Early solo career: 1976–1982 Following the Turners' separation, lawsuits mounted for canceled Ike & Tina Turner gigs. Tina Turner earned income by appearing on TV shows such as
Hollywood Squares,
Donny & Marie,
The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, and
The Brady Bunch Hour. After receiving funding from
Mike Stewart, an executive at United Artists Records, Turner returned to performing in order to pay off her debts. In 1977, she formed a new band and re-emerged with new costumes designed by
Bob Mackie. She took her act to smaller venues and headlined a series of
cabaret shows at
Caesars Palace in
Las Vegas. Later that year, she embarked on her first solo concert tour in Australia. Tina Turner and
Tom Jones starred in an
HBO TV special that was shot at the
Warner Theatre in Washington, DC, in September 1978. Around that time, her third solo album,
Rough, was released on United Artists with distribution in North America and Europe on
EMI Records. That album, along with its 1979 follow-up,
Love Explosion, which included a brief diversion to
disco music, failed to chart, so United Artists and Turner parted ways. Without the premise of a hit record, she continued performing and headlined her second tour. In 1979, Australian manager
Roger Davies agreed to manage Turner after seeing her perform at the
Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. In early 1979, Turner worked in Italy as a regular performer on the
Rete 1 TV series
Luna Park, hosted by
Pippo Baudo and
Heather Parisi. Later that year, she embarked on a controversial five-week tour of South Africa during the
apartheid regime. She later admitted that she was "naive about the politics in South Africa" at the time. In October 1981,
Rod Stewart attended Turner's show at
the Ritz in New York City and invited her to perform "
Hot Legs" with him on
Saturday Night Live. In November, Turner opened three shows for the Rolling Stones during their
1981 American Tour. Turner performed in March 1982 in the Willem Ruis show (Netherlands), which resulted in the hit "
Shame, Shame, Shame" reaching number 47 in the Netherlands. In 1982, Turner recorded
the Temptations' "
Ball of Confusion" with the UK production team
B.E.F. (a side project of the band
Heaven 17) which featured on their album
Music of Quality and Distinction - Volume 1 and became a hit in European dance clubs. She filmed a music video for "Ball of Confusion" that aired on the fledgling music video channel
MTV, becoming one of the first
black American artists to gain airtime on the channel. Also in 1982, Turner appeared as a special guest on
Chuck Berry's television special performed at
The Roxy in
West Hollywood. in
Cardiff, 1984
Career resurgence and superstardom: 1983–2000 Until 1983, Turner was considered a nostalgia act, performing mostly at hotel ballrooms and clubs in the United States. During her second stint at the Ritz, she signed with
Capitol Records in 1983. In November 1983, she released her cover of
Al Green's "
Let's Stay Together", which was co-produced by
Martyn Ware (of
Heaven 17/
B.E.F) and featured
Glenn Gregory of Heaven 17 on backing vocals. It entered several European charts, and reached number 6 in the UK. In the US, the song peaked at number 26 on the
Billboard Hot 100, number 1 on
Hot Dance Club Songs, and number 3 on
Hot Black Singles. Following the single's surprise success, and a further minor hit with her version of
the Beatles' classic "
Help", which also reached the UK Top 40 in March 1984, Capitol Records approved a studio album. Turner had two weeks to record her
Private Dancer album, which was released in May 1984.
Private Dancer was certified 5× Platinum in the United States, and sold 10 million copies worldwide, becoming her most successful album. Also in May 1984, Capitol issued the album's next single, "
What's Love Got to Do with It", which had previously been recorded by the British pop group
Bucks Fizz. Following the album's release, Turner joined
Lionel Richie as the opening act on his tour. The same year, she duetted with
David Bowie on a cover of
Iggy Pop's "
Tonight". Released as a single in November, it peaked at number 53 in both the UK and the US. At his spring 1985 ready-to-wear runway show presented in fall of '84, Paris designer
Karl Lagerfeld put his models in Tina Turner wigs and said he was "mad for her." posing with their Grammys at the
1985 Grammy Awards Turner won three Grammys at the
27th Annual Grammy Awards, including the
Grammy Award for Record of the Year for "What's Love Got to Do with It". During this time, she also contributed vocals to the
USA for Africa benefit song "
We Are the World". Turner's success continued when she traveled to Australia to star opposite
Mel Gibson in the 1985 post-apocalyptic film sequel
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. The movie provided her with her first acting role in ten years; she portrayed the glamorous Aunty Entity, the ruler of Bartertown. Upon release, critical response to her performance was generally positive. The film was a global success, grossing more than $36 million in the United States. Turner later received the
NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress for her role in the film. She recorded two songs for the film, "
We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)" and "
One of the Living". Both songs became successes, with the first becoming a transatlantic Top 3 hit, and the latter winning her a
Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. Their performance included an infamous moment when Jagger ripped her skirt off to reveal an even shorter miniskirt underneath. Turner released a duet, "
It's Only Love", with
Bryan Adams. It was nominated for a Grammy Award, and the music video won an
MTV Video Music Award for Best Stage Performance. In 1986, Turner released her sixth solo album,
Break Every Rule, which reached number 1 in four countries and sold over five million copies worldwide within its first year of release. The album sold more than a million copies in the United States and Germany alone. The album featured the singles "
Typical Male", "
Two People", "
What You Get Is What You See", and the Grammy-winning "
Back Where You Started". Prior to the album's release, Turner published her autobiography
I, Tina, which became a bestseller. That year, she received a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame. Her
Break Every Rule World Tour, which began in March 1987, was the highest-grossing tour by a female artist in the 1980s. In January 1988, Turner performed in front of approximately at
Maracanã Stadium in
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, setting a
Guinness World Record at the time for the
largest paying concert attendance for a solo artist. In April 1988, Turner released the
Tina Live in Europe album, which won a Grammy Award for
Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. After taking time off following the end of the tour, she emerged with the
Foreign Affair album in 1989. It reached number 1 in eight countries, including in the UK (5× Platinum), her first number-one album there. The album sold over six million copies worldwide and included the international hit single "
The Best". in
Norway, 1985 In 1990, Turner embarked on her
Foreign Affair European Tour, which drew in nearly four million spectators—breaking the record for a European tour that was previously set by
the Rolling Stones. In October 1991 Turner released her first
greatest hits compilation
Simply the Best, which sold seven million copies worldwide. The album is her biggest seller in the UK, where it is certified 8× Platinum with more than two million copies sold. In 1991, Ike & Tina Turner were inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Ike Turner was incarcerated at the time and Tina Turner did not attend. Turner stated through her publicist that she was taking a leave of absence following her tour and she felt "emotionally unequipped to return to the U.S. and respond to the night of celebration in the manner she would want".
