Tina Turner famously fled Ike’s abuse in Dallas, crossing I-30 on foot

Tina Turner, the eight-time Grammy Award-winning celebrity, who kicked the bucket on the age of 83, had a turning level in her existence this is now a part of her legend. It took place in Dallas, the site of the kickoff excursion for her and her abusive husband, Ike Turner. On July 3, 1976, the eve of the American Bicentennial, she waited till he fell asleep on the Statler Hilton Hotel on Commerce Street after which fled.

In her memoir, Turner disclosed that Ike had crushed her brutally on the best way from the airport into Dallas. Details of the altercation range, however a 2020 biography of Tina, Tumult! The Incredible Life and Music of Tina Turner, by way of Donald Brackett, states that the couple agreed that Ike have been on a five-day cocaine binge.

“I looked at [Ike] and thought, ‘You just beat me for the last time, you sucker,’” Tina recalled. She then donned sun shades to conceal her bruises and escaped with a couple of toiletries out of the again of the Statler. She headed to the Ramada Inn, now the Lorenzo Hotel, throughout Interstate 30. According to Brackett, she narrowly overlooked being hit by way of a truck in her haste.

Tina requested the lodge clerk for a room after telling him, “I’ve had a fight with my husband. Will you give me a room?” Fortunately, he complied, and Tina had a cultural milestone, her break out from Ike’s abuse, albeit with simply 36 cents and a Mobil fuel credit card to her title.

DeBerry, the Lorenzo’s managing director, says that the biopic What’s Love Got to Do with It depicts Tina’s break out from the Ramada Inn. He provides the lodge has a portrait of Tina in the foyer to commemorate her keep. Tina moved on to Los Angeles, the place she filed for divorce and left Ike with the majority in their possessions.

Ike and Tina had been married in Tijuana in 1962, and their partnership used to be one of the vital contentious in leisure historical past. The Broadway display Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, which can run from Jan. 23 to Feb. 4 in Dallas subsequent 12 months, will indubitably give her existence tale good enough consideration, and in keeping with Mike Richman, an govt with Broadway Dallas, the break out scene from Ike is a an important component in the efficiency.

Tina’s legacy in Texas extends to Fort Worth, the place she impressed the tune “Good Hearted Woman” by way of Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings. According to The World of Tina, Jennings and Nelson had been staying on the Fort Worther Motel and taking part in poker when Jennings noticed an advert in the paper selling Tina as a “good-hearted woman loving two-timing men,” a connection with Ike.

Jennings and Nelson wrote the lyrics to the tune whilst dictating them to Connie, Nelson’s spouse, throughout their poker sport. Nelson won part the royalties, despite the fact that he contributed simplest two strains. Jennings launched the tune because the identify monitor of his 1972 album. Tina carried out it on her 1975 album, Tina Turns the Country On.

CORRECTION, 10:50 p.m., May 24, 2023: An previous model of this tale mistakenly mentioned Tina Turner received seven Grammy Awards. She received 8.