People Magazine (1993)

THE ROCK SOLID DETERMINATION

Requires Microsoft Media PlayerTina Turner has come a long way. Born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26, I939, in Brownsville Nutbush, Tennessee, she met Ike Turner when she was just 17 years old and he was a 25-year-old music star. He was to change her life but it wasn't without a lot of hardship along the way. Their final separation meant going solo, which sent her career into a dive and she spent years on the cabaret circuit. But no matter what the venue, no matter how low down on the bill, she kept on singing, knowing that she would succeed, some day, somehow.

And she certainly has. She is one of the most successful female rock stars around, with well over a dozen hits to her name, and several million of her fans turned out for her last tour. Now, fans turned out for her last tour. Now, at fifty something, she is going out on the road again, and a film of her eventful life, 'I, Tina,' opens on September 17.

Q: Tina, you said at the end of your last tour that it was your last. What happened?

TT: As much as I try to break away from performing, here they are again, asking me to go hack on Top of The Pops .I became the first woman in rock n' roll to go out and sell out whole stadiums - and I'm proud of that; I'm proud that I sang to 160.000 people one night in Brazil. But what people don't know is that I got so nervous about touring. I got very upset about doing my last tour - at the start - and actually broke down crying. Of course, when you're out there and a crowd is going wild, you don't think about that. I know a lot of singers and stars find their fame overnight when they are barely much more than teenagers. But I had to work damn hard for over 30 years to get where I am today. So I don't mind making the effort. I'm still going to making the effort. In Hollywood, a lot of stars are thinking about retiring at my age, but I'm not packing up. No retirement place in the sun for me. I will still be working at something when I'm 90.

Q: Aren't you trying to break into acting as a career?

TT: Yes, I would really like to do some more movies. I did the Mad Max thing and Tommy and they were fun, and now I would like to get into some action stuff. What I would like to do is find a role for myself as some form of female Indiana Jones. I quite like all that swash buckling. Listen, I know I am no Meryl Streep, and I would never pretend to be in her class. But I would like to land a few roles with guts to them. I want to do on the screen what I've done on the stage and maybe get a little respect for it. But the problem is getting taken seriously for that. Hollywood's idea of a Tina Turner film is for her to play a call girl and I don't want to do that. For a start it's not very dignified and, second, it's not me.

Q:  What about the film of your life 'I, Tina?' Why did you turn down the offer of playing yourself?

TT: It's the saddest story ever told: this poor little black girl who became a star but was never loved as a child, who was deserted by her parents and beaten up by her husband. It's sob-story stuff. But I wouldn't want to be in my movie. Who could I play? Me? Why? I know the role, I lived the role and that was upsetting enough, at times. I suffered every time I had a fight with Ike, I bruised and I bled and I wept. Even if you are just acting those fights again, it would be too much for me and I would be breaking down in tears after every scene. No way, I'm just pleased that I came through it all intact.

Q: You have worked with Mel Gibson, Mick Jagger and David Bowie. Do any of them appeal as co-stars?

TT: Mel is a consummate professional: I'd work with him again and it would be a pleasure. Mick? Mick is a lot of laughs, but you would never know if he was going to tear your skirt off in any scene like he did to me in live Aid. I think Mick and I work well together because we both understand that body language doesn't have to be bad language. He's wild. He has got to be the sexiest man in our business, just from the way he moves.


Q: What about your own man, Erwin Bach? Does he get jealous of the men and all the attention and publicity you get?

TT: Jealous of what? There is no reason for him to be. No, the wonderful thing about Erwin is that he is the first fully adult man that I have ever known. Most men behave like five-year-old boys. Now that is endearing in many ways but it can get tiring. The thing about Erwin is that he is extraordinary in that he's actually grown up. He is the kindest guy I have ever met. He understands that you like to be given flowers, that you like to have doors held open for you and to receive little surprise presents. Erwin knows that most women like to be treated like a lady and so he does. Most men want a woman so that they can possess her.

Q: You've been with Erwin for nearly six years now, which is a bit of a record for you. Why does this relationship work when others didn't?

TT: When I was with other guys, I sort of thought that in some ways I was only there to make him look good. I don't need to feel that my worth comes from what a man thinks of me. I can buy my own champagne now, if I feel like it. So I can just relax around Erwin because I am rich and successful enough to be confident enough to be me. And I know that it is me that he wants.

Q: What about marriage, is that on the cards?

TT: I never run from man to man. I don't need the psychological stress. We are as married as we need to be.

Q: Do you see yourself as American or European now? You spend most of your time in Europe.

TT: I live in France and Germany most of the time. In the States it's all hustle, hustle, hustle and everyone wants to tread on you to make a buck. Whereas, in Europe, they appear to be genuinely pleased that I have done well. They seem more interested in who is Tina Turner? What makes her tick?

Q: Have you forgotten about the bad days of your past now?

TT: I can never forget them. I'll never forget being hit. Being knocked unconscious. I'll never forget the rows with Ike and the times when I couldn’t go on stage because my eye was messed up so bad. I can never forget the times when I was so low, I was reduced to singing cabaret stuff at businessmen’s conventions in Las Vegas. I would love to forget. I would like to pretend that there weren't days when I would wake up wanting to die because I felt nobody in the whole wide world loved me.

Q: When were those times?

TT: Most time of my life, I guess. Certainly as a child I never remember my parents telling me they loved me. They resented me, I think. I wasn’t a planned child and I think if I had been conceived in a different age I would have been got rid of. And when they left I would run from my granny's front door to the mail box every morning to see if my Momma had written me a letter. That's all I wanted, just a postcard to indicate that maybe she cared, that Momma might come home one day. I prayed and prayed. But it never came. Even now I can't even think too much about back then because it makes me cry.

Q: You were with Ike Turner for 16 years. Why did you stay so long with him?

TT: I gave my word to Ike that I would support him and his work and try to help him get to a certain level. Though it was about having kids in school, and I wasn’t going to subject my kids to living on the streets just because I couldn't bear living with Ike Turner.

Q: So many people in your business have hidden the sadness of the past by turning to alcohol or drugs. You never did. Why?

TT: I was used to see people drink. As a child I would watch my father collapse - he was meant to be looking after this little girl but instead he would just hit the bottle and keel over in front of me, just flop down unconscious. So that didn’t exactly create any great glamour of drinking in me, and it was the same with drugs. I just saw what it did to other people and I thought: 'No way.’

Q: What does the future hold for you now?

TT: Happiness, I guess. It must be happiness, because I have known so much pain in my life that I can’t believe that I could be made to suffer again. I still want to make albums, tour and I really want to get involved with movies. I don’t care how long it takes. I know I will get there. I was joking the other day that I probably get a good part when I am hobbling around with grey hair and leaning on a stick - but seriously I wouldn’t care if that were so. I know I will be still working when I am 90. I’ll still be singing then. And I mean it."