If only we could all retire like this: with a second home in the south of France, a Bentley in the three-car garage and profits in the bank from selling more than 50 million albums over the past 40 years.
Not to mention legs worth more than all that combined.Sigh. In December, Tina Turner announced that this tour would be "the biggest and the best because it's the last." ("I know I have the energy to do it one more time," she said. "But I don't want to diminish the memory of my great little dresses, my great legs.")
As if anything could!
So we decided, instead of complaining, we'll follow the 60-year-old pop singer's example. Hold our heads up high. And fight back the years as we consider what we'll miss the most.
The music: Our favorite Tina Turner tape would have to start with her first single "A Fool in Love" (1960). Then "River Deep, Mountain High" (1966), to get things rolling. What next? Oh yeah, the autobiographical "Nutbush City Limits" (1973) and that cover of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" (1983); followed by "What's Love Got to Do With It?" "Better Be Good to Me" and the title track from her breakthrough solo effort, "Private Dancer" (1984). Maybe "We Don't Need Another Hero" (1985) from the soundtrack of the post-apocalyptic Mel Gibson movie, "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome." But definitely, definitely, the last song would be her remake of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Proud Mary" (1971). Why? Because we like it rough and easy on one song.
The unforgettable performances: You have to start with that hip-shaking and fringe-moving that Tina did with her backup singers, the Ikettes, back when the Ike and Tina Turner Revue hit TV -- "American Bandstand," to be exact -- in the mid-'60s. Her Grammy Awards performance in 1985 of "What's Love Got to Do With It?" was the big triumph. (She also took home four Grammys). And don't forget the January 1988 show she did for 182,000 in Rio de Janeiro -- it was the largest paying audience ever to gather for a single performer, which got her in the Guiness Book of World Records until 1990, when Paul McCartney broke her record.
The way she bridged genres: Turner's edge, coupled with her church upbringing, helped R&B and rock converge in the '60s and '70s. In the '80s, she helped create an atmosphere in which those distinctions didn't matter so much. Before "Private Dancer," she collaborated with former members of British new wave bands Human League and Heaven 17. Jeff Beck showed up on "Private Dancer," while that album's title cut was written by Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler. Colorblind and uncategorizable as either rock or R&B, it was just good music.
The Ike factor: She left her first husband -- an alleged abuser -- with 36 cents and a gasoline card in her pocket. But she still credits the formidable guitarist with discovering her when her older sister Alline refused to sing for his Kings of Rhythm one night. He also changed Anna Mae Bullock's name to Tina. (Never mind that he did so because it reminded him of "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle," from the '50s TV series.) He's also the man behind those infamous wigs. And by first taking her out on the road in 1960 as part of the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, Ike can be credited with officially introducing her to us.
Some of the movies: Her turn as the Acid Queen in the '70s film version of the Who's rock opera "Tommy" was a great screen debut. But that pairing with Mel Gibson as Aunty Entity in "Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome," well, hmm. . . . And though she personally had a problem with the film adaptation of her autobiography ("It didn't show my strength," Turner told one newspaper. "(It) went all 'Superfly' into drugs and the ugliness"), there's no way we can ignore Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne's dynamic performances in "What's Love Got to Do With It?"
That accent: So what if she was born in Brownsville, Tenn., and raised in the city limits of Nutbush. Her primary home has been overseas for more than a decade (Zurich, with longtime boyfriend/record executive Erwin Bach) and her speaking voice has long had the clipped and proper British affectations to prove it.
The persona: Tina's arrival in pop music did a whole lot for women in music at a time when most of them -- particularly black women -- were of the sweet, girl-group variety.
And of course, those legs: Not only are they insured by Lloyd's of London for a reported $3.2 million, but in 1996 they snared her a hefty endorsement contract with hosiery giant Hanes -- and the envy of younger and older women alike.