Aretha Franklin Biography Update, Age, Death, Songs, Filmography, Personal Life

Aretha Louise Franklin (March 25, 1942 – August 16, 2018) was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Known as the “Queen of Soul,” she was twice named the greatest singer of all time by Rolling Stone magazine.

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Franklin first gained attention as a child for her gospel singing at New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, where her father, C. L. Franklin, was the minister. She signed with Columbia Records at 18, but her career took off after joining Atlantic Records in 1966. There, she released hit albums like I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You, Lady Soul, and Aretha Now in the late 1960s, and Young, Gifted and Black, Amazing Grace, and Sparkle in the 1970s. After leaving Atlantic in 1979, she joined Arista Records, where she found renewed success with albums such as Jump to It, Who’s Zoomin’ Who?, Aretha, and A Rose Is Still a Rose.

Age

Aretha Louise Franklin was born on March 25, 1942, in Memphis, Tennessee, United States.

Biography

Aretha Louise Franklin was born on March 25, 1942, to Barbara (née Siggers) and Clarence LaVaughn “C. L.” Franklin at their home on Lucy Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee. Her father was a Baptist minister and circuit preacher from Shelby, Mississippi, and her mother was a skilled pianist and singer. Both parents had children from previous relationships, along with the four children they had together. When Aretha was two, the family moved to Buffalo, New York. By age five, they settled in Detroit, Michigan, where C. L. Franklin became pastor of New Bethel Baptist Church.

The Franklins’ marriage ended in 1948 due to C. L. Franklin’s infidelities. Barbara Franklin moved back to Buffalo with Aretha’s half-brother, Vaughn. After the separation, Aretha visited her mother in Buffalo during the summers, and Barbara often came to Detroit to see her children. Aretha’s mother died of a heart attack on March 7, 1952, just before Aretha turned ten. Several women, including her grandmother Rachel and Mahalia Jackson, helped care for the children. During this period, Aretha learned to play piano by ear. She attended public school in Detroit, completing her first year at Northern High School before dropping out in her second year.

Aretha became pregnant with her first child, Clarence, at age 12. She first said the father was a classmate named Edward Jordan, but later wrote in her will that the father was Edward Jordan Sr.

Personal life

Franklin moved from Detroit to New York City in the 1960s and later relocated to Los Angeles in the mid-1970s. She lived in Encino until 1982, then returned to Bloomfield Hills, a Detroit suburb, to be near her ailing father and siblings. She stayed there until her death. After an incident in 1984, she developed a fear of flying and performed only in North America. Franklin was a Baptist.

Franklin had four sons. She became pregnant at 12 and gave birth to her first child, Clarence, on January 28, 1955. A handwritten will found in 2019 named Edward Jordan as the father. At 15, she had a second son, Edward Derone Franklin, also fathered by Jordan. Franklin rarely discussed her early pregnancies. Both sons took her last name. While she focused on her singing career, her grandmother, Rachel, and sister, Erma, helped raise her children, and Franklin visited them often. Her third son, Ted White Jr., was born in February 1964 to Franklin and her husband Theodore “Ted” White; he is known as Teddy Richards and played guitar in her band. Her youngest son, Kecalf Cunningham, was born in April 1970 to her road manager, Ken Cunningham.

Franklin was married twice. She married Ted White in 1961 at age 18, having first met him at a party at her home in 1954. Their marriage was troubled by domestic abuse, and they separated in 1968 before divorcing in 1969. In 1978, she married actor Glynn Turman at her father’s church, becoming stepmother to his three children. Franklin and Turman separated in 1982 after she moved back to Michigan, and they divorced in 1984.

Death

On August 13, 2018, Franklin was reported to be seriously ill at her home in Riverfront Towers, Detroit. She was in hospice care, surrounded by friends and family. Stevie Wonder, Jesse Jackson, and her former husband Glynn Turman visited her before she died at home on August 16, 2018, at age 76. At first, it was believed she died without a will.

The cause of death was a malignant pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor (pNET), which is different from the more common type of pancreatic cancer. Many celebrities and politicians paid tribute to Franklin, including former President Barack Obama, who said she “helped define the American experience.” Civil rights activist and minister Al Sharpton called her a “civil rights and humanitarian icon.”

Discography

Studio albums

• Aretha: With the Ray Bryant Combo (1961)
• The Electrifying Aretha Franklin (1962)
• The Tender, the Moving, the Swinging Aretha Franklin (1962)
• Laughing on the Outside (1963)
• Unforgettable: A Tribute to Dinah Washington (1964)
• Runnin’ Out of Fools (1964)
• Yeah!!! (1965)
• Soul Sister (1966)
• I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You (1967)
• Take It Like You Give It (1967)
• Aretha Arrives (1967)
• Lady Soul (1968)
• Aretha Now (1968)
• Soul ’69 (1969)
• Soft and Beautiful (1969)
• This Girl’s in Love with You (1970)
• Spirit in the Dark (1970)
• Young, Gifted and Black (1972)
• Hey Now Hey (The Other Side of the Sky) (1973)
• Let Me in Your Life (1974)
• With Everything I Feel in Me (1974)
• You (1975)
• Sparkle (1976, soundtrack)
• Sweet Passion (1977)
• Almighty Fire (1978)
• La Diva (1979)
• Aretha (1980)
• Love All the Hurt Away (1981)
• Jump to It (1982)
• Get It Right (1983)
• Who’s Zoomin’ Who? (1985)
• Aretha (1986)
• Through the Storm (1989)
• What You See Is What You Sweat (1991)
• A Rose Is Still a Rose (1998)
• So Damn Happy (2003)
• This Christmas, Aretha (2008)
• A Woman Falling Out of Love (2011)
• Aretha Franklin Sings the Great Diva Classics (2014)

Filmography

Concerts, specials, appearances

• 1967–1982: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson – guest
• 1968: Aretha Franklin and The Sweet Inspirations in Concert
• 1968: The Hollywood Palace – guest
• 1969: 41st Academy Awards – performer
• 1970: This is Tom Jones – guest
• 1970: It’s Cliff Richard – guest – BBC
• 1970: It’s Lulu – Guest – BBC
• 1978: Dick Clark’s Live Wednesday – guest – ABC
• 1978: Aretha Franklin Live in Canada – ITV
• 1978: Kennedy Center Honors – CBS
• 1981–1985: Solid Gold – performer – CBS
• 1982: It’s Not Easy Bein’ Me – guest – NBC
• 1983: American Music Awards of 1983 – performer/host – ABC
• 1983: Midem ’83 – performer – TF1
• 1985: Soundstage – performer – PBS
• 1986: American Music Awards of 1986 – performer – ABC
• 1988: James Brown and Friends: Set Fire to the Soul – performer – HBO
• 1990: Night of 100 Stars III – performer – NBC
• 1991–1992: The Joan Rivers Show – performer – HBO
• 1992: 23rd Annual Grammy Awards – performer – CBS
• 1992: Kennedy Center Honors – performer – CBS
• 1993: Evening at Pops – performer – PBS

Documentaries

• 1972: Black Rodeo (documentary)
• 1990: Listen Up: The Lives of Quincy Jones (documentary)
• 2003: Tom Dowd & the Language of Music (documentary)
• 2012: The Zen of Bennett (documentary)
• 2013: Muscle Shoals (documentary)
• 2018: Amazing Grace (documentary)

As an actress

• 1972: Room 222 (as Inez Jackson)
• 1980: The Blues Brothers (as Mrs. Murphy)
• 1991: Murphy Brown (as herself)
• 1997: The Brave Little Toaster to the Rescue (as voice of Homebuilt Computer)
• 1998: Blues Brothers 2000 (as Mrs. Murphy)