The character arc of Tina Turner
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born Anna Mae Bullock on 26 November 1939 in Brownsville, Tennessee, and raised in the rural community of Nutbush. Between then and her death sit domestic work as a teenager, a microphone grabbed during an intermission in a St Louis club, a stage name given to her, sixteen years as the front of a revue, a marriage she later described plainly, a walk across a Dallas freeway on 1 July 1976 with thirty six cents in her pocket, two years of food stamps and small clubs, a number one at forty four, twelve Grammys, Buddhism, a house on Lake Zurich and years of illness. The line below draws the whole story.
Drag along the line to move, pinch or use the buttons to look closer. Tap the line to pluck it, or any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of her life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who was Tina Turner?
Thirty six cents and a credit card. That was everything she left with.
She was born Anna Mae Bullock in Brownsville, Tennessee, and grew up in Nutbush, a rural unincorporated community. As a teenager she worked as a domestic for a family in Ripley. She was in that house when she was told her half-sister had died in a car crash.
Her older sister used to go and watch Ike Turner and his band in St Louis, and one Saturday night their mother let Anna Mae go too. During an intermission she took the initiative, grabbed a microphone and sang a B. B. King ballad. That is the whole beginning: she did not wait to be asked. He was impressed, and she was soon a featured singer.
In 1960 a session singer failed to turn up and she sang the guide vocal instead. It was released as A Fool in Love, she was introduced to the public under a name that was not hers, and it went to number two on the rhythm and blues chart. The revue that formed around her became one of the most explosive live acts in America. In 1967 she became the first black artist and the first woman on the cover of Rolling Stone.
On 1 July 1976, after a fight on the way to a Dallas hotel, she waited until he was asleep and left. She ran across a freeway to a Ramada Inn with thirty six cents and a Mobil credit card in her pocket. She filed for divorce three weeks later. In the settlement she took responsibility for the missed concert dates and a tax lien, gave up her share of the studio, the publishing companies and the property, and kept one thing that mattered: her stage name. For almost two years she lived on food stamps and played small clubs to pay off the debts. In 1981 she said publicly, for the first time, that she had been abused, and described those years as living a life of death, in which she did not fear being killed when she left because she was already dead.
Then she did what almost nobody does. She was in her mid forties, an age the music industry considered past an artist's prime, when Private Dancer arrived. On 1 September 1984 she had her first and only number one on the Hot 100, and won three Grammys for it. Her tour became the highest grossing by a woman in the 1980s, and a concert in Rio in 1988 set a world record for the largest paying audience for a solo performer.
She took twelve Grammys in all, including a lifetime achievement award. She practised Buddhism and has spoken about chanting as a kind of singing. From 1994 she lived at a house on the shore of Lake Zurich. She had high blood pressure from 1978 which went mostly untreated and damaged her kidneys, and she wrote about several life-threatening illnesses in her 2018 memoir. She died at home on 24 May 2023, aged eighty three, after years of illness.
The moments
Tina Turner's timeline.
The 1940s
Nutbush, Tennessee
Everyday. A rural community in Tennessee, and a country school.
The 1950s
Domestic work, and a death
Setback, and it changed her direction. Cleaning somebody else's house when they told her about her sister.
She takes the microphone
Milestone, and it changed everything. Nobody asked her to sing. She picked up the microphone herself.
The 1960s
A Fool in Love
Milestone, and it changed everything. Somebody else missed the session, so she sang it.
The cover of Rolling Stone
Milestone, and it changed her direction. First black artist, first woman, on that cover.
The 1970s
The years she later described
Setback, and it changed everything. She said nothing for years, and then said it in her own words.
She crosses the freeway
Milestone, and it changed everything. Thirty six cents, a credit card, and a freeway in the dark.
Stay, or walk out with nothing
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: leave with nothing, taken, or stay in the revue. Eight years later she had her first number one and the highest grossing tour by a woman in the decade.
She keeps the name
Milestone, and it changed everything. She gave up almost everything and kept the name she performs under.
Food stamps and small clubs
Setback, and it changed everything. Two years of food stamps, at the end of a famous career.
The 1980s
Rod Stewart, and the Stones
Milestone, and it changed her direction. Somebody saw her in a small room and put her back on a big stage.
Number one at forty four
Milestone, and it changed everything. Her first number one ever, at forty four, eight years after the freeway.
A world record in Rio
Milestone, and it changed everything. The largest paying audience any solo performer had ever had.
The 1990s
A house on Lake Zurich
Milestone, and it changed her direction. A quiet house by a lake, a long way from Nutbush.
The 2010s
Twelve Grammys, and a memoir
Milestone, and it changed her direction. Twelve Grammys, and a book that told the truth about her health.
The 2020s
She dies at eighty three
Milestone, and it changed everything. At home, by the lake, after years of being ill.
The records still sell and the tribute shows still fill theatres, decades on. What she set moving is the plainest possible proof for anybody standing in a hotel room at three in the morning working out whether they can go: she went with thirty six cents, and the best part of her life was on the other side of it.
Your turn
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Hers restarted at thirty six with thirty six cents and no plan. Yours is already further along than you think, and drawing it takes about five minutes.
Tina Turner: frequently asked questions
What people ask about her line.
What is Tina Turner's character arc?
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What did Tina Turner keep in the divorce?
When did Tina Turner have her first number one?
How many Grammys did Tina Turner win?
How did Tina Turner die?
Where does this timeline of Tina Turner's life come from?
More character arcs
Lives that rhyme with her.
Sources
- Tina Turner, English Wikipedia biography.
- Her own 1981 interview and her 2018 memoir, as that biography quotes them.
- Billboard chart records for 1 September 1984, and Grammy Award records.
- Her former husband's published account of the marriage is deliberately not repeated on this page.