Bonnie Tyler
Singer and lifelong Christian believer Bonnie Tyler became a household name in 1977 with her smash hit debut single ‘Lost in France’. It was the first of a string of huge hits in an international career which spanned five decades.
Devout Christian
Born Gaynor Hopkins in Wales in 1951, Bonnie changed her name in the 1970s for professional reasons. She was raised in a devout Christian family where church and faith played a central role in her life. Just like many of the American Soul and Motown singers she loved, her earliest performances were all at churches.
One of six children, Bonnie said that music was just part of everyday life in the family home. She developed a keen interest in singing as a child and drew inspiration from many 1960s artists including Janis Joplin and Tina Turner. After leaving school at the age of 16, Bonnie worked in a grocery store in the daytime, and sang in the evenings and at weekends whenever the opportunities arose. She participated in local singing competitions around Wales and soon gained interest from music promoters and proprieters of music venues.
In a 2012 interview with The Guardian newspaper, Bonnie spoke of her inspirational and happy childhood in Skewen, Wales. She said,
“We were brought up Protestant, and I went to church three times a day on a Sunday. My parents weren’t Bible-bashers, but we all have a strong belief in God and a strong faith.”
Discovered by a Talent Scout
In the early 1970s, she joined the band “Bobby Wayne & the Dixies” and was eventually discovered by talent scout Roger Bell. Her breakthrough came in 1976 with the release of “Lost in France,” which became a big hit in the United Kingdom and Europe.
Her career reached new heights in 1977 with the ballad “It’s a Heartache,” her first global smash hit that established her as an international star almost overnight. The song reached the top five in both the UK and the United States.
Distinctive voice
Bonnie’s distinctive, gravelly voice became her trademark, but it happened accidentally. In the late 1970s, she underwent surgery to remove vocal nodules and Doctors instructed her not to speak for six weeks while she recovered, but she found six weeks of silence impossible and eventually broke out with a frustrated scream, permanently altering her singing voice and giving it the husky sound that helped rather than hindered her in her chosen vocation.
A long and successful career
Over her long career, Bonnie Tyler released 18 albums and 83 singles. Her 1983 album “Faster than the Speed of Night” became her first number one album in the UK. She had further chart-topping albums in Norway and Austria. Her 1977 single “It’s a Heartache” was a top 5 single in 3 countries, reaching the top 5 in 10 countries. Her biggest international hit was the 1983 rock favourite “Total Eclipse of the Heart” which reached number 1 in 5 countries, including the US which is the world’s biggest music market. In all, this classic song was a hit in 10 countries.
Gone too soon…
Bonnie died unexpectedly in Portugal on 8 July 2026 following an acute illness. When the BBC news reported her death they described her as “the gravel-voiced star who eclipsed everyone’s heart.”
Bonnie and her husband Robert Sullivan, a property developer, spent much of the year in their home in Algarve, Portugal. The couple also owned a dairy farm in New Zealand. There were tributes from King Charles and many celebrities at her funeral, including the UK’s most famous Christian rocker Sir Cliff Richard. Sir Cliff praised her “infectious zest for life” and said she was “another wonderful friend gone too soon.”
Psalm 116 in the Bible says, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His faithful servants.”
Story by Ralph Burden
Photo: Bonnie Tyler at the Eurovision Song Contest, taken by Albin Olsson
license: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license
