by Tina Turner
I’m often asked, “What was going through your head before you stepped out on the stage? What was your routine?” Here’s what was happening behind the curtain. For me, the show began in my dressing room, where I mentally prepared to become “Tina.” There’s the everyday Tina who gets up, eats breakfast, reads, shops, and relaxes with friends. And then there’s the performance side of me, the Tina who engages with the audience when all eyes are on her. It’s like having two personalities. They’re similar, but I definitely wanted to have a larger presence onstage.
I never did vocal exercises when getting ready for a show, although I know some singers find them helpful: I remember Mick vocalized and moved around a bit before he went on. But I was never told to do that when I first became a singer, and my body got used to working without a warm-up. I attribute my strong voice to the fact that we didn’t have a telephone when I was a child. Instead, we shouted to our relatives who lived across the way, so I learned to be loud to make myself heard!
Alone in my dressing room, I always began my transformation the same way. First, I’d sit down in front of the mirror and start applying my makeup. I preferred to do it myself because professional artists can make you look too perfect, or if they’re not skilled, they can make you look like a clown. I put it on slowly and sparingly—never too much. That was something I believed in even during the “Ike and Tina” days, when I had to get dressed on the bus, or in a storeroom. I liked to keep it subtle. I finished the look with a bright red lipstick, which is all you really need, because the lips are so visible. Then I put on my wig, pinning it on really tight, so there was no chance of it slipping or, God forbid, coming off.
I remember when I was with Ike, a journalist reached out to ask if she could be an Ikette for a night. She was writing an article and figured it would only take a few days to master the whole routine—dancing, singing, wearing the wig, the dress, and the shoes—and perform it onstage. I don’t think she realized how much preparation was involved, how hard we worked, or that we actually had talent. The problem wasn’t that she was white—we’d had white Ikettes before—or that she had an attitude (by showtime, my dancers were beyond frustrated with her). The bigger issue was that there wasn’t a muscle in her body that could dance! When the show started, she lasted about thirty seconds before her wig started to slip off her head, she tripped on her own two feet, and she ended up on the floor in an Al Jolson pose straight out of “Mammy,” which was a little embarrassing. The look she got from Ike was priceless. The language that followed was unrepeatable. That was the last we saw of her.
My preparation left no room for a slipped wig or wardrobe malfunction. While I was getting ready, I was constantly asking myself questions. How do I look? Is the hair right? Do I have all the gear I need to protect me? I had to make sure that my boobs weren’t jumping around, or spilling out. Then, I had to think about my bottom. If my dress came up (or if Mick Jagger was around to pull off my skirt), was I covered properly?
Looking sexy onstage was never my primary goal, and I didn’t worry about how guys would react to my look. I always played to the women in the audience, because if you’ve got the girls on your side, you’ve got the guys. I wanted the women to like me, so I set out to convince them that I was just having fun, not trying to steal their men.
In fact, most of the costumes that people considered sexy were practical choices. Fishnet stockings didn’t run as often as the other kind. Short dresses were easier for dancing because they left my legs free, and looked good with my short torso. Leather didn’t show perspiration or dirt, and it never wrinkled. So much for sex appeal.
When I finished my checklist, I’d look in the mirror one last time. If I’d done my job correctly, the woman who walked into the dressing room was gone, replaced by Tina Turner the performer. I was ready for the show.
I always held the arm of my security guard on the way to the stage. Call me superstitious, but I didn’t want to twist my foot, or slip on the floor, before the show even started. The atmosphere backstage was usually very festive—we were a big family. The musicians were playing their instruments, grooving on something and dancing to get in the mood. I rarely joined them, except every now and then when they were doing a song I really liked. My dancers used to hold hands and say a prayer together, and I gently patted their backs and walked past them to the stage. I did my meditations daily, so I didn’t feel the need to do anything right before the show. These moments were the calm before the storm for me. I stood in my place on the lift and waited. As soon as I heard the opening music and the spotlight found me, I was on, smiling at the people.
