Tina Turner

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American singer with enormous energy and talent along with world-class legs. She married Ike Turner in 1956 and began her career with Ike and "The Kings of Rhythm." They put out "Ike and Tina Turner Revue" from 1956 to 1976. Their first record was "Fool in Love," 1960. The daughter of a sharecropper, she picked strawberries and cotton as soon as she was able. While her mom and dad fought, she wandered in the fields, a loner playing in nature with the wind and the animals. When she was three, she and her older sister, Alline, were farmed out to grandparents for two years In 1950, her mom left and three years later, so did dad. In her autobiography, "I, Tina," Avon Books, 1987, she wrote that "I cried and cried but it didn't do any good. It never does, you know." She began singing with Ike Turner's group, "The Kings of Rhythm" in the late '50s, where Ike renamed her Tina. Almost immediately, she also got pregnant. Abandoned by her lover, a band member, and with a new son, Craig, to support, she worked days at the local hospital and night with the band. The following year she and Ike were married and their son, Ronnie, was born. They had another boy along with two boys of Ike's from a former relationship. Ike beat her up for 16 years before she finally got out in 1978 after a particularly brutal beating in the back seat of a limo. She took years of abuse, Ike's coke habit and blatant infidelities, finally running away with 36 cents in her pocket. She lived on food stamps but would take nothing from Ike, hiding from him while she repaid her protectors by cleaning their houses. A Buddhist, she tried to live according to her faith, raising their kids and worked as hard as she could. Even when Ike sent the four boys to live with her, along with their bedding and pets but no money, she stayed focused on what she needed to do. Furs, jewels, limo's were a thing of the past and she was back below square one. A near-fatal bout of tuberculosis several years earlier also had some debilitating after-effects. Turner began booking dates gradually, in debt and struggling upward for six tough years before she began hitting the charts in 1983. In 1984, she hit the top of the charts in England with her album "Private Dancer." In the U.S., the album remained in the top 100 for more than two years and ultimately sold 10 million copies around the world. Turner played in the film "Mad Max" in 1985, did commercial ads and played music duos with top stars. In 1993, a movie came out about her life, "What's Love Got To Do With It?" By then, she was living in Germany with 37-year-old managing director of EMI records, German division, Erwin Bach, born 24 January 1956. At the end of the '90s, Turner was more vivid than ever with her electric shock of hair and long legs sheathed in the pantyhose that she advertises topping spike heels. A lady who paid her dues with courage and class, she was still galvanizing audiences with her bristling energy and husky voice. At 60, life is better than ever. She has two homes in Europe, a man who cares about her and a core of stability and integrity that is perhaps her greatest success story. While in Zurich she announced her retirement 6/30/2000 at age 60. Her representative said, "She wants to go out on top, while at her best." A wonderful description of an amazing woman. In 2000, her 95 concerts took in $80.2 million. In 2012, after living in Switzerland for 20 years, Turner applied for Swiss citizenship which was granted in January 2013 and renounced her American citizenship Link to Wikipedia biography