“Look what I have done in this lifetime, with this body,” said Tina Turner, in a documentary released about her life in 2021. “I’m a girl from a cotton field, that pulled myself above what was not taught to me.”
Tina Turner‘s life was a story of trauma and triumph – she was the star known for her energetic stage performances and her incomparable soulful, husky voice, who overcame several personal and professional struggles to become the Queen of Rock ‘n Roll.
Following her death at the age of 83, tributes have been paid to a “legend”, an “icon” and a “remarkable force of nature,” from fellow music stars to the White House, with clips of her biggest hits – including Proud Mary, Nutbush City Limits, The Best, We Don’t Need Another Hero, and What’s Love Got To Do With It – flooding social media.
Throughout her career, Turner won a total of 12 Grammys and was a two-time inductee into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall Of Fame, as a solo artist and as part of the duo she formed with ex-husband, Ike Turner, in the 1960s.
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Tina Turner sings The Best
She was the first woman to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone and a record breaker – previously holding the Guinness World Record for the largest paying audience for a solo performer, attracting an audience of 180,000 for her show at the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1988.
And she also inspired an award-winning musical based on her incredible life – the story of the star who achieved stratospheric success, including sales of more than 100 million records worldwide, after overcoming years of abuse from both her father and ex-husband, and pushback from those who told her she could not make it as a solo star.
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Tina Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock in Nutbush, Tennessee, on 26 November 1939, to parents Zelma Priscilla and Floyd Richard Bullock. At the age of 11, she moved to live with her grandmother after her mother left her abusive relationship with her father.
Aged 16, she joined her mother and sister Alline in the city of St Louis in Missouri, which is where she encountered her future husband for the first time.
She soon joined his band The Kings Of Rhythm as its first female member – and when she reimagined herself as Tina Turner in 1960, the group reformed to become the Ike And Tina Turner Revue.
That same year, Turner gave birth to their first child Ronnie and the couple wed in Tijuana, Mexico, in 1962. Ronnie was her second child; her first, Craig Raymond Turner, was with the saxophonist for the Kings Of Rhythm, Raymond Hill.
The group produced a string of RnB hits, including A Fool In Love and It’s Gonna Work Out Fine, but it was the release of River Deep – Mountain High in 1966 that saw their popularity soar around the world. The release was followed by a UK tour with The Rolling Stones as the band’s support act.
Songs such as Come Together, Honky Tonk Woman and Proud Mary helped cement their status, with the latter winning them a Grammy in 1972.
But behind the scenes, Turner was enduring abuse at the hands of her husband.
She stayed with him until 1976, but later revealed she had attempted suicide during their relationship. “I simply couldn’t take any more,” she wrote in her 2018 memoir, of the moment she hit rock bottom.
During their divorce, she reportedly asked for nothing more than the right to keep the use of her stage name, and she went on to reinvent herself as a solo star.
It wasn’t easy, with a slow start for debut album Tina Turns The Country On! in 1974, followed by Acid Queen in 1975, but Turner pushed back against those who told her that, as a black woman approaching 40, she would never make the transition to rock.
Throughout the 1980s, she rebuilt her career, with a string of hits starting in 1983 with a cover of Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together, and the 1984 release of her album Private Dancer. Her most recognisable song, a cover of The Best, was released in 1989. By then, her image of big hair and mini-skirts had become iconic, her famous legs becoming almost as famous as her distinctive voice.
In 1986, Turner was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. Her first induction into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall Of Fame, for her work with Ike, came in 1991, though neither attended the ceremony. Her induction as a solo artist came some 30 years later, in 2021.
“If they’re still giving me awards at 81, I must have done something right,” she said in a recorded acceptance speech.
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Turner on recognition and achievements
She was inducted by Angela Bassett, the actress who portrayed Turner in the 1993 film What’s Love Got To Do With It. Both Bassett and Laurence Fishburne, who played Ike, were nominated for Oscars for their performances.
“Imagine, a black girl from Nutbush, Tennessee, who embodied more talent than her small town could have ever dreamed,” Bassett said at the Hall Of Fame ceremony. “Imagine that same girl breaking through every barrier to one day make history.
“People still tell me how much Tina has meant to them. I know exactly what they mean, because she has meant that much and more to me. I too am one of those people blessed by Tina’s remarkable gift to inspire.”
In the 1990s, Turner joined the list of Bond musicians, voicing the title song for Pierce Brosnan’s Goldeneye.
After a brief break from showbusiness, she returned to the limelight in 2008 at the Grammy Awards, where she performed Proud Mary alongside Beyonce. Other notable duets through her career included performing with David Bowie, and with The Rolling Stones during Live Aid in 1985.
In 2008, she embarked on her 50th-anniversary tour, and in 2016 she announced Tina – The Tina Turner Musical.
In 2021, she sold the rights to her back catalogue after reaching an agreement with BMG for an undisclosed sum, and the last of her 34 UK Top 40 hits was released in 2020, when she re-recorded What’s Love Got To Do With It with Norwegian DJ Kygo.
Turner’s solo works include 10 studio albums, two live albums, two soundtracks and five compilations, which together have sold more than 100 million records. As well as her music, Turner also starred in films including Tommy in 1975, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome in 1985, and Last Action Hero in 1993.