Yes, it’s acting, but I mean that in a good way. You have to be someone large onstage, not who you are in your everyday life. When I was performing, I believed that every song told a story, which I expressed through singing and movement. My audience wanted theater, and that’s what we gave them. You start out not knowing who they are, or how active they will be, but you want to impress them. If they were quiet and they didn’t move, then we had to work together, me, the girls, and the band, to pull them in and show them how to have a good time. I’d give the girls a secret signal, as if to say, it’s one of those audiences, and we’d really work.
I remember once when I stopped and said, “Hi, everybody. Oh, it’s quiet in here.” And then I started the show. In no time, they were on their feet and totally into it. Some audiences have a “let’s see” attitude. They come in thinking Is this show all they say it is? and you just have to take a different approach to get them up to speed. But we always won them over in the end. I wanted them to have the best time they possibly could, and I wouldn’t settle for anything less. One of my greatest pleasures was enjoying the crowd as much as they were enjoying me. You dance differently if you’re having a good time. They motivated me. I’d give a little wave of my hand, and if they all waved back, I knew they were focused.
I had a special relationship with my dancers. Sometimes, I looked at their lovely faces and thought of them as a wonderful bouquet of flowers. But they were never decorative. We really worked hard on that stage, and every move was calculated. We planned our routine so the dancers did most of the traveling onstage, while I concentrated on the singing. If I stopped singing for an instrumental solo, they’d come over to me and I’d dance with them, until I picked up the song again. The moves looked easy and effortless, but they were carefully choreographed. In fact, the girls were so used to following my lead that, one night, I fell down in the middle of a song and they all followed me to the floor! They thought it was some new choreography I had improvised on the spot.
Another time, my foot caught on something and I went flop. I looked at my saxophone player to lift me up, but he just kept playing. He probably thought I was acting when I said, “Timmy! Help me out!” Clare, my head dancer, thought the same thing. She saw me, totally flat out, but she figured I knew what I was doing because I always did! With no help from them, I jumped up and just kept dancing.
I think people wonder why I didn’t fall more often. “How did you dance in those high, high heels?” they want to know. Let’s talk about the heels. I got used to wearing them after so many years of dancing onstage, but I did have a method. You always stay a little bit on your toes, with your weight thrust forward, and try not to stand flat on your feet. Toes are surprisingly strong. One night, I was dancing on a stage that turned out to be slightly tilted and I felt myself falling forward. I was saved by my ten little toes: I was amazed that they gripped through my shoes and held me in place.
I love wearing beautiful shoes onstage . . . Louboutins, Manolo Blahniks—my wall of shoes is a tribute to my favorite designers. But one of my secret weapons for endurance was Pasquale Fabrizio, a master shoemaker who reminded me of Geppetto from Pinocchio. Cher told me about him. Although he was located in Los Angeles, Pasquale and his workers, who sat on itty-bitty stools at little tables, looked just like old-fashioned cobblers in European fairy tales. They made extraordinary shoes for everyon
e in show business, from Frank Sinatra to Liza Minnelli. Pasquale built a model of the client’s foot, which is called a “last,” and used it to handcraft specialty shoes, reinforcing the heel and sole with a metal shank, so it couldn’t break. You can’t dance in a loose shoe, and Pasquale’s creations fit so beautifully that they felt like an extension of the leg. I could stand, dance, do anything, for long periods of time, without worrying that my feet would fail me.
I really needed my feet the night I appeared at the Maracanã Stadium in Brazil in 1988. Incredibly, over 180,000 people showed up for my Break Every Rule concert. I had often fantasized about what it would be like to entertain a really big audience, but I never imagined an audience that big, as in “Guinness World Record for number of concert tickets sold by a solo performer” big. I couldn’t really see individuals—the crowd was massive and stretched back into darkness—but I’m told that there were more women than men, and fans of all ages, from teens to grandparents. They were so happy and excited to be there. The one thing I didn’t foresee was how much work it would be to sing and dance in front of that number of people. I never asked Mick, and I probably should have, “How do you perform for such an enormous audience?” You feel like you need to be everywhere on the stage simultaneously, running back and forth to make sure that you get to everyone. That night, I moved around so much in the record-breaking heat and humidity that I probably lost six pounds just by sweating, and that was while I was wearing a succession of miniskirts.
