Tina Turner Page 3

  Anna found the atmosphere in “The Hole” fascinating. She recalls that, “It always seemed to me that there was sex in the air down there in ‘The Hole.’ It wasn’t far from the theater we went to” (4).

  Around 10 P.M. the movie would be over, and the kids would go back to retrieve the adults. Their parents however, were never quite ready to end their evening. Tina remembers being in “The Hole” when she was about nine years old. She would be dressed in her flat shoes and her little cotton dress. Although it was predominantly a black area of town, there would also be white people there, looking on in fascination at all the fun and the revelry that would be going on. Occasionally she would witness fights in the street or in the juke joints where her parents were.

  Anna Mae was fascinated by all of the women who would be dressed up for a Saturday night on the town. They wore exotic two-toned high-heeled shoes, tight skirts, and tailored suits. She would also see into the steamy windows of parked cars, where adults were clearly up to something sexual. She found “The Hole” to be both dangerous and wonderfully fascinating at the same time.

  She also looked forward to going to the movies. Even as a child in Tennessee, young Anna dreamed of one day growing up to have a show business career. Seeing films at the local theaters instilled her with a new set of daydreams. “When I was small, I wanted to act. I would go to the movies and come home and act them out for my parents,” she remembers (11).

  Zelma was later to recall of her daughter Anna that she would leave the movies singing the songs she had heard performed on the screen. According to her mother, Anna had a strong and clear singing voice even at that early age.

  Anna was asked to join the local church choir once word got around that she could really sing. Here was this skinny little girl with a strong and distinctive voice. She loved singing the songs, and whenever there was a really upbeat song, she occasionally sang the lead vocal part. At the age of nine or ten, she was already a headliner!

  As a child, she would also be called upon to help out in the fields at harvest time. The local farmers would hire all the children to pick cotton and strawberries when each of these crops were in season. Picking strawberries was a lot of fun, and you could eat them right off the plant. However, cotton was another story. According to Tina, “I hated the cotton because I didn’t like the spiders and the worms in it. I was very afraid of the—the insects. And I couldn’t ever really pack my sack like everybody else’s. I couldn’t get that much in it, so I wasn’t happy with my performance, actually, and I was really happy when it was over with. But there were other things that I did like, like picking strawberries and, like, the orchards” (12).

  Tina still remembers community picnics in the summer months, where there would be freshly baked fruit pies, hot barbecue, and lemonade. Often the music would be provided by local musical legends like Bootsy Whitelaw, who was a noted trombone player in the area.

  There were all kinds of things for a child to explore and to witness back then. It wasn’t long before Anna and Alline got quite a sex education by peeking through the slats of one of the sheds on the farm where they lived. They knew they were witnessing something excitingly taboo when they watched a teenage couple go at it one day. Anna wasn’t quite certain what they were doing, but it sure looked fascinating.

  In 1950, when Anna was just ten years old, something devastating happened. Her mother, fed up with her marriage, packed her things one day and left without saying goodbye. Richard came home one evening and Zelma simply wasn’t there any longer. She had moved to St. Louis, and she wasn’t coming back.

  Little Anna didn’t realize that she had loved her mother as much as she did until she was suddenly gone. She cried and cried after Zelma left the family. Anna was torn with mixed emotions. She loved her mother deeply, but at the same time she resented and hated her for leaving. Her feelings about her mother would be perpetually conflicted from this point forward. “I was so hurt. I cried and cried, but it didn’t do any good. It never does, you know,” says Tina (1). She cried for so long, and then finally one day she said to herself, “Damn you, mother” (4). No matter who came or went in her life, and no matter what they did, nothing could hurt as much as this. Already Anna knew deep in her heart that she was a true survivor.

  2

  TEENAGE ANN

  Determined to maintain his family of three daughters, Richard Bullock proceeded to get involved with a series of women whom he moved into their small house in Spring Hill. One of the first ones was a divorced woman from nearby Ripley named Essie Mae—whom he married. Her own daughter, Nettie Mae, accompanied her.

  Anna and Alline, and their half sister, Evelyn, almost instantly disliked the pair. In fact, they nicknamed Essie Mae “Frog,” and referred to Nettie Mae as “Pig.” Tina remembers “Frog’s” full hips and her mouthful of gold-capped teeth. She also recalls being green with envy at “Pig’s” extensive wardrobe.

  Upon “Frog’s” insistence, the family moved to nearby Scott’s Hill. They settled into a house next to the local cemetery. However, harmony in the Bullock household did not last. Richard and Essie Mae began to fight. On more than one occasion, they would physically get into it. One of their most dramatic battles ended with Essie Mae stabbing Richard Bullock in the groin with a knife.

  It wasn’t long before “Frog” and “Pig” packed up their things and left for good. At this point, Richard quit taking his daughters to church. This led to a series of babysitters and housekeepers. Among the women who cared for Anna and her sisters during this time were Miss Jonelle and Ella Vera, who was one of Richard’s brother’s mothers-in-law.

  Either people would come in and stay with Anna, Alline, and Evelyn, or they would go to the homes of these caregivers. At one point Miss Jonelle lived in the girls’ room with them. However, it wasn’t long before the fights and the arguments started between Richard and Miss Jonelle. Soon, Miss Jonelle also packed her bags and left.

  Her life was anything but happy. Still, Anna was able to maintain her own identity in this revolving cavalcade of caregivers and her father’s women. “If anyone took care of me, it was my sister,” she recalls (1).

  When she was thirteen years old, something embarrassing happened to Anna. Somehow, cousin Ella Vera got wind of the fact that Anna had not yet had her first menstrual period. Ella Vera was concerned that there was something wrong, and she went and told Richard. He then took Anna to a doctor to have an examination. Anna was horrified to be examined by the doctor, and not long afterwards, her first period did come. That was even more horrific to Anna. In her own teenage mind she blamed him for making this monthly nuisance a regular part of her life.

  However, that was nothing compared to what came next. Her father suddenly deserted the family and moved north to Detroit. Only three years after her mother had left, Anna, Evelyn, and Alline were made orphans—by desertion.

  “I couldn’t believe it,” Tina recalls. “There I was, thirteen years old, with no mother. And now my father was gone too” (1).

  They were shuffled off to live with cousin Ella Vera. Although Ella Vera was nice to them, Anna was not too thrilled with this new living situation. They were also looked after by a local woman named Florence Wright. Florence had been a beautician whom Richard had found to do Anna and Alline’s hair—prior to his leaving the family. Tina recalls of this phase of her life, “I was always shifted. I was always going from one relative to another. So I didn’t have any stability” (5).

  For a while, Richard sent some regular support money to cousin Ella Vera, but, before long, that stopped coming. Anna was very frustrated with her awkward life and the painful fact that she had been abandoned by both of her parents.

  To earn money, Anna landed a job of her own working for a white married couple named the Hendersons. This job brought a sense of belonging and continuity into her confused life. She also learned a lot of life lessons from working for Guy and Connie Henderson in their house. According to Tina, “I went to work for a white family a
s a maid. A lot of my training in being a woman—except for cooking—was from the Hendersons, because I was like their younger daughter. I learned how to take care of their baby, so, when I had mine, I knew everything” (11).

  Guy Henderson was the owner of a Chevrolet dealership franchise in Ripley, Tennessee, and his wife, Connie, had been a teacher prior to getting married and retiring. Their baby, David, was to become Anna’s charge while she worked for them. While she was in their employment, she learned how to clean and organize a house and every aspect of looking after a baby. From changing diapers to doing household laundry, Anna felt like a valuable member of their household, and they treated her as such. For the time being, she felt that she belonged somewhere.

  While living with the Hendersons, she also witnessed what a real family unit was like. It was a household where there were no physical fights, there were no threats of either of them having outside affairs, and there was a lot of outward love and affection that Guy and Connie expressed for each other. By just being themselves and caring about Anna, they opened up her eyes to the possibility of a whole different way of life. They showed her what a marriage could be like—an example completely different than what she had come to accept as normality. It made her long for a harmonious home life like the one they had. Living with the Hendersons gave Anna a sense of security and of being cared about.

  Still, living in the area that they grew up in, Anna, Evelyn, and Alline were in close proximity to their relatives, so even though they had been deserted by their own mother and father, a sense of family remained. By 1954 there were many new changes in fourteen-year-old Anna’s world. Papa Alex had died, leaving Mama Roxanna a widow. And Uncle Gill had been released from jail—having served his sentence for shooting and killing his rival. Mama Roxanna now lived with Uncle Gill, who had since married.

  Anna’s half sister, Evelyn, found herself pregnant by a local well-to-do high school boy. When he proposed that they get married, Evelyn turned him down. She was in love with another boy and wanted nothing to do with the father of her child. Instead, she had her baby, whom she named Dianne Curry, and she and the baby lived with Mama Georgie and Uncle Gill.

  Evelyn and cousin Margaret had become very close friends. In fact, Mama Georgie made certain that the two girls were constantly in each other’s company, so they wouldn’t get into too much trouble. Anna would see them every Saturday in Ripley, and she looked forward to their visits.

  Being a a few years older than the other girls, Evelyn was a bit cool and aloof toward Anna. She gave off the air that she would rather hang out with young adults than be with the younger girls. But Margaret always gladly accompanied her, and Anna just loved her cousin. In fact, she would spend the whole week looking forward to her time with Margaret.

  In many ways, Margaret became like a surrogate mother to Anna. She would talk to her young cousin about life and the world. In fact, it was from Margaret that Anna learned the facts about love and about sex. Margaret would tell her about boys and kissing and who was sleeping with whom. Anna delighted in Margaret’s stories about their relatives and hearing all of the local gossip.

  That very year, Margaret too became pregnant by one of the local boys. She was very upset about this dilemma and was doing what she could to get her body to reject the baby that was growing inside her.

  Anna was the only person whom Margaret told about her dilemma. To this day, she remembers the last time she saw Margaret alive. It was this same visit in which she announced her pregnancy. Margaret had heard that drinking black pepper and hot water would cause the baby to abort itself, so she was consuming this awful concoction in a desperate attempt to reverse fate.

  After that visit, something very tragic happened to Margaret and Evelyn. Together with another cousin, Vela Evans, the girls had gotten a ride to a local basketball game with a man in his car. Unfortunately, the man had been drinking heavily, and his judgment behind the wheel was seriously impaired. When he changed lanes to pass a slow vehicle, he ran straight into an oncoming diesel truck. Both Margaret and Evelyn were instantly killed that night.

  Anna was at the Henderson’s house when the telephone rang with the awful news. When she heard the news she fainted. Until that moment, she had lived under the illusion that only white people were capable of fainting at the announcement of horrible things. She thought that black people just accepted tragedy and somehow soldiered through any hardships. That night she found out that anyone’s body could collapse with shock. When Anna heard that Margaret was dead, she could feel her legs just collapse from under her.

  Anna had been to Papa Alex’s funeral. She had seen him lying in his casket so peacefully, like he had gone off to some sort of deep and rewarding sleep. However, Margaret and Evelyn’s funeral presented a different, colder, and more horrific view of death. There was beloved cousin Margaret lying in her coffin, her head flattened by the accident, with a huge cut running down her face. There had been little attempt to cosmetically disguise the reality of the accident, and it was a heartbreakingly awful sight to behold.

  Looking at their young and lifeless bodies, Anna cried out “Margaret! Evelyn!” But there was never to be a reply. Again, Anna had learned a valuable lesson about life and how temporary it all could be. Now her half sister, Evelyn, was gone, and so was cousin Margaret. She had died with the secret of her pregnancy intact; only Anna knew of the fact.

  Anna felt a hurt and hollowness deep inside her. She thought that the pain of being deserted by her mother, and then her father, had been tragic. However, this was much worse and far more painful—it was a deep and aching kind of hurt that would not subside.

  The year 1954 was one of many changes in Anna’s young life. Some of the changes came to her via the radio. There was always a radio in the house, and Anna was exposed to a different world out there on the other side of the airwaves. She and Alline used to listen to the dramatic series that were broadcast. She remembers hearing the mystery program Inner Sanctum and the crime series The Fat Man. She and Alline would cook a plain sweet potato on top of the stove, or pop some popcorn in a skillet, and they would sit and listen to the programs. There were no sodas or cookies, just a glass of water and a sweet potato and some popcorn. Listening to the radio, their imaginations would entertain them for hours. Her grandparents would often listen to country & western music on the radio as well, so Anna was exposed to different kinds of current music.

  During this era, the world of popular music was changing and growing. The “big band” swing sound of the 1940s had evolved into new forms of music. Jazz and blues had given way to rhythm & blues and a new, upbeat kind of guitar-driven music that would eventually be categorized as “rock & roll.” Anna remembered hearing LaVern Baker gleefully sing the song “Tweedle Dee,” and Faye Adams singing “Shake a Hand.” There was also the sound of B. B. King and his guitar, which he had named “Lucille.” Anna learned all the words to “Tweedle Dee,” and she would sing it out loud.

  In the fall of 1954, fourteen-year-old Anna started classes at the Lauderdale High School in Ripley, Tennessee. It was a different world. She looked around and saw the girls older than she was who had nice clothes to wear and shapely bodies to fill them out. It only made her feel more and more out of place. In her mind, she was like a stranger in a strange new land.

  She took a good hard look at her own body and felt even more awkward. According to her, “I was very skinny when I was growing up. Long, long legs and nothing like what black people really like. I must say that black people in the class where I was at the time liked heavier women” (5).

  The girls she went to high school with had curves, full hips, and shapely legs. When Anna looked at her own reflection in the mirror, she found that she had none of those attributes. “It wasn’t so good in the early days when I was very young,” she recalls, “because I—I saw myself as very skinny. Everything was in the wrong place” (12).

  However, a new world seemed to open up for Anna at Lauderdale High. Eager to try new
things, Anna found all kinds of fun activities in which to become involved. Since her high school had the number one basketball team in the area, there was a lot of excitement surrounding the basketball games. Anna tried out for the cheerleading squad and became one of the school’s cheerleaders.

  It was while she was a cheerleader that she recalls meeting her first real true love. He was a basketball player for one of Lauderdale’s rival schools, Carver High School in Brownsville. She spotted him on the basketball court when Lauderdale played Carver. It was a case of love at first sight. He was so handsome in Anna’s eyes. He had great teeth, an athletic body, and smooth dark skin. He was the opposing team’s number nine player.

  Determined to find out who he was, Anna went over to one of the Carver High School coaches and asked who number nine was. The coach simply walked over to number nine and came back to where Anna was, with him in tow. Anna surprised even herself with her openly assertive behavior.

  Number nine turned out to be the captain of Carver’s basketball team. His name was Harry Taylor. According to her, it was love at first sight. However, their first encounter was brief. Harry recalls that at a break during the game, he went over to where the opposing team was situated, in hopes of talking to Anna. But when he did so, she was gone.

  Unfortunately, Anna wasn’t the only cheerleader on the squad who had caught Harry’s eye. Anna’s prime rival was on the same cheerleading team, and her name was Rosalyn. Anna had known Rosalyn in school for quite some time. In fact, they had both gone to the Johnson Grade School Annex together. Anna was horrified to find out that Rosalyn had given Harry her phone number. Anna, who didn’t even have a telephone at home, started feeling worse about herself.