Tina Turner
her least nostalgic interview, ever
"How would you like to spend the afternoon talking about everything except you-know-who?" I asked the smashing-looking lady seated demurely on the sofa opposite me. "I don't believe you," Tina Turner replied swiftly. I couldn't blame her. She'd just finished obliging a New York Daily News reporter by dredging up, for the god-knows-how-manyeth time, how her former husband had allegedly hired a hit man and taken out a contract on her. "You'd think I'd done nothing else in my life. Good God, I thought when I wrote the book (I, Tina, co-authored by Kurt Loder), it would be over and done. I thought with the movie Well, there you have it. I mean, what more can I say? I'm over this." How would you like it, if you were enjoying an un-paralleled career renaissance and were one of the few people ever immortalized by a film biography while still in their prime? You've sold out concert halls all over the globe and, at fifty-three, are in the midst of a four-month world tour? You look beyond divine, you sing as good as you look, your life is everywhere you want it to be, but all anyone wants to talk to you about is a man you haven't said "good morning" to in almost two decades?
Tina Turner has consistently endured this dreary line
of questioning with poise that would shame Alessandra Ferii. Publicity
comes with the territory, so she doesn't balk at the endless line of
inquisitors stuck in Joe Franklin mode. But you can see the lady is hungry
for fun: she's curious to see if this offer to break the drone is on the
level. "What are we going to talk about?" she
asks, with polite challenge. "The present," I reply. "What
you do all day. What you wear. How you live. The future. What you want.
What you can do without. Why you still bother with all this. We've read
about the saga enough already." "I like this,"
she said, now smiling coquettishly. "Cause I still have a lot
I want to say." So pay attention, because you can bet your
only Dynel Proud Mary-like wig that the next time you read about her, some
fool with a byline is going to have her rolling on the river again,
backward. What they don't acknowledge is that Tina doesn't have to fight
no more. She's won.
HR: In writing about Shakespeare's Antony & Cleopatra, Camille Paglia says no one today is fit to play the Queen of the Nile 'except Tina Turner…. In the video of "What's Love Got to Do with It' Tina Turner is Shakespeare's 'tawny' Cleopatra in all her moods, regal, raffish, masculine, maternal, strolling among her people in the city streets. Cleopatra's fiery sexual expressionism is Shakespeare's reply to the cool introversion of Spenser's chaste heroines. Cleopatra is Amazon and mother but also chatterbox."
TT: Whaaaaa! How wonderful that some-body feels that from me!
HR: Meanwhile, look at you-just too cool and calm in your Dries (Van Noten) and Armani. Can you reconcile her claim that you're super-Everywom-an/earth mother with the way you feel right now?
TT: I think what she is talking about is a positive force. I do have that. I strive to. Almost like a calming effect. I was asked on Letterman about the exciting things that go on in my life. Well, excitement is what I project onstage. That is the exciting things going on in my life. But offstage, you'd probably think I was boring, because I don't live that life I'm projecting. I have a presence about me that prompts people to yell across the street to get my attention, but when they approach me, they qui-et themselves, because-I don't know what I do, but I do something, something innate within me, more like a vibration than a look.
HR: When did you become aware of this?
TT: Onstage. Whenever I feel someone's about to get wild, I look toward them a certain way and something happens, like a shield put up that says no, no.
HR: Does the lady we scream for disappear with the fellow spot?
TT: I never dress offstage how I look onstage, be-cause it's not the same person. Onstage I'm Tina Turner. But offstage I love elegance. Onstage, I don't want to be elegant. I like being raw. I mean, I want everything in place, and I want to look good, but the personality presented onstage is about being naughty and having power. That doesn't go with being elegant.
HR: Then what about an elegant Tina Turner al-bum, all smoky and polished? Is it something you have thought about?
TT: Don't get me wrong: when I hear that kind of music, when I listen to opera singers standing there, singing lovely, the fantasy of doing it as an actress seems fine, but the reality of doing it in my work is not, because I can't stand still! I certainly can't stand still and be pretty at the same time. Shirley Bassey has come as close to standing still and doing what I would do if I did it. It is all in her eyes and her hand. I don't know. Maybe when I am older I -could make those little moves. But I want big moves now. I still got a wild streak
HR: Did you ever think you could still be expending
such energy at this point in your life?
TT: When my grandparents were fifty-four, they looked old because the fashion was old. There were no cool hairstyles or great wigs, or making magic with makeup. There was just lipstick and powder.
HR: But longevity doesn't come from cosmetics and hairpiece.