In her personal life, she met music producer Erwin Bach in the 1980s and the pair married years later on the banks of Lake Zurich in Switzerland, where they lived. In 2013, Bach saved her life by donating her one of his kidneys, she revealed in her memoir in 2018.
She faced heartache that year, when her eldest son Craig died by suicide, and again in 2022 when her second son Ronnie died of cancer.
Known for her strength and resilience throughout her life, in an interview with the New York Times in 2019, she said: “I don’t necessarily want to be a ‘strong’ person. I had a terrible life. I just kept going.”
Turner always kept going.
And in what must have been one of her last interviews before she died, she told The Guardian exactly how she wanted to be remembered – as the Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll. “A woman who showed other women that it is okay to strive for success on their own terms.”
Richard Gadd has urged fans of his hit show Baby Reindeer to stop speculating about who the characters in his show are based on in real life.
The Netflix series is based on the real-life story of its writer Gadd, who also plays the lead character, and his warped relationship with a female stalker.
Fans have been speculating online about the identity of the stalker played by Jessica Gunning in real life (spoiler warning), as well as who another character, seen sexually assaulting Gadd in the series, is based on.
The character, played by Tom Goodman-Hill, is a TV writer who repeatedly sexually assaults Gadd’s character and supplies him with drugs.
Gadd addressed his fans on his Instagram story on Tuesday, saying: “People I love, have worked with, and admire… are unfairly getting caught up in speculation.
“Please don’t speculate on who any of the real-life people could be. That’s not the point of our show. Lots of love, Richard.”
The show is based on the hit Edinburgh Fringe one-man stage play Gadd performed in 2019.
Gadd, who plays Donny Dunn, a character based on himself, said he didn’t expect the show to “blow up” in the way it has since its release on 11 April.
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“I’m super proud of it. I really believed in this show, but the fact it’s gone so stratospheric so quickly, for such a cult, quite niche story… it’s kind of amazing. It’s clearly struck a chord,” he said on This Morning.
The writer, actor and comedian is also an ambassador for We Are Survivors, a charity which supports male survivors of sexual abuse.
Police in Australia have launched a manhunt for former soap opera star Orpheus Pledger after he failed to appear in court to face charges of assault.
Pledger, 30, was due to appear at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Tuesday accused of assaulting a woman, Sky News Australia said.
The actor had been granted bail on Tuesday for a court-ordered hospital assessment and had been ordered to return to court the following day, but didn’t show up.
On Wednesday Victoria Police issued a warrant for his arrest and asked the public to help find him.
The force said in a statement he was wanted over an “assault-related matter” and hoped “someone may be able to provide information on his current whereabouts”.
Described as “approximately 170cm [5ft, 6in] tall with brown hair and tanned complexion”, police said he was known to frequent the north Melbourne suburb of Northcote and surrounding areas.
Pledger’s manager, Craig McMahon told the Sydney Morning Herald he had not been in contact with his client this week but that he had been shocked by the assault allegations.
Mr McMahon told the paper his client had suffered from mental health issues for a long time.
Pledger starred in Neighbours, another Australian soap, in 2011 before joining the cast of Home and Away in 2016 where he played Mason Morgan for three years.
Earlier in his career, he appeared in other TV shows, Silversun and CrashBurn.
A guitar used by John Lennon in the recording of The Beatles album and film Help! is going up for auction after being found in a loft.
Believed to have been lost, the 12-string acoustic guitar had not been seen or played for more than 50 years before it was rediscovered in the home of a British couple.
It is now going up for auction where it is estimated to fetch between £485,000 to £647,000.
Auctioneers believe it could set a “new world record for the highest-selling Beatles guitar”.
The Hootenanny model, made by German firm Framus, was used by the Liverpool band in the 1965 Help! film, specifically in the scene when the group perform You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away.
It was also used during the recording sessions for It’s Only Love and I’ve Just Seen A Face and Girl along with the rhythm track for Norwegian Wood played by George Harrison.
“Finding this remarkable instrument is like finding a lost Rembrandt or Picasso, and it still looks and plays like a dream after having been preserved in an attic for more than 50 years,” said Darren Julien, co-founder and executive director at auction house Julien’s Auctions.
“To awaken this sleeping beauty is a sacred honour and is a great moment for music, Julien’s, Beatles and auction history.”
It is believed the guitar came to be in the possession of Scottish guitarist Gordon Waller, known for being one half of the pop duo Peter & Gordon, who later gave it to his band’s road managers in the 1970s.
Julien’s Auctions has previously sold another Lennon acoustic guitar for $2.4m (£1.93m), Ringo Starr’s Ludwig drum kit was purchased for $2.2m (£1.77m) and a Ludwig drumhead bass used on The Ed Sullivan Show was auctioned at $2.1m (£1.64m).
The Hootenanny guitar will go up for auction along with the guitar’s Maton Australian-made case as part of Julien’s Music Icons two-day auction on 29 and 30 May.
Also being sold at the auction is an Adam Clayton stage-played and owned rose sparkle Fender bass guitar, used at the U2 Las Vegas Sphere shows, which has an estimate of $50,000 to 70,000 (£40,199 to £56,279).
Tina Turner’s Versace dress, worn during her 1996 to 1997 Wildest Dreams Tour, and Amy Winehouse’s Black Fendi gown made for the opening of the clothes shop during Paris Fashion Week, are also up for auction.