I’m going to start right off by telling you that before last week, I hadn’t thought much about Tina Turner.
As a card-carrying member of Gen X, I remember her hits from the 80s. My close friends will tell you that my musical taste is all over the place and rarely involves deep cuts and learning all the words. But I can hear “What’s Love Got to Do With It” and be transported back to a super fun time in my life. I also was vaguely familiar with the first part of her life, the horrific, awful part that involved her marriage and musical partnership with the monster Ike Turner.
So when I saw the news of her death, and learned that she had not lived in the US for over two decades, my curiosity was piqued.
My curiosity is often piqued…but I digress.
This illuminating article in People focused on her residence in Switzerland. I learned she’d given up her US citizenship in 2013 when she became a citizen of Switzerland.
I learned she wrote not one, but two memoirs: one at the age of 47 and the other at the age of 79. I believe she wrote the first, simply entitled I, Tina: My Life Story, hoping to get the Ike part of her life over and done with. Despite her best efforts, that didn’t happen. It seemed Ike would forever be a part of the conversation.
What I didn’t know, was that Tina Turner wrote a second memoir entitled My Love Story: A Memoir. She also cowrote a book entitled Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good. She wrote the latter two within five years of her death at 83.
I’ve read none of these books, but my guess is, the common theme in all of them is resilience.
Tina Turner embodied resilience right up until the end.
From the moment in 1976 when she ran across that freeway in Dallas and begged the management at the Ramada Inn to give her a room, she clawed back her life and began the process of redefining herself. Despite being forever tied to the shadow of Ike, Tina lived the rest of her life bravely, and with kindness toward others.
She appeared to have it all in the 1990s when she settled in Switzerland with Erwin Bach: an unlikely partner—except who among us has the right to even say that? He treated her with respect and gave her a kidney, thereby prolonging her life. After twenty-seven years together, they finally married. I’d like to believe she found peace.
These days, 83 is not considered old. I don’t know the extent of Tina Turner’s health issues, but after watching the 2021 documentary Tina over the weekend (yes, I needed to know more), and focusing closely on the scene from the 2019 Broadway premiere of the musical about her life, as the camera caught her walking somewhat shakily—Oprah on one arm, her husband on the other—I’m just glad she was able to celebrate her final chapter knowing just how loved she was.
Memoirs of famous people can provide enlightenment and inspiration because the universality of being human touches all of us - no matter how rich or how famous.
Thank you, Tina Turner, for generously giving of yourself right up to the end, especially when it would have been far easier just to shut the rest of us out.
I love the way you have written about her and brought up parts of her life we might not be familiar with. Nice tribute!