Later, I discovered that there’s an art to entertaining tens of thousands of people. I learned to alternate my position on the stage: I’d sing a certain song facing one side of the arena, move to the middle for the next song, and then switch to the other side for the next. I worked different parts of the house at different times, making sure that everyone got to see something aimed at them by the end of the show. That’s why I started using screens. I know some singers don’t care for them because they believe a concert should be a real-life experience. But how do you have an impact on fans in a large stadium, when they could be sitting almost a mile away from the stage? I think about those people way out there. I want them to see what I’m doing—my facial expressions when I’m singing, and the details of my choreography—so they can experience my performance just like the fans in the front rows, and leave with the feeling that they have seen something spectacular.
My wildest dream was to have this kind of success—to pack a stadium, to walk out on a stage and look at the crowd, knowing that they came to see me. What a wonderful turn my life had taken. After so much unhappiness, after thinking that love of any kind would never be a part of my story, love was all around me. I enjoyed the warm embrace of my audience at every concert; I had a wonderful relationship with Erwin; and, after the publication of my autobiography, I, Tina, in 1986 (and the subsequent film adaptation, What’s Love Got to Do with It, in 1993), I was overwhelmed by love, support, and gratitude from women—and men—who heard my story and were inspired by it.
I could not have been more surprised. For years, I was reluctant to talk about my experiences with Ike for obvious, and sometimes less obvious, reasons. I was so embarrassed when people heard the horrible details. I didn’t want an ugly life, and I got myself trapped into one. Then I had to talk about it, and talk about it, and talk about it. I couldn’t begin to answer the questions people asked once they knew what had happened between us. They were so personal. “Why did you stay? Why did you leave? Why didn’t you say anything at the time? Can you show me your scars?” I couldn’t explain it to myself, how could I make anyone else understand? It was all so complicated that it took decades for me to move beyond the pain and confusion.
I found the subject so upsetting that I could never bring myself to watch What’s Love Got to Do with It. And when I did see a few clips on television, I wasn’t happy with some of the choices the filmmakers made—for example, the way they dressed us was very “zoot suit,” and by that I mean exaggerated, even tasteless. They got the house wrong, too, although they filmed in the actual house where we lived. Somehow, they made us seem like a different kind of people. Creative differences aside, I didn’t want to spend two hours reliving the nightmare I’d spent years trying so hard to forget.
Whatever I felt about Ike and our past, and as much as I wanted to put it behind me, I was moved that my sad story had the power to help others. Oprah, who has interviewed me many times, had a habit of asking me the same tough question: “Do you remember the first time Ike hit you?” Sensing that I was tired of reliving these memories, she said privately, “Tina, you know why I keep asking.” Oprah saw a higher purpose in our discussion. She helped me understand how important it was for me to keep talking, that I was offering a lesson. It was an opportunity to reach out to abused women and bring the difficult subject into the light. If they heard me talking honestly about my experiences, they might find the courage to do something about their own situations.
I’m told over and over again by fans, those who approach me in person, others who write very emotional letters, that some aspect of my story—my escape from Ike, my determination to survive on my own, my dedication, my resilience, and yes, my optimism—actually did help them. Whenever we were on tour, Roger and I couldn’t walk through an airport without being stopped by someone who wanted to share a story with me. Usually, I was approached by women, but I remember a man yelling, “Tina Turner—I saw your movie and I will never beat my wife again,” a disturbing message, but a positive one in the end.
