Aretha Franklin (33 page)

Aretha was taken into custody at the airport in Rome, Italy, June 28, 1971. She was accused of breach of contract when she suddenly cancelled a concert appearance. Franklin has a career-long reputation for cancelling engagements at the last minute.
(Photo: AP / Wide World)

In the early 1970s Aretha produced two of the most successful albums of her career at Atlantic Records:
Young, Gifted and Black
, and her return to gospel with
Amazing Grace
. Both albums won her Grammy Awards.
(Photo: Atlantic Records / MJB Photo Archives)

Aretha Franklin was at her thinnest phase in the early seventