My Love Story

by Tina Turner

  Mike Wallace came to “Anna Fleur” to interview me for the show 60 Minutes. We had such a good time together, talking candidly and walking through the house and gardens. At one point, he looked around and asked if I thought I deserved all this luxury. “I deserve more,” I answered without hesitation. I’d been working for almost forty years, and I’d earned every dollar the hard way. Whether I was enjoying the emotional satisfaction of being with the man I loved, or the bounty that came with career success, I was both appreciative and proud of what I had accomplished. And I knew I deserved it.

  My friends Bono and Edge of U2 had homes in the nearby town of Eze-sur-Mer, just outside of Nice. One night, I was invited over for dinner, and as I was walking up the driveway I heard an unmistakable voice commenting on my unmistakable voice—it was Jack Nicholson drawling, “I hear you coming.” Even though we had both starred in the movie Tommy, we never shot at the same time, so this was our first meeting. We spent the whole evening talking, trading stories about our experiences—my singing, his acting, our feelings about performing. At some point, Bono and The Edge mentioned that they were writing the theme song for the new James Bond movie, GoldenEye, and they wanted me to sing it.

  I was thrilled . . . until I heard Bono’s demo, which was strange little snippets of music that didn’t add up to a real melody. What is this? I thought. I didn’t even know what key to sing it in. Bono said that after he sent it, he realized it was really bad, so we could laugh about that. But I told myself to just step into the shoes and learn it. I absorbed it and sang it the way I would do it, and even Bono was impressed. I think we recorded it in two or three takes. After that, I actually liked the way “GoldenEye” transformed my singing. I had never done a song like that, and it really gave me a chance to be creative in terms of taking these rough fragments and turning them into a smooth and expressive song that worked for the movie and became a real showstopper whenever I performed it on tour.

  The “GoldenEye” music video was pure glamour. My hair was swept up in my version of a classic chignon. I wore a form-fitting, off-the-shoulder white evening gown with a graceful slit that framed my legs whenever I moved. And for the final touch—I added long, glittering diamond earrings. The look was a wonderful combination of retro Shirley Bassey “Goldfinger” and modern Bond, and I think the song worked beautifully with this striking visual.

  While I was happy in the many places Erwin and I called home during our first decade together, I experienced a new level of contentment when, in 1995, destiny brought us to Switzerland. I say “destiny,” but the reason behind our move was more prosaic than poetic. Erwin was asked to move to Zurich to run EMI’s office there, and like a good Frau, I was accompanying my partner to his new location. We rented a house while we looked at real estate, and then one day, we drove through the gates of the Château Algonquin. I got out of the car, looked up, and felt chills all over my body, the same feeling that overwhelmed me when I met Erwin. This time, I experienced love at first sight with a house—my dream house. The old-fashioned villa, located on Lake Zurich, suffered from neglect and was in bad shape, but I could see that its flaws were cosmetic. I knew instantly what I would do to make it beautiful, and I couldn’t wait to get started. “I lived the first half of my life in America. The second half I’ll live in Europe,” I told Harper’s Bazaar. Finally, I was home.

  What did I like about Switzerland? Everything! Switzerland is not Tennessee, but I’m always reminded of the landscapes I enjoyed when I was growing up, especially when I see the farms and meadows in the Swiss countryside. I love exploring the cities, with their beautifully maintained historic buildings. And everywhere I go, I’m struck by how clean the country is. The air is so fresh that the simple act of breathing feels like drinking a cold, clear glass of water.

  I also like the way the seasons change—each one is distinct. The trees lose their leaves, then they come back the following year. It sounds simple—I took it for granted when I was a child. But we’ve lost that sense of nature’s rhythm in so many parts of the world. Here, there’s a real winter—cold, crisp, and picturesque, with storybook snow. We have an old-fashioned ice-skating rink in our town that looks like a scene on a picture postcard.

  Switzerland is famous for its scenery, but the country has other attributes that appeal to me. I like the government here—in Switzerland, a law is a law. “No Speeding” means exactly that. Break the law by driving too fast, and your license will be taken away. Rules are not ambiguous, so you always know where you stand. Oh, and everyone in Switzerland is punctual, which is something I had to work at in the beginning. When I first moved here, and arrived “fashionably late” at a function, someone gently chided me for being tardy, saying that I couldn’t be late just because I was a celebrity. I didn’t need to be told twice.

  In this country, courtesy always comes first. At the supermarket, the gas station, everywhere, before any business can be conducted, people are expected to greet each other with a pleasant “Good morning,” or a “Good afternoon”—to connect, human being to human being. In America, we tend to be in a hurry, so we often forget about the little niceties, or dismiss them as being superficial. Once, when I heard the doorbell ring, I shouted to Erwin without thinking, “Answer the door!” He was so offended. I should have said, “Darling, would you please answer the door?” Which is exactly how I would say it the next time the bell rang. Being polite and considerate, in speech and in actions, really improves the quality of life for everyone.

  Lucky for me, the Swiss have a long-standing tradition of welcoming foreigners. Erwin and I have made wonderful friends over the years, and there is nothing “show business” about our circle, or any other aspect of our life at the Château Algonquin. The bottom line is that I have always felt comfortable, safe, and happy in Switzerland.

  By the late 1990s, it made sense to bring my family, meaning my sons, my mother, and my sister, to Europe whenever we wanted to spend time together. But these reunions were not always easy. No matter how old and experienced we are, or how confident and successful we may become, there’s always a part of us that wonders, What does my mother think of me? I could pretend in my matter-of-fact way that I wasn’t bothered by my mother’s abandonment when I was young, or that I wasn’t frustrated by her denial of my talent when I was with Ike, but her indifference hurt. I didn’t let it affect my behavior toward her, that was never my nature. Still, I knew who she was and what her limitations were. I went through my life with the knowledge that she didn’t love me the way a mother is supposed to love her child.

  When Ike entered our lives, Muh viewed him as the sun, the moon, and the stars. In her mind, he was the celebrity, the mastermind behind whatever money we made, or success we achieved. She just couldn’t see his faults, even when his bad behavior was taking place right before her eyes. She certainly didn’t think that I was the source of any of our good fortune. According to her, I should have been grateful that Ike kept me around. When I tried to run away, Muh was the one who helped Ike find me. She always took his side. After all, he owned the house where she lived, so that bought him her loyalty. Muh even maintained her relationship with Ike after we divorced. She still called him her son-in-law. I didn’t want to hear any of the details, but I knew they stayed in touch.

  Muh was “Team Ike” until my success was too big for her to ignore. Then, she really went on that Tina Turner trip because, more than anything, she loved being the mother of a celebrity. If we went out together, she had to sit at the front table so everyone could see she was with Tina. I wished she had expressed that kind of love for Anna Mae.

  She was my mother, and I had the means to take care of her, so I did. Over the years, I moved her from St. Louis to California, where I bought her a house. She didn’t like it, so I bought her another and filled it with furniture. She wanted to work, so I arranged a little job at a beauty salon, where she could interact with people. I listened to her endless complaints. When I visited her in Los Angeles, I scrubbed her
kitchen if it was dirty. I fixed whatever mistakes she made, and some of them were whoppers—like the time she blew out the entire air-conditioning system in the new house I had just purchased for her. I brought her to my homes in England, France, and Switzerland to show her my world, and invited her to enjoy my success.

  None of it mattered to Muh. Somehow, she still doubted that I was capable of accomplishing anything. When Erwin came into my life, she decided that he must be the one responsible for the beautiful décor of our homes, which showed how little she knew about me or him. I don’t know how Erwin kept a straight face when he calmly tried to explain to her that “Tina is the interior decorator.” As if Erwin would dream of decorating anything!

  Hostilities mounted one time when Muh and my sister Alline came to visit us in the South of France. At this point Muh was ill. She was a difficult patient and had been through at least twenty nurses. Now she wanted Alline to take care of her all the time, but she wasn’t very nice to her, and I felt sorry for my sister. There was always something that compelled Muh to complain, or to pick a fight. I desperately wanted peace for all of us. I wanted to get up in the morning, enjoy the beautiful view of the Mediterranean, and be happy. I suggested to Muh that she should stop creating such havoc in the family. “You read the Bible and you say it’s supposed to help you, but it’s not helping if you’re fighting with Alline all the time,” I told her.

  Well, that’s all I had to say. She was ready to come back at me twice as hard, but this time, I decided to take control of our broken mother-daughter situation, once and for all. “Muh,” I said firmly, “there’s no room for argument. Either you make peace with Alline, and change your attitude, or I will arrange for someone to take you home to California. You can’t stay here like this.” Somehow, my words got through to her. She understood that I meant what I said, and realized that she had to straighten up and fly right, or else. After that, there were no more complaints.

  My mother passed away in 1999.

  I was deeply affected by her death, in part because I mourned the relationship we should have had with each other but never did. I thought about it, and chose not to go to her church service, because I believed my mother should be the center of attention that day. My decision generated some nasty press about how full of myself I must have been to skip my mother’s service. Of course, that wasn’t the case. I didn’t want the occasion to be all about me, with photographers and fans giving me all the attention and ignoring Muh.

  I can’t say the same about Ike. My sister told me that he came to the house and offered to drive my family to the church, but Alline told him they already had a ride. It bothered me that he was named in one of the memorials as Muh’s “cherished son-in-law.” His presence that day generated the worst kind of “Ike and Tina” tabloid headlines, the ones I had hoped to avoid.

  Shortly after the service, I quietly flew in for a private funeral. My mother was cremated, and I arranged for the whole family to gather on a boat to spread her ashes to the sea off the coast of California. Needless to say, Ike was not invited.

  My mother and grandmother are often in my thoughts. One day, when I was in a reading with a psychic, I felt their presence intensely. The psychic announced that there were spirits with us—that she could hear my grandmother and mother communicating (arguing, more likely) and that Mama Georgie was telling Muh, “You know you didn’t treat Ann right.” Trying to defend herself, my mother answered, “I tried.” “Well, you didn’t try hard enough,” my grandmother snapped back, refusing to let her get away with it. Even in the spirit world, and presumably for all of eternity, Mama Georgie wasn’t about to let Muh forget that she wasn’t a proper mother to me.

  Motherhood is difficult. We have certain expectations of how our parents should behave, and they often disappoint us because they’re only human. I know that my children would have benefited from having a mother and father who stayed home with them. But that’s not what happened. We were always on the road, and Ike’s demons—his blind ambition, his drug addiction, his rage and the violence that went with it—fostered a climate of fear and uncertainty that affected the boys when they were growing up. They saw my black eyes and heard our endless fighting. Ike’s children never reacted, but my oldest son, Craig, who was very sensitive and emotional, was very troubled by it. One day when Ike was lashing out at me, Craig knocked on the door and said, “Mother, are you all right?” My first thought was Oh, this can’t happen in the house. I didn’t want my children to hear or see what was going on. I knew it would make an impression on them, and it did. We were scarred in different ways by Ike’s behavior.

  I raised all four boys, and I wanted the best for them, but I was never a mushy mother hen type. As they got older, I told them, “I’m not going to take care of you. I want you to learn how to take care of yourselves.” I truly believed that encouraging them to be self-reliant would help them more in life than anything I could give them. They’ve had their share of troubles. I’ve spent the most time with Craig, who always seems sad when our visit is over, just as he was when he was a baby. Some feelings never leave you.

  Ronnie, who used to brag to the others that he was the only “real” one, the son of both Ike and Tina, has locked heads with me since he was a teenager. Like his father, he had a problem with drugs (these dependencies can be genetic), and played fast and loose with the law when he was younger. In his wild days, he was picked up by the police for having a number of unpaid parking tickets. They put him in a cell, and to his surprise, there was Ike, in the same cell, at the same time. What are the odds of that? Ike immediately saw it as an opportunity—he had Ronnie doing his chores, making his bed and cleaning up. Fortunately, Ronnie saw the experience as a wake-up call. If he didn’t want to end up like his father—and he claimed that he didn’t—he had to get a grip on his life. He’s a musician, so he has the burden of working in the shadow of two famous parents.

  Ike Jr. and Michael drifted away from me after the divorce. I won’t try to tell their stories for them. But I will say that I never wanted the boys to depend on me financially, because I knew that kind of help would make them weak. “I’m not the Valley Bank,” I used to joke. They have to use their own arms and legs to support themselves, just as I used mine.

  In 2000, after enjoying a few years off from my intense performing schedule, I decided to go back on the road with the Twenty Four Seven Millennium tour. I truly envisioned this tour as being my last—a sprint through Europe and North America with a show that would give my audiences everything they’d ever wanted. My feeling was that, after forty-four years of performing, it was probably time to retire and let people remember me at my best. I was happy to do it one more time, and I was determined to make it a show to remember.

  When I had started playing arenas, my shows got bigger, more conceptual, and benefited from very imaginative staging. Even though I had said I wanted to be an actress, I stopped feeling the pull to perform on screen because I felt as if I were in a movie every time I stepped out on the stage. Each show was a play, an act, a small (or not so small) movie, so to speak, with a cast (me, my dancers, and the band), an enormous crew, and stunning sets. Mark Fisher, the architectural genius who designed sets for everyone from Pink Floyd to the Rolling Stones, U2, and Lady Gaga, outdid himself with a massive production that offered breathtaking special effects.

  The big stunner—and the feature that almost sent Roger to an early grave during every show—was the “Claw,” a sixty- to eighty-foot, cantilevered arm that carried me out over the audience. I danced across the narrow platform on my heels—sometimes pretending to slip just a little to make Roger nervous—and I hung over the railing to get closer to the people—so close that I could see their faces, actually look into their eyes, and they could see me. I loved that moment of connection and togetherness.

  The Twenty Four Seven tour was very demanding and left me longing for an extended break—maybe a permanent one. I’ve never been one of those people who can’t relax. My wo
rk is noisy, but I’m someone who enjoys being quiet. How did I spend my time when I wasn’t working? I didn’t need to listen to music. I liked to read, meditate, talk to Erwin, and indulge my guiltiest of guilty pleasures by watching scary movies, the scarier the better. My years of performing shaped my daily routine in such a way that I became a confirmed night owl. To this day, Erwin and I stay up until the wee hours of the morning and then get up late. There’s a large metal sign posted at the entrance of the Château Algonquin that says, “No deliveries before noon.”

  When we’re not busy at home, one of our favorite activities is driving to our little house in the country. There’s a wonderful expression for the remote part of the world where the house is located. They call it “wo sich Fuchs und Hase gute Nacht sagen,” which means, “where the fox and the rabbit say good night.” Otherwise known as nowhere! We like it that way. Nowhere to be, nothing to do.

  When we go to the country, the car is our confessional. I strongly recommend this form of travel therapy to all couples. While we drive, with Erwin at the wheel and me riding shotgun, we talk about everything. Whatever the subject, we lay it out openly, we don’t color it, and nothing is off-limits. As Erwin likes to say, “There are no secrets in the cockpit.” We learned this from the Dalai Lama. Not the car part . . . but the idea that confrontation is positive. “One thing,” he said, “always do confrontation. When you hold something in, it works against you in the long run.” Once Erwin heard that, he started to open up. Our conversations can get a little heated, and sometimes it takes time for me to cool off—I’m emotional that way. But, no matter what, we talk it through. We know there has to be compromise in a relationship, and we live by that. In a funny twist, my experiences in a bad relationship with Ike have helped me to appreciate—and maintain—my good relationship with Erwin.