As a special tribute celebrates the extraordinary 50-year career of Bonnie Tyler, the Mirror takes a look at the Total Eclipse of the Heart icon’s wild life behind the scenes, including the accident that changed everything
Bonnie Tyler died earlier this month(Image: Corbis via Getty Images)
With her unmistakable husky voice and theatrical music videos, there was nobody quite like Bonnie Tyler.
Her unexpected death earlier this month at the age of 75 came as a great sadness to those who’ve followed her distinctive work over the decades.
A legend of ’80s power ballads, many a fan has attempted a karaoke version of Holding Out for a Hero or Total Eclipse of the Heart. But few could hope to hold a candle to Bonnie’s signature rasp and melodramatic stage presence.
The Welsh singer’s extraordinary 50-year career will be celebrated this weekend in a special tribute compilation aired on BBC Two. And it will perhaps surprise no one that magnetic Bonnie’s personal life was every bit as explosive as her musical output.
Little-known real name
While the name Bonnie Tyler may adorn her Platinum-status records, it wasn’t actually the singer’s real name, and it took some time for her to find one that fit.
Britain’s First Lady of Rock was originally christened Gaynor Hopkins, a name she never much cared for as a budding star growing up in the sleepy village of Skewen, near Swansea.
In the early days of her career, young Bonnie began trying out the name Sherene Davies as a stage name, hoping to distinguish herself from the celebrated Welsh folk singer-songwriter, Mary Hopkin, who was just one year her senior.
Speaking with the Leicestershire Press in 2023, Bonnie revealed: “I never really liked my name, so it was a lovely opportunity to change it. My sister had a little girl called Sherene, and I loved that name – it was my name for seven years.”
It wasn’t to stick, however, and after being signed by RCA Records – Elvis Presley’s old label – Bonnie was told that Sherene just wouldn’t do, as it sounded, to their ears, “like a belly dancer”. A search began for a third moniker, with Bonnie taking a creative approach.
She remembered: “I bought two broadsheet newspapers, and I made a list of all the Christian names in one list and all the surnames in another list, and I matched them up until I came up with Bonnie Tyler. It’s been a great name for me, I reckon Steven Tyler must’ve been in the paper that day.”
Scream injury
She is often referred to as ‘the female Rod Stewart’, but the vocal similarities only became apparent after a grim post-surgery accident.
Speaking with the Mirror in 2023, the It’s a Heartache songstress shared how, as her star began to rise in the glitzy ’70s era, belting out ballads began to take a strain. And in 1977, she had to undergo surgery.
Bonnie said: “I started to get a sore throat because all the singing was taking its toll. A doctor discovered that I had nodules on my vocal cords. The only option was for them to be surgically removed. After the procedure, I was told by my surgeons not to talk, let alone sing, for six weeks.”
Unfortunately, after realising she’d forgotten to take strawberries to her brother, Lynn, who was hospitalised with a leg injury, Bonnie momentarily forgot about the doctor’s warning and let out a scream of frustration.
Detailing the incident in her 2023 memoir Straight from the Heart, Bonnie recalled: “I was so frustrated that I’d have to drive all the way back home, I let out an ‘Oh no!’ scream. When I went for a check-up with the specialist, he looked at me and said, ‘You could have done permanent damage’.”
While medics weren’t best pleased, Bonnie’s producer, David Mackay, was impressed by the gravelly sound her vocals produced, once healed. Bonnie said: “I’d always had quite a husky tone to my voice anyway, but as David joked, I now sounded like a female Rod Stewart!”
Marriage to Olympic athlete
Bonnie may have sung about doomed love affairs, but her marriage to a former Olympic judo athlete Robert Sullivan was a long and happy one. The couple first locked eyes back when Bonnie was still singing in Swansea nightclubs, and Robert was a nightclub manager. They tied the knot on July 4, 1973, with Bonnie officially becoming Mrs Gaynor Sullivan – her fourth name.
In a 2012 interview with The Guardian, Bonnie spoke fondly of those early days together, and it appeared the pair were just as smitten as they were as twentysomething newlyweds just starting out. She shared: “I married Robert, my first serious boyfriend, in 1973, when I was 22. I am still very much in love with him and he with me. We never fall out. He is very easy on the eye, which helps.”
And speaking to the Times about Robert, who went into property development after hanging up his judo belt, she said, “I think the secret to our success is that we met before I was famous.
“We don’t have children because we left it too late to stop taking precautions, and then I had a miscarriage when I was 40. I was unlucky, but I love all my nieces and nephews. Our house in Mumbles is like Paddington Station because everyone wants to come and visit Auntie Gaynor.”
Bonnie and Robert owned at least 25 properties together, including 22 homes across Berkshire and London, plus a sizeable farm in New Zealand. However, their seaside home in Mumbles and their villa in Albufeira proved to be their favourites, and it was between these two much-loved residences that they split their time.
Bonnie Tyler at the BBC airs July 25 at 8:30 pm on BBC Two.
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