Bonnie Tyler, the Grammy-nominated Welsh pop star renowned for her distinctive gravelly voice and the epic 1983 chart-topper “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” has died at the age of 75. Her family announced Thursday in a statement on her website that Tyler passed away unexpectedly last night in a hospital in Portugal, where she had been receiving treatment for an illness.
Tyler had been hospitalized in May in Faro, where she maintained a home, for emergency intestinal surgery. She was placed in an induced coma for a period but was reportedly improving last month and had been expected to make a full recovery. Her family and team expressed their heartbreak over her sudden passing.
“Total Eclipse of the Heart,” a bombastic power ballad, spent four weeks at No. 1 and has continued to enchant generations, particularly during solar and lunar eclipses, accumulating over 1 billion streams. Music outlet Stereogum reevaluated the song in 2020, describing it as an “extinction-level event rendered in musical form,” a “heart-pounding, chest-thumping, blood-gargling, heavens-falling passion explosion” that is “sheer spectacle.” The song’s enduring popularity is evident through covers by Nicki French in 1995 and Westlife in 2006, as well as its appearances in films like 2001’s “Bandits” (sung by Cate Blanchett) and 2003’s “Old School,” and a 2010 performance by One Direction on “The X Factor.”
Born Gaynor Hopkins in Skewen, Wales, a coal miner’s daughter, Tyler grew up with three sisters and two brothers in public housing. She developed her love for singing by performing into a hairbrush for hours, and that’s how it all started for her. Looking back, even then her voice had a husky tone to it, but she didn’t think much of it, believing everyone’s voices were different from each other’s. She idolized artists like Janis Joplin, Nina Simone, Tina Turner, Wilson Pickett, and Otis Redding. Her trademark husky voice emerged after surgery in 1976 to remove nodules on her throat.
After being discovered by talent scout Roger Bell while fronting a soul band under the name Sherene Davis, she signed with RCA. Her 1977 debut album, “The World Starts Tonight,” featured her first chart hit, “Lost in France,” earning her a Brit Awards nomination for breakthrough artist. She followed this with a No. 3 hit, “It’s a Heartache,” in 1978.
Tyler later signed with Sony and, impressed by Meat Loaf’s performance of “Bat Out of Hell,” requested to collaborate with its songwriter and producer, Jim Steinman. Steinman introduced her to “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” a song he had conceived from his 1969 musical “The Dream Engine” and a prospective musical version of “Nosferatu.” Featuring E Street Band members Roy Bittan on piano and Max Weinberg on drums, the song explores themes of lost love with lyrics like “Once upon a time there was light in my life/But now there’s only love in the dark.” The iconic music video, a staple of early MTV, was filmed in a gothic former asylum in Surrey.
Her fifth studio album, “Faster Than the Speed of Night,” which included “Total Eclipse of the Heart” as its debut single, earned a Grammy nomination for best rock vocal performance. Tyler also received a Grammy nod for “Total Eclipse of the Heart” in the best pop vocal performance category. While she never again reached the same chart heights, she contributed singles like “Holding Out For a Hero” from 1984’s “Footloose” and “Here She Comes” from “Metropolis” to movie soundtracks.
In 2013, Tyler represented Britain at the Eurovision Song Contest with the ballad “Believe in Me,” placing 19th. She described the experience to the San Francisco Examiner in 2023 as “absolutely wonderful,” recalling the immense crowd reaction. That same year, she released the country-flavored album “Rocks and Honey” in Nashville, featuring a duet with Vince Gill. In 2017, she joined Joe Jonas’ band DNCE to perform “Total Eclipse of the Heart” on the cruise ship Oasis of the Seas during a real solar eclipse.
Tyler was honored as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2022 by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to music. Her 2019 album, “Between the Earth and the Stars,” included duets with Rod Stewart, Cliff Richard, and Status Quo’s Francis Rossi, and she concluded that year performing at a Vatican Christmas concert before Pope Francis. Tyler was married to property developer and former Olympic judo competitor Robert Sullivan.
British rock-singer Bonnie Tyler sings “Silent Night” with a children’s choir during the dress rehearsal for the Jose Carreras Gala in Leipzig, Germany, on Dec. 20, 1998. (AP Photo/Eckehard Schulz, File)
She adored the Beatles and her first album was “A Hard Day’s Night.” The first song she bought, at 13, was “Hippy Hippy Shake” by the Swinging Blue Jeans and she watched “Top of the Pops” religiously, according to her memoir, “Straight From the Heart.”
