By the time Turner arrived stateside for a summer tour opening for Lionel Richie, “What’s Love Got to Do With It” had caught fire on the way to No. Recorded in England in just two weeks, Private Dancer - with its sultry title track written by Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler - was released in May 1984. and then in the U.S., stunned record execs scrambled to create an album to go with it. When the song climbed the charts, first in the U.K. Meant to be a stand-alone single overseas, Turner’s “Let’s Stay Together,” following her absence of more than 10 years from pop radio, seemed to come out of nowhere in 1983. “It was just my version,” she told BET, “but staying right with same sound and not destroying that.” Years later, Green sang the song back to her during her Kennedy Centers Honors tribute in 2005. She said she was relieved when she heard the first playback of her recording of Green’s classic. She created an inescapable batch of ’80s and ’90s hits - among them “(Simply) The Best,” “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” “Better Be Good to Me” and “I Don’t Wanna Fight.”īut she was equally known for remaking songs that were already perfect: Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together,” The Beatles’ “Help!” and John Fogerty’s “Proud Mary,” which became her career-long anthem. Over the decades, she traversed Grammy categories, using a four-octave range to move seamlessly from R&B to rock and pop, winning trophies in all three genres. Through her final concerts before retirement at age 69, she was still tearing through the same choreography she had invented in the ’60s as well as continuing with a nightly heart-stopping stunt, during which she’d sail over the arena floor - unharnessed - in a cherry-picker, then dance in stilettos on the crane’s slim hydraulic arm. With her fringed miniskirts, taut frame, flying hair and swagger - all shocking early on - and a peerless rock ‘n’ soul catalog, Turner honed a stage act that came to fill stadiums, drawing crowds exceeding those brought in by the likes of The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen and Queen.ĭuring 1988’s “Break Every Rule” tour, the two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Famer - she was voted in as a solo artist in May 2021 - shattered box office records in 13 countries and attracted 180,000 fans to Maracanã Stadium to see her perform in Brazil. “I’m beginning to,” she said.Ī redemption tale told in chilling detail, her book brought critical light to a mostly hidden crisis, inspiring a feature film, the Angela Bassett-starring What’s Love Got to Do With It (1993), and the acclaimed 2018-19 Broadway and West End production Tina: The Tina Turner Musical. “Do you realize you’re a feminist hero?” Larry King asked her in 1997. On television, she was a fixture on variety shows, on MTV and in commercials, most notably as the face (and legs) of a $20 million campaign for Hanes hosiery, which hired her at 56 to energize the brand.īut it was her harrowing 1986 memoir, I, Tina, in which she revealed ex-husband Ike Turner’s 16-year reign of terror, her escape and rise from economic ruin that sealed her most enduring role - as inadvertent activist. Isabelle Thomas, Filmmaker and Wife of 'Killers of the Flower Moon' Producer Bradley Thomas, Dies at 39ĭuring more than 60 years in the spotlight, she transformed notions about aging, opportunity and resilience, most notably with her landmark album Private Dancer, which launched her to solo superstardom (finally) at age 44.Īt the movies, Turner had iconic roles as the Acid Queen in The Who’s rock opera Tommy (1975) and as the ruthless Aunty Entity in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985).
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