Oprah sat next to a woman at one of my Wildest Dreams concerts who confided, “I came because I was looking for the courage to leave the man who beats me. Tonight, I found that courage.” Oprah told me, “You don’t just dance and sing. You represent possibility. When people see you performing, they know you’ve come up from the depths of despair. It means that however down a woman is, she can be like you.”
David Bowie used to call me a “phoenix rising from the ashes.” I know it sounds corny, but when he said it, it was pure poetry, and his words truly expressed the feelings I had inside. For anyone who’s in an abusive relationship, I say this: nothing can be worse than where you are now. If you get up and leave, if you rise from the ashes, life will open up for you. But you have to do it your way. You know, I’ve lived my life the only way I knew how, and good has come of it. I never imagined having an impact on anyone else, but I’m happy that a life such as mine can be an inspiration to others.
9
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“TOTAL CONTROL”
“I would sell my soul for total control”
Peter Lindbergh, who is a truly great photographer, took one of my favorite pictures when we were shooting the cover of my 1989 Foreign Affair album in Paris. We were on the Eiffel Tower, and Peter asked if I would mind posing closer to the edge. I can do better than that, I thought. After all, I was the little girl who liked to climb trees. I still liked adventure, and I loved making anything—even a photograph—more exciting for the people. Why stand still on the Eiffel Tower when I could climb?
I was wearing a short dress designed by the late Azzedine Alaïa, who was a dear friend of mine. I loved his clothes—you become very French as soon as you put them on. When I proposed doing something a little extreme, I think I made Peter a bit nervous—he looked at my high-heeled feet and said, “With the shoes?” As for Roger, he was ready to have a heart attack. “Don’t do it in case you fall, the insurance will never cover it,” he managed to spit out as quickly as he could, hoping to stop me. But I ignored him and scrambled up the side. I planted my weight on my heels, held on with one arm, tossed my hair, and arched my back, with the glorious City of Lights in the background. That’s how I wanted to live my life, with Europe at my feet. With every passing year, I felt increasingly at home in the Old World, and I knew I wanted to make it my new world.
There were many reasons why I was considering a permanent move to Europe. For one thing (and this may have been subliminal), I felt safe abroa
d because there was no chance of running into Ike, or seeing reminders of our life together. When I was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, at a ceremony at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, someone handed me a program to sign and I was shocked to see Ike’s signature on it—then I looked across the room and there he was. We didn’t come face-to-face that day, or any other day, as it turns out, but our near encounter reminded me how nice it was to be in a place where I didn’t have to worry about him coming around every corner. I could forget about him in a foreign country.
As my career unfolded, I also felt that I was experiencing my greatest success abroad. The energy was different in America, where everything was about getting a hit record. Yet some records were held back because they were considered too black to be white, or too white to be black, or something silly like that. There seemed to be less discrimination in Europe. My audience there was growing fast, my fans were extremely loyal, and there were so many artists, writers, and producers who wanted to work with me.
But, if I’m being completely honest, I’ll say that falling in love with a wonderful European man was the best reason of all to move there. Eventually, it made sense for me to move to Germany, so Erwin and I could have a real home together. Cologne already felt like home because I had spent so much time there with Erwin. In 1990, we found a stately brick house and did a major renovation that took several months to complete. And, because a house in one beautiful European city is never enough—a crazy concept for someone who was usually on the road—I also fell in love with a villa in the South of France. A psychic once told me that I would get a house surrounded by flowers, and that turned out to be my house high atop the mountains overlooking Nice. I called it “Anna Fleur” because of the flowers and as a sweet reminder of my real name, Anna. My passion for decorating peaked in this classic villa, where my imagination went wild. I combined museum-quality Louis Philippe–period pieces with furniture that was Art Deco, contemporary French, and anything else that spoke to me—and somehow, as I’d known it would, it all worked! I set aside a special room for meditation on the second floor, and that’s where I began most days. I spent several years turning the house into the refuge of my dreams.