Welsh pop queen Bonnie Tyler, best known for her classic ‘80s hits ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ and ‘Holding Out for a Hero’, has passed away today aged 75. She was being treated in hospital in Portugal following emergency medical treatment earlier this year.
Born Gaynor Hopkins on June 8 1951, Tyler was raised in the village Skewen, near Neath in Wales. From a young age she loved rock music, and held aspirations of being in a band while singing at rugby and working men’s clubs. In 1975, while performing at a club under the name Sherene Davis, she was identified by talent scout Roger Bell, who offered her a recording contract with RCA Records. From there, she chose the new stage name Bonnie Tyler, and stormed into number 9 on the UK Chart with her second single ‘Lost In France’.
Her biggest hit came when songwriter Jim Steinman, who composed Meat Loaf’s 14-times platinum 1977 rock opera ‘Bat Out Of Hell’, gave her ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’, an epic power ballad released in 1983. Tyler said of the song “The first time I heard it was when Jim Steinman just played it on the piano in New York, he sang the song all the way through and I was like, ‘Oh my god, this song is amazing. I can’t believe Jim is giving it to me’. The composition was originally a whopping 8 minutes in length, which led her to think “when I recorded the song, I thought no-one is going to end up playing this because it’s so long.” But when it was trimmed to a four minute radio edit, it spent 2 weeks as a Number One in the UK and 4 in the US, making her the first Welsh artist to top the American charts and selling over 1.2 million copies in the UK alone.
Her later singles included ‘Holding Out For A Hero’ from 1984, which was produced for the movie Footloose’s soundtrack, 1984’s ‘Here She Comes’, and 1986 track ‘If You Were A Woman (And I Was A Man)’. She released her 16th album ‘Rocks and Honey’ in 2013, and was chosen to perform its single ‘Believe in Me’ at that year’s Eurovision Song Contest. Her accolades include three BRIT nominations, three Grammy nominations, and an MBE which she received in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2022.
In May this year, Tyler was scheduled to begin a 30-date tour when she was rushed into emergency intestinal surgery in Faro, Portugal, where she lived. As a result, she was placed in a medically-induced coma to aid her recovery, which she came out of in June, though she struggled with her recovery as a spokesperson for her said she was “very unwell and in intensive care”. A statement was made this morning announcing that Bonnie Tyler had passed away aged 75 – it reads “Bonnie’s family and team are heartbroken to announce that Bonnie unexpectedly passed away last night in hospital in Portugal as a result of the illness that she was being treated for. We will issue a further statement shortly but for now ask for privacy to deal with this tragedy.”
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Tributes have poured out from across the world of music and culture today. One of the most heartfelt was from Welsh actress Catherine Zeta-Jones – Tyler’s husband who she is survived by, Robert Sullivan, is Zeta-Jones’ cousin, and Tyler performed ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ at her wedding to fellow actor Michael Douglas in 2000. On her post on Instagram, Zeta-Jones wrote “A one of kind artist, who so easily could have been a comedian because she was one of the funniest people I ever met. Thank you Bonnie for the joy you brought so many. Sleep tight beautiful lady.” Pop star Sir Cliff Richards described her as “another wonderful friend gone too soon. Bonnie’s infectious zest for life entertained so many around the world.” while rock singer Bryan Adams posted on X that Tyler “had such a great voice” and thanked her for her 1983 cover version of his song ‘Straight From The Heart’, which appeared on her album ‘Faster Than the Speed of Night’.
