to the Telegraph that he passed away after a long illness at his home in Küsnacht, near Zurich, Switzerland.
“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Tina Turner,” said the team behind the official Instagram account.
With his music and unlimited passion for life, he has captivated millions of fans around the world and inspired the stars of tomorrow.
“Today we say goodbye to a dear friend who left us his greatest work: his music. All our sincere sympathy goes to his family. Tina, we will miss you terribly.”
The legendary artist first rose to fame in the 1960s as part of the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, which released chart-topping songs until she left him after years of domestic abuse.
After recovering from the dreadful relationship, Turner later made one of the most dramatic comebacks in music history, in the ’80s “What’s Your Love Got to Do?
Also famous for her role as Aunt Entity in the iconic 1971 version of “Proud Mary” and 1985’s “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome,” Turner suffered from health problems in her final years, including stroke, bowel cancer and kidney failure. a transplant.
He said goodbye to his fans with the 2021 documentary “Tina”.
“Some say the life I’ve lived and the performances I’ve done, the appreciation… I should be proud of that. Me,” Tuner said in the HBO document.
“But when do you stop being proud? So, when, how do you slowly bow down? Just go?”
When Turner retired to live his final act outside the spotlight, he had solidified himself as one of the world’s most iconic singers and influenced a generation of musicians.
He won 12 Grammy awards, sold more than 200 million albums, acted in several films, and wrote three best-selling memoirs, including the adaptation of the 1993 biopic “What’s Got to Do with It,” starring Angela Bassett as Turner.
Born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26, 1939 in rural Tennessee, Turner began her career as a nightclub blues singer at the age of 16.
When she was 11 years old, her mother, Zelma, fled to escape an abusive relationship with Turner’s father, Floyd, a sharecropper.
In his 1986 autobiography, “Me, Tina,” Turner stated that he felt “unwanted” by his mother, whose funeral he skipped in 1999, Page Six reported at the time.
He saw his first performance with Ike Turner’s band Kings of Rhythm in the late ’50s and soon joined the band.
Ike was responsible for transforming her into Tina Turner, a sensual singer with a bold voice whose stage personality was accentuated by short skirts and stilettos. In 1960, he became a hit with the song “A Fool In Love” and met the world.
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This success gave birth to the Ike & Tina Turner Revue. The two married in 1962 and had a son named Ronnie, and Tina married Ike’s two children, Ike Jr. and adopted Michael. He also had a son named Craig from a previous relationship.
Ike and Tina produced a number of chart-topping producers and toured nationwide, including “Idolize You” and “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine.” In 1967, Tina became the first black woman to be on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
But Ike had tight control, beating and humiliating Tina. “I have to do what Ike says,” he told Rolling Stone magazine in 1971.
By 1969, the couple’s profile had risen after two opened tours for the Rolling Stones, including a US tour.
They rose to fame with their thrilling 1971 cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s song “Proud Mary”, earning them a Grammy for Outstanding R&B vocal performance by a group.
In 1975, Tina made her screen debut as The Acid Queen in “Tommy,” a British film based on The Who’s 1969 rock opera.
Behind the scenes, however, Tina would later reveal how she was subjected to a cycle of abuse at the hands of cocaine addict Ike.
“He didn’t like that he had to depend on me. And I didn’t want to start a fight because it was always a bruised eye, a broken nose, a burst lip, a rib,” he told CBS News in 2019.
The couple finally broke up in Dallas after an argument to which Tina reciprocated, she would later say.
Their divorce was finalized in 1978, with Tina citing Ike’s abuse as well as frequent infidelity and increased drug and alcohol use.
After the split, both Ike and Tina fell into obscurity for years. Tina would later say that when she broke up with Ike, she only had “36 cents and a gas station credit card.”
However, Tina made a dramatic comeback in 1982 with her multiplatin album “Private Dancer” which included the hits “Let’s Stay Together” and “What’s Love Got To Do With It”.
The album won four Grammy Awards and eventually sold over 20 million copies worldwide.
By then, in her mid-40s, the long-legged singer had become more famous for her energetic performances, squeaky voice and iconic punk-inspired style.
He returned to the big screen in 1985 and starred opposite Mel Gibson in the post-apocalyptic action movie “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.”
A year later, “I, Tina” would be turned into the biopic “What’s Got to Do With It,” for which both Laurence Fishburne and Bassett earned Academy Award nominations for their roles as Ike and Tina, respectively.
He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Ike in 1991. He died of an accidental drug overdose in 2007, at which point the two had not spoken for 30 years, he said.
“I hated Ike for a long time, I gotta say. But after he died I realized he was really sick,” Turner said in the documentary.
“It hurts me to have to remember those times, but at a certain stage, forgiveness takes hold, forgiveness means not having to hold on.”
Turner finally found love and happiness in German music producer Erwin Bach, whom he met in 1986.
As their relationship developed, Turner began to put an end to his recording career and made his last album in 1999 at the age of 59.
She officially retired from the stage in 2009 after completing one of the highest-grossing tours of all time, “Tina!: 50th Anniversary Tour.”
“I’m tired of singing and making everyone happy,” she told the New York Times in 2019. “It’s the only thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
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But Turner suffered from loneliness while trying to make the world happy, and tried to escape by taking an overdose of sleeping pills in 1968, amid Ike’s abuse.
She also lost her son Craig to suicide in 2018, which she said was “his saddest moment as a mother”.
“She was 59 when she died tragically, but she will always be my baby,” Turner said in the documentary.
Turner and Bach married in 2013 after a 27-year relationship, and Turner renounced his US citizenship and moved to Switzerland to live with her in a castle there. “To me, it was the first time I got married,” Turner once said of their marriage.
In her 2018 autobiography, “Tina Turner: My Love Story,” she revealed that Bach, who is 16 years younger than her, saved her life two years ago by giving her a kidney when she needed a transplant.
“I couldn’t believe it then, and there are times I still can’t believe it.” Wrote. “When he thought of his future, he thought of me. He said to me, ‘My future is our future.’
Turner’s cross-border career and turbulent life has been the subject of a hit movie, as well as the popular show “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical,” which premiered on Broadway in 2019.
He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a solo performer in 2021.
While promoting her 2018 book, Turner told CBS’s Gayle King that she was “gratified” that her time on stage was over, and that the MC said, “People miss you though, Tina.”
“It’s okay,” Turner replied with a laugh. “They can go and watch the videos…enjoy it. But I’m done with it.”