Tina Turner Dies at 83: Sold 200 Million Albums, Won 8 Grammys - Wowed Newport Jazz Festival

Tina Turner Dies at 83: Sold 200 Million Albums, Won 8 Grammys - Wowed Newport Jazz Festival

 

GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST

Tina Turner has died. She was 83.

Turner died Wednesday “after a long illness” in her home in Kusnacht near Zurich, Switzerland, her reps announced as reported by the Hollywood Reporter. “With her, the world loses a music legend and a role model,” they said.

She won eight Grammys and sold more than 200 million albums.

Her career bridged multiple styles of music, lasted 60 years, and was a global phenomenon. In Rhode Island, she put on epic performances at the Newport Jazz Festival in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

 

The Hollywood Reporter writes:

"...she transformed notions about aging, opportunity and resilience, most notably with her landmark album Private Dancer, which launched her to solo superstardom (finally) at age 44.

At the movies, Turner had iconic roles as the Acid Queen in The Who’s rock opera Tommy (1975) and as the ruthless Aunty Entity in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985). On television, she was a fixture on variety shows, on MTV and in commercials, most notably as the face (and legs) of a $20 million campaign for Hanes hosiery, which hired her at 56 to energize the brand.

But it was her harrowing 1986 memoir, I, Tina, in which she revealed ex-husband Ike Turner’s 16-year reign of terror, her escape and rise from economic ruin that sealed her most enduring role — as inadvertent activist."