50 Fun Facts About Tina Turner

What was Tina Turner's birth name?

Family and friends went on calling her Ann for the rest of her life.

In which state was she born?

She grew up in the unincorporated community of Nutbush, which she later immortalised in song.

What crop did she recall picking with her family as a young child?

Her father was an overseer of sharecroppers at Poindexter Farm on Highway 180.

After high school in St. Louis, what job did she take before her singing career began?

She graduated from Sumner High School in 1958 and worked at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.

What was the name of Ike Turner's band that she first saw perform in East St. Louis?

She said she 'almost went into a trance' watching Ike play, and kept coming back until he let her sing.

Whose blues ballad did she sing at an intermission, winning a spot in Ike's band?

The song was 'You Know I Love You'; Ike had promised to let her sing but never followed through until she forced it.

Under what name did she make her recording debut in 1958 on the single 'Boxtop'?

The record featured Ike Turner and vocalist Carlson Oliver, two years before 'Tina' existed.

'A Fool in Love', Tina Turner's 1960 debut single, was written for which singer, who failed to show up to the session?

Ike only meant to use her vocal as a demo and erase it later; the label boss heard 'screaming dirt' and bought it.

Ike Turner chose the name 'Tina' because it rhymed with which comic-book jungle heroine?

He trademarked 'Tina Turner' so that if she left, as earlier singers had, he could simply hire another one.

What were the backing singers and dancers of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue called?

The revue rivalled James Brown's for spectacle and once played 90 straight days on the road.

Which producer's 'Wall of Sound' powered the 1966 single 'River Deep – Mountain High'?

He called it his best work; it hit number 3 in the UK but stalled at 88 in the US.

In 1967 she became the first woman and first Black artist on the cover of which magazine?

The magazine later ranked her among the greatest singers of all time.

Which band did Ike & Tina open for on tours of the UK in 1966 and the US in 1969?

Their singer would famously rip her skirt off on stage at Live Aid in 1985.

Ike & Tina's biggest hit, a Grammy-winning 1971 cover, was originally by which band?

Their slow-then-fast arrangement of the riverboat song became her signature closer for five decades.

Which 1973 hit did Tina write herself about the tiny community where she grew up?

It went to number 1 in Austria and earned the first-ever Golden European Record Award for a million sales in Europe.

In the 1975 rock opera film Tommy, which character did she play?

Filming alone in London gave her a first taste of independence from Ike, and her next solo album borrowed the character's name.

In which city did she finally flee from Ike Turner on July 1, 1976?

She ran across a freeway to a Ramada Inn with 36 cents and a Mobil credit card in her pocket.

In the 1978 divorce settlement, what was the one professional asset she insisted on keeping?

She also kept two Jaguars, her furs and jewelry, but took on an IRS lien and lived on food stamps for nearly two years.

Which Australian manager took her on in 1979 after seeing her perform at San Francisco's Fairmont Hotel?

He steered the comeback that turned a cabaret nostalgia act into the biggest female touring artist of the 1980s.

Her comeback single in November 1983 was a cover of which Al Green song?

It was co-produced by Martyn Ware of Heaven 17 and reached number 6 in the UK.

How long did Capitol give her to record the Private Dancer album in 1984?

It went on to sell 10 million copies worldwide and remains her most successful album.

Which was her only number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100?

It topped the chart on September 1, 1984, when she was 44, an age the industry considered past an artist's prime.

Which British pop group had recorded her signature 1984 hit before she did?

Their version went unreleased for years, which left the song free for Capitol to hand to Tina.

With which artist did she duet on a 1984 cover of Iggy Pop's 'Tonight'?

It stalled at number 53 on both sides of the Atlantic, one of the few misses of her comeback year.

In Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), she played the ruler of Bartertown. What was the character's name?

It was her first acting role in ten years and won her an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress.

Which song did she record for Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome that became a transatlantic Top 3 hit?

The film's other song, 'One of the Living', won her a Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.

Who ripped her skirt off on stage during their duet at Live Aid in July 1985?

She was wearing black swimsuit-style bottoms underneath, and the moment became one of the day's most replayed.

What was the title of her 1986 autobiography, later the basis for a film?

The 1993 biopic based on it earned its two leads Oscar nominations.

In which city did she set a 1988 Guinness record for largest paying audience for a solo artist?

Roughly 180,000 people packed the Maracanã Stadium.

Her 1989 album Foreign Affair gave her a first UK number one album and which enduring hit single?

A 2010 fan campaign by Rangers supporters sent the single back into the UK Top 10.

Who accepted the award when Ike & Tina were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991?

Ike was in prison and Tina said she felt 'emotionally unequipped' to return to the US for the ceremony.

Which actress was Oscar-nominated for playing her in the 1993 film What's Love Got to Do with It?

The same actress gave the speech inducting Tina into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist in 2021.

Which two U2 members wrote her 1995 James Bond theme 'GoldenEye'?

It was her return to the studio after the What's Love? soundtrack and tour.

Her Twenty Four Seven Tour was the highest-grossing tour of which year?

It grossed over $120 million, and at a Zurich show that July she announced she would retire at its end.

With whom did she perform at the 2008 Grammy Awards in her public comeback?

That same night she won a Grammy as a featured artist on Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters.

In what year did she retire from live performance, after the Tina!: 50th Anniversary Tour?

She came out of retirement once, in 2020, for a Kygo remix that gave her a UK Top 40 hit in a seventh consecutive decade.

At 73, she became the oldest person ever to appear on the cover of which magazine's German edition?

That was in April 2013, the same month she passed her Swiss citizenship test.

Which religion did she practise from the 1970s, describing herself as a 'Buddhist-Baptist'?

She chanted nam-myoho-renge-kyo with a Soka Gakkai group, up to four hours a day in the hardest years.

Whom did she marry in July 2013 after 27 years together?

A German record executive sent to meet her at Düsseldorf airport in 1986, he was over sixteen years her junior.

In 2013 she gave up her US citizenship to become a citizen of which country?

The citizenship test required advanced German, the official language of the canton of Zurich.

What organ did her husband donate to her for a 2017 transplant?

Her chances of a transplant had been rated so low that she had joined an assisted-suicide organisation.

Which actress originated the lead in the musical Tina in London in 2018, then on Broadway?

The show opened at the Aldwych Theatre, outside which fans left flowers and candles when she died.

How many Grammy Awards did she win in total, including her Lifetime Achievement Award?

She is the only woman to have won Grammys in the pop, rock and R&B fields.

To which company did she sell her music rights in October 2021, for an estimated $50 million?

Later that month she was inducted into the Rock Hall as a solo artist, accepting via satellite from her home near Zurich.

How old was she when she died at her home in Küsnacht on May 24, 2023?

West End theatres dimmed their lights for two minutes the following night.

How did King Charles III pay tribute to her after her death?

Patti LaBelle sang the same song in tribute at the BET Awards a few weeks later.

Her 2020 Kygo remix made her the first artist with UK Top 40 hits in how many consecutive decades?

The run began with Ike & Tina in the 1960s and had already reached six when Rangers fans revived 'The Best' in 2010.

Which singer invited Tina Turner to perform 'Hot Legs' with him on Saturday Night Live in 1981?

He had caught her show at the Ritz in New York, weeks before she opened three dates for the Rolling Stones.

Who introduced Turner to Nichiren Buddhism in 1973, while working at Ike's Bolic Sound studio?

Turner later likened chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo to singing a song.

Which actress inducted Turner into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist in 2021?

Bassett had earned an Oscar nomination playing her in 1993; Mickey Guyton and Christina Aguilera sang at the ceremony.