Tina Turner, widely regarded as the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll”, died at her home in Küsnacht near Zurich, Switzerland, after a long illness. She was 83 years of age at the time of her passing. Turner had previously undergone a kidney transplant in 2017 after being diagnosed with intestinal cancer in 2016.

In a statement, her UK spokesperson, Bernard Doherty, said, “With her, the world loses a music legend and a role model.”

The Tina Turner Timeline

Tina Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock in 1939 in in Nutbush, Tennessee. After years of alleged physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her former husband Ike Turner, she forged one of the most awe-inspiring comebacks in pop music history.

Gaining international success with songs like “What’s Love Got To Do With it,” “Private Dancer,” and “The Best”; she went on to sell 180 million albums globally and win 12 Grammy Awards. Her stadium tours around the world were consistently sold out.

In 2021, Turner was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo act, 30 years after being inducted with Ike. The 1993 smash hit film What’s Love Got to Do with It and the Broadway musical Tina – The Tina Turner Musical both told her life story.

Tina Turner “showed others who lived in fear what a beautiful future filled with love, compassion, and freedom could look like.” Angela Bassett remembers her.

Angela Bassett starred in the film What’s Love Got to Do With, which was based on Tina’s 1986 autobiography. Her co-star Laurence Fishburne played the role of Ike in what would develop as a pair of Oscar-nominated performances for both.

The Makings of Tina Turner

As a member of Ike Turner’s Kings of Rhythm, Turner debuted under the name Tina Turner in 1960 with the duet “A Fool in Love.” As a result, a string of songs became standards in the singer’s repertoire, though they didn’t storm the charts: “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine”, “River Deep – Mountain High” and “Nutbush City Limits.”

It was not until early 1971 that the group achieved moderate success on the U.S. singles charts, when their raging cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary” made the Top 5, won a Grammy, and was later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Almost a decade earlier, they had reached No. 14 with Mickey and Sylvia’s “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine.” They had only one other Top 30 pop hit in 1973, “Nutbush City Limits”.

Ike & Tina Turner’s single “River Deep – Mountain High” was created and produced by Phil Spector under his Wall of Sound label in 1966. Despite the fact that it was hugely successful in the UK, the track only reached No. 88 on the U.S. charts, however it is still praised by rock enthusiasts today. Moreover, Rolling Stone listed the track as the 37th greatest song of all time in their 2004 poll and it has been honoured with an induction into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s list of 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.

With Workin’ Together in 1970 and Live at Carnegie Hall/What You Hear Is What You Get the following year, both of which featured “Proud Mary,” The Revue scored back-to-back Top 25 albums. According to ex-Creedence frontman John Fogerty, Tina Turner passed away today… I loved her version of Proud Mary! It was fantastic and different. I was also delighted she chose my song, and it became her breakthrough album.”

During the Revue’s breakup in 1976, Tina left Ike for reasons detailed in her memoirs and interviews. She became an early example of a domestic abuse survivor, bringing the issue to the public’s attention.

Her split with Ike left the singer struggling and nearly destitute until the release of her fifth solo album in 1984, Private Dancer, revitalized her career. A month after its lead single “Let’s Stay Together” hit the UK Top 10 and No. 26 on the Billboard Hot 100, it was released in the U.S. in May 1984. She had released four solo albums in the 1970s, to limited success in the United States.

Turner’s second stateside hit, “What’s Love Got To Do With It,” was her biggest career hit. It spent three weeks at No. 1 in the U.S. (and No. 3 in the UK) with her sultry and soulful vocal. It scored Grammys for Record and Song of the Year as well as Female Pop Vocal, earning Turner nine career Grammys, including one with Ike, on 28 nominations.

Watch the Official Music Video for “What’s Love Got To Do With It” on YouTube

As a follow-up to “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” she had two more U.S. Top 10 hits: “Better Be Good to Me” and “Private Dancer,” written by Mark Knopfler with guitar accompaniment by Jeff Beck.

Despite Prince’s Purple Rain and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s Born in the U.S.A. dominating the charts, the Private Dancer album spent 11 weeks at No. 3. It was certified five times platinum in the U.S. for sales of 5 million or more.

As part of the Mel Gibson-George Miller threequel Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Turner scored another smash single in 1985, “We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome). As the ruthless leader of Bartertown, she delivered the memorable line, “Welcome to another Thunderdome!

After returning to the Top 20 with “It’s Only Love,” from Bryan Adams’ Reckless album, she joined the global smash “We Are the World.” The 1985 famine relief single — written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, produced by Quincy Jones and credited to USA for Africa — topped charts worldwide and has sold more than 20 million copies.

Watch the Live Video of “It’s Only Love” on YouTube

In September 1986, Turner released Break Every Rule, which would yield another smash single and video in “Typical Male.” The single spent three weeks at No. 2 on the Hot 100, and the album went platinum.

Tina Turner, the Actress

It was also Turner’s musical return that relaunched her film career, which she began in 1975 as the Acid Queen in Ken Russell’s Tommy. As the “deaf, dumb, and blind” pinball prodigy in the Who’s seminal 1969 rock opera, Roger Daltrey starred alongside Ann-Margret and Oliver Reed, as well as Jack Nicholson, Elton John, Eric Clapton and Keith Moon as character actors.

Around the time she played that character, she released the album Acid Queen in 1975.

Besides Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, she also appeared in Last Action Hero (1993) opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In 1993, she had one more big U.S. hit with “I Don’t Wanna Fight,” a song from the soundtrack of What’s Love Got to Do with It. Though it was the last of four platinum studio albums, the 2005 compilation All the Best peaked at No. 2 in the U.S. and sold a million copies.

A Kennedy Center Honors recipient in 2005, Turner was a two-time inductee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and a perennial on the Greatest Performer list. Despite retiring in 2009 after her Tina!: 50th Anniversary Tour, one of the largest-grossing tours of the 2000s, she resurfaced in 2018 with the musical Tina – The Tina Turner Musical, directed by Adrienne Warren.

Warren reprised her role and the show moved to Broadway in 2019 but was suspended due to the Covid shutdown the following year; Tina resumed performances in 2021 and continued until 2022. It earned 12 Tony nominations, but Warren received the only award.

In the following years, Turner would have mixed success, with “What You Get Is What You See” and “The Best” – the latter featuring an Edgar Winter sax solo – reaching the Top 15. In more than a dozen countries, including the UK, “The Best” reached the top 10.

Obituary

In addition to her husband Erwin Bach, she is survived by her sons Ron Turner and Craig Turner, as well as her sister Alline Bullock.

There will be a private funeral ceremony held for family members and close friends.