Tina Turner

Born in Nutbush, Tennessee in 1939 and dead in 2023, Tina Turner spent a career being called the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll and earning it, breaking racial and gender barriers in a form that had not made much room for her, with estimated sales north of 100 million records. She began in the Ike and Tina Turner Revue and built the solo run that most people know her for afterwards, with Private Dancer arriving in 1984.

Her screen work is small and shrewdly chosen. Two roles matter, and both were written around the stage presence rather than asking her to hide it: The Acid Queen in Tommy, and Aunty Entity in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, where she runs Bartertown in chainmail and holds her own opposite Mel Gibson without appearing to try. Last Action Hero gave her a quick turn as The Mayor. That is essentially the acting career, and it is a better hit rate than most singers manage.

Everything else on the record is Turner as herself, which turns out to be a long and unusually complete document. The appearances run from a 1964 spot on Shindig! through Gimme Shelter, the German music show Musikladen, Live Aid, the Kennedy Center Honors and, much later, the documentary TINA. Archive footage of her carries chunks of Moonage Daydream and The Greatest Night in Pop.

The Grammys on her record include Album of the Year, Record of the Year and repeated wins for female rock vocal performance, a category she took more than once.