Phil Spector accepted the award on their behalf. In 1993, the semi-autobiographical film ''
What's Love Got to Do with It was released. The film starred Angela Bassett as Tina Turner and Laurence Fishburne as Ike Turner; they received Best Actress and Best Actor Oscar nominations for their roles. While she was not heavily involved in the film, Turner contributed to the soundtrack for What's Love Got to Do with It'', re-recording old songs and several new songs. The single "
I Don't Wanna Fight" from the soundtrack was a Top 10 hit in the US and UK, while the album itself became her second UK number one. In 1993 Turner embarked on her
What's Love? Tour. In 1995, Turner returned to the studio, releasing "
GoldenEye", which was written by
Bono and
the Edge of
U2 for the
James Bond film
GoldenEye. In 1996 Turner released the
Wildest Dreams album, accompanied by her "
Wildest Dreams Tour". In September 1999, before celebrating her 60th birthday, Turner released the dance-infused song "
When the Heartache Is Over" as the leading single from her tenth and final solo album,
Twenty Four Seven. The success of the single and the following tour helped the album become
certified Gold by the
RIAA. Her two concerts at
Wembley Stadium were recorded by the director
David Mallet and released in the DVD
One Last Time Live in Concert. At a concert in
Zurich, Switzerland in July 2000, Turner announced that she would retire at the end of the tour.
Later career: 2001–2021 congratulates Turner at the 2005
Kennedy Center Honors In November 2004, Turner released
All the Best, which debuted at number 2 on the
Billboard 200 in 2005, her highest-charting album in the United States. The album went
Platinum in the US three months after its release and reached Platinum status in seven other countries, including the UK. In December 2005, Turner was awarded the
Kennedy Center Honors at the
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. In February 2006, Turner released "
Teach Me Again", a duet single with Italian singer-songwriter
Elisa that was recorded for the
anthology film All the Invisible Children. The whole revenue from the single's sales was donated to charity projects for children led by the
World Food Programme and
UNICEF. In addition, she won a Grammy as a featured artist on
River: The Joni Letters. In October 2008, Turner embarked on her first tour in nearly ten years with the
Tina!: 50th Anniversary Tour. In support of the tour, Turner released a
greatest hits compilation. The tour was a huge success and became one of the bestselling tours in history. In 2009, Turner co-founded a global music foundation, Beyond Foundation, with Swiss Christian musician Regula Curti and Swiss Tibetan Buddhist
Dechen Shak-Dagsay. Turner co-released four albums of spiritual or uplifting music released through projects with
Beyond:
Buddhist and Christian Prayers (2009),
Children (2011),
Love Within (2014), and
Awakening (2017). As of 2023, the Swiss Beyond Foundation remains active and enables the collaboration of musical artists from different parts of the world. In April 2010, mainly due to an
online campaign by fans of
Rangers Football Club, Turner's 1989 hit, "
The Best", returned to the UK singles chart, peaking at number 9. This made Turner the first female recording artist in UK chart history to score Top 40 hits in six consecutive decades (1960s–2010s). In 2011,
Beyond's second album
Children – With Children United in Prayer followed and charted again in Switzerland. Turner promoted the album by performing on TV shows in Germany and Switzerland. In April 2013, Turner appeared on the cover of the German issue of
Vogue magazine at the age of 73, becoming the oldest person to be featured on the cover of
Vogue. In February 2014,
Parlophone Records released a new compilation titled
Love Songs. The show opened at the
Aldwych Theatre in London in April 2018 with
Adrienne Warren in the lead role. Warren reprised her role on Broadway in the fall of 2019. '' playing at the
Aldwych Theatre in London, 2019 Turner received the 2018
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and her second memoir,
My Love Story, was released in October 2018. In 2020, she came out of retirement to collaborate with Norwegian producer
Kygo on a remix of "
What's Love Got to Do with It". With this release, she became the first artist to have a Top 40 hit in seven consecutive decades in the UK. In 2020, Turner released her third book,
Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good. She co-wrote the book with American author Taro Gold and Swiss singer Regula Curti. It was chosen by
Amazon's editors as a Best Nonfiction book of 2020. In 2021, Turner appeared in the HBO documentary film
Tina directed by
Dan Lindsay and
T. J. Martin. In October 2021, Turner sold her music rights to
BMG Rights Management for an estimated $50 million, with
Warner Music still handling distribution of her music. Later that month, Turner was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist, accepting her award via satellite from her home near Zurich, Switzerland. ==Personal life==