Tina Turner

American entertainer Tina Turner first met her future husband-collaborator Ike Turner in 1959, when he was fronting a popular East St. Louis band called the Kings of Rhythm. From 1960 through 1975, the Ike and Tina Turner Revue toted 25 top-ten Rhythm and Blues hits, the most famous of which was that perennial wedding favorite, "Proud Mary." Turner broke loose from what had become an intolerable and abusive relationship in the mid-1970s, making an impressive solo movie debut as the ear-shattering Acid Queen in 1975's Tommy (five years earlier, she had been featured in the company of Ike in the Rolling Stones' concert documentary Gimme Shelter). As a non-singing film actress, Turner has thus far been confined to a showy villainous turn in 1985's Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Turner was portrayed (rather along Mother Teresa lines) by Angela Bassett in the 1993 biopic What's Love Got to Do With It?, which was based on Turner's own book (written with Kurt Loder) and which costarred Laurence Fishburne as Ike Turner.

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide