Tina Turner changed her life forever — for the better — in Dallas nearly 47 years ago

A pivotal point in Tina Turner’s life, not to mention her career, happened in Dallas on the eve of America’s 200th birthday. In her second memoir, “My Love Story,” Turner told the tale of how she left her abusive first husband, Ike Turner, while in Dallas and took shelter from him in another hotel.

Tuner, the iconic Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll whose music and performances impacted and entranced multiple generations globally, died Wednesday at the age of 83 after a long illness in her home in Küsnacht near Zurich, Switzerland.

Tina Turner wasn’t shy about sharing the details of her abusive first marriage, including Ike Turner breaking her jaw, throwing hot coffee in her face and sending her on multiple trips to the emergency room. In the memoir, Tina Turner wrote that she couldn’t remember a time during the marriage she didn’t have a black eye.

That ended on July 3, 1976, when after days of abuse, Tina Turner left Ike Turner while he slept in a Dallas hotel. While Ike Turner slept after another night of beating her, Tina Turner grabbed a toiletries case, tied a scarf over her head and ran out of the hotel, across Interstate 30 and into a Ramada Inn. She was bloody and filthy with no money except a Mobil credit card and 36 cents in her pocket when she asked for a room.

The manager of the Ramada Inn, which now operates under the banner Lorenzo Hotel, put Tina Turner up in the presidential suite on the 11th floor, where Turner stayed for three days, according to the hotel’s website. Today, the hotel has art of Tina Turner throughout the building and in that room, which stands as a tribute to Turner decorated with her face on the walls and even some pillows.

That night would be a turning point for Tina Turner, who would go on to divorce Ike Turner and win the commercial rights to her name in a court battle with her ex-husband.

North Texas holds memories of Turner in some very unlikely places, like Billy Bob’s in Fort Worth, where she performed a show before one Star-Telegram concert reviewer in 1993 recalled seeing her perform “just before her career ascended into the heavens.”

That was 15 years before Turner’s final performance in Dallas at American Airlines Center. Another Star-Telegram concert reviewer said of that show in her first tour in a decade Turner reminded anybody who may have doubted that she was the rock ‘n’ roll queen, with a performance that made it look like she hadn’t been away from the stage for 10 years.

This story contains information from the Star-Telegram’s archives.