TT: I never thought about being a singer, because it was something that was always available. I day- dreamed about being an actress, probably because it was forbidden. What I wanted most was to get me that glamour I saw up the screen, the whole Loretta Young thing, any way I could get it. I remember people coming back to Tennessee all dressed up, or when my mother came back from the city-oh I was dying for the city. It didn't matter where the city was, it was just the city. I always knew l'd get glamorous. I also envisioned myself married, with house, but not the apron and the house shoes on the feet and the rag-on-the-head bit. No matter what I was going to get, I was going to get it with style.
HR: Is style still a conscious goal?
TT: The desire for style has always been there. In fact, I believe that when I become an actress, I will reach my peak of perfection of style. Somehow, for me, acting has class.
HR: But you've had acting offers. Lots. When are you going to get started?
TT: They give me drug-bust parts, female police officers. I'm not interested in busting drugs. Actually, I think those movies promote the idea that you can sit back and be lazy, sell drugs, and get rich. I don't want to be a part of that. If I do anything, want to do the period type of stuff that Schwarzenegger did with Conan. More Mad Max, energetic warrior-woman stuff.
HR: What about domestic dramas, warm, heartfelt drama?
TT: No. No. No! I want to swing on limbs and vines. I know you think I'm crazy. But I'm not going to do someone's mother, or someone's…. Sydney Poitier's office calls: "He's doing a movie and they want you to be in it. In jail." Oh, that sounds good, I thought. A really tough woman in jail. Guess what they wanted me doing? Janet Jackson was supposed to be imprisoned, and I was to be the type who teaches her the goodness of life. Mother Teresa in stripes. Nooooooo! I'm not ready for it.
HR: Diahann Carroll in Claudine has no appeal to you?
TT: That is not what I want to do.I want a vibe. I want oppositions. I want fun. Anyone can be a wife and a mother, that's real easy. And if I go to prison, I want to do something there, like the guys. I'm masculine when it comes to that. Thelma and Louise. Perfect. That would have been a perfect part for me. Me and Cher, or me and Bette. All I need is one good movie, a chance to raise hell up there somehow, and when it comes, I'll just do it and go.
HR: Are you doing anything to prepare for its arrival?
TT: These days I've adopted a more naturalistic approach to the way I live, a change in food, and I've started to use homeopathic medicines and herbs. My health, my skin color, everything has changed. If I did it really properly, I'd be in tiptop shape, but I still do like my coffee and champagne.
HR: Some homeopaths think coffee is worse than cigarettes.
TT: I know. But I don't believe what's good or bad for one person is the same for the other.
HR: Next you're going to justify chocolate.
TT: I love chocolate. But just a taste, to remember, because once you start eating and living better, your taste buds change. Look, I know, from seeing what coffee does to the bottom of the coffeepot, what it must do to the inside of you, but…. [Someone comes in with candy.] Look. Chocolates! [We lunge for the goodies.]
HR: chewing Do you exercise?
TT: I've been running and dancing and singing and sweating onstage for so long now, my body's be-come a machine.
HR: Do you ever wish you could hang up a GONE FISNIN' sign?
TT: Yeah, on the last tour. I tell you, I would hit that stage sooo tired. My biorhythms were off; I didn't want to go on that tour. It was the biggest tour I've ever had. Roger [Davies, her manager] was right, though I still don't say I was wrong: it brought a lot of financial security.
HR: Was that the only reason you went?
TT: No. My audience was calling. The album [Foreign Affair] was huge in Europe. We played to 3,500,000 people, and that had been my wish-to play to that many people. So if I hadn't gone out, I never would have experienced something I'd waited all my life for. But every time I hit that stage I was hurting. This time I'm sort of up for it, because there's a dif-ferent energy coming from me and the people who want me to do it. And my age has never stopped me. At fifty-three, nothing bad is showing up.
HR: But do you want to do this at sixty?
TT: I don't know. People associate stillness with retirement, with emptiness.
HR: Do you?
TT: I love stillness, the privacy. I love the stillness when I garden. It's a wonderful feeling of familiarity, tending to something that alive that's older than we even know. Nature is incredible. Loving. And all about order. That's when Tina goes on hold, no singing allowed. Then it's Anna Mae, the person who tidies up and makes things right.
HR: Are you compulsively neat?
TT: Oh, I'm scary. I could call home now for some-thing and say where it is and in what drawer, and what side of the drawer. I've always been that way. All my clothes dum, dum, dum, dum, lined up, all the right hangers, in coordinated colors, be-cause I don't want a silver one mixed with a brown one. Now, you know that's crazy.
HR: You make me less embarrassed to admit my closet is identical: shirts going from white to pale blue to beige to brown to yellow to red to black.
TT: Then you know that's really nuts. Don't you hate when someone puts something back in the wrong place?
