The world has lost a true music legend and role model today with the passing of Tina Turner, the Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Her blistering performances and powerfully gritty vocals will forever be remembered. She died at her home in Küsnacht near Zurich, Switzerland after a long illness at the age of 83. Her spokesperson, Bernard Doherty, said in a statement, “With her passing, the world loses a music legend and a role model.”
Turner’s life story was told in the 1993 smash hit film, What’s Love Got to Do with It, for which Angela Bassett scored a Best Actress Oscar nomination, and in the 2019 Broadway musical, Tina – The Tina Turner Musical. Born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26, 1939, in Nutbush, TN, Turner became famous in the late 1960s as the singer of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue. After leaving husband Ike Turner following years of physical and emotional abuse, she staged what remains one of the greatest comebacks in pop music history, scoring massive hits in the 1980s such as “What’s Love Got To Do With it”, “Private Dancer” and “The Best”. With an estimated 180 million albums sold worldwide, 12 Grammy Awards won, and sold-out stadium tours around the world, Turner’s impact on the music industry is immeasurable.
Turner’s split with Ike would leave the singer struggling and nearly destitute until the remarkable success of her fifth solo album, Private Dancer, released in the U.S. in May 1984. The album’s second stateside single, “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” featuring her impassioned vocal, spent three weeks at No. 1 in the U.S. and hit No. 3 in the UK. It would score Grammys for Record and Song of the Year as well as a Female Pop Vocal award for Turner.
Turner’s musical comeback would also re-launch a film career that had started in 1975 with a wild one-scene role as the Acid Queen in director Ken Russell’s Tommy. Following her 1980s recording success, she was cast in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) and Last Action Hero (1993). In 1993, the biopic What’s Love Got to Do With It, based on her 1986 autobiography I, Tina: My Life Story, starred Angela Bassett as Tina and Laurence Fishburne as Ike in Oscar-nominated performances. The film became a major box office success, earning more than $60 million globally.
Turner’s status as a musical pioneer also extended to 1980s television when she became a staple of MTV, an extraordinary achievement at a time when the music video channel was largely the domain of white artists. Though initially known as a soul and R&B singer, Turner had long been a fan of rock music, appearing at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival and two years later welcoming Janis Joplin to the stage at Madison Square Garden during an Ike & Tina Turner performance opening for the Rolling Stones.
Tina Turner was a two-time inductee in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and a perennial on Greatest Performer lists. She retired in 2009 following her Tina!: 50th Anniversary Tour, which remains one of the highest-grossing tours of the 2000s. Her legacy will continue to inspire generations to come.