HR: Especially because it means they've borrowed from you.
TT: I know. I can't stand it. No. No. No. No.
HR: Accidentally hit me or burn my leg and It's O.K., my body will repair itself. But rip my shirt and you're over.
TT: I love my clothes. Someone designed these clothes. They're art. They should not be abused. Hang them on the wrong hanger? Ugh. Ugh. You'd love my closet, my personal dressing room-shoe racks of cedar, shoes going gradually according to how I wear them: beach, daytime, sport, and the to-tally evening ones separate, over there. I've filled the closet with photographs by Horst, because it gets me going. Yes it does. You start feeling tired and get a glimpse of one of those girls, and ip-up, you get moving. And I have mirrors all over the pIace. I like to catch glimpses all the time, just to be sure.
HR: Do you start redecorating when you go into a hotel?
TT: You know it, don't you? First thing, call securi-ty: will you help me change this? Call housekeeping: can you remove this? I went to this posh hotel in London and immediately looked under this table-cloth and found out the table wasn't real. I was so disappointed. And the problem with renting houses is they're strict about moving their art, and I tell you, sometimes I can't take that art, so I put it away, carefully.
HR: Was your mom so finicky?
TT: No. No one in my family. I know I get people crazy sometimes. As soon as people finish eating in my house, I get that Dustbuster out and vrooooommm. That's why I don't like a lot of peo-ple around me. I like to mess up to a point, be-cause I know it can be cleaned. Sometimes, I go into my boyfriend's closets and totally do them over. He hates it. But I know what I'm doing. Some things about men I can excuse, but ugh, all those executive suits. If you want to wear them to work, fine, but when I go out with you, I want some Armani suits, I want some great jackets. He's learned, but it took awhile, because he's not one you can tell a lot to. He has to find it on his own. He's afraid of fashion, like almost every man. Afraid that everyone is going to judge him.
HR: Women dress to look beautiful, and men dress not to make a mistake.
TT: Perfect. I love it. But Erwin is coming around. People are starting to say nice things to him. Now, he'll call me from a shop and say, " I am about to buy this jacket." And I say, "O.K., what color is it?" Men and mixing colors is just the worst. They know nothing. God. Jesus Christ. I know I can't just walk into a guy's life and tell him he dresses awful-you got to swallow it sometimes. Erwin didn't have horrible taste. But sometimes, what he'd mix. Whoa.
HR: What won't you excuse in men?
TT: Bad manners. Now, this is not about my boyfriend. I hate bad manners. Do I have to spell it out?
HR: Yes.
TT: We all know when a mouth starts to taste bad, when it's not fresh inside, so how can you walk around with breath like that? I also don't like chewing gum in public, that gnawing. Collections in the corners of the eyes or mouth. Bad hygiene. I hate when people show off in a restaurant, or try to get attention in any room. Profanity is totally out. And jewelry. I don't mean a bracelet or a watch; I mean diamonds and jewels, things that sparkle. Big gold chains. Dishes in the sink. I can't stand a dirty sink. If the stopper in the sink is full of gunk, it drives me nuts. Eating habits! Erwin has perfect eating habits, by the way. But that is the most inexcusable. And when men bring in any kind of unsettling energy into a house ... A house should be calming restful, contemplative.
HR: Describe a perfect day.
TT: I wake up slowly, very slowly, sliding my feet to the coldest part of the sheet, and alI that. And then I open the windows, get back in bed, and look out. Then I go downstairs slowly and open up my house. (sings) Hello. Welcome to my gorgeous house. Singing in my own way, whatever, because there's pride in opening up and looking around, and also noticing. Ugh, get rid of that. Then to my kitchen. By the way, a three-piece pajama suit goes with all this. I think it adds a kind of look to it all. In the privacy of my kitchen I can get sunlight that breaks into this beautiful haze on my wall. I like my kitchen quiet in the morning. I make my toast and cheese, or have a banana and toast, and sit very quietly in my kitchen, like on Saturday morning when there is no one in the house. And then I have my special coffee, the one I have to order from France. There's other coffee in the house marked house coffee, because you can't use my coffee. And then, based on how I'm feeling, I pick a coffee cup. You shouldn't have the same coffee cup every day, because you feel different each day. Sometimes I feel like blue-and-white crockery, sometimes some flowers on Spode, sometimes pure white. I have to stop people from putting out cups for me, because how do they know what cup I want in the morning? It's very personal. I know it's insane, but this is how I am. And then, when I am done with that, I do my meditations. Perfectly. Quietly. At peace. And happy.
HR: That's the most detailed answer I've ever had to that question. You must have a lot of perfect days these days.
TT: Yes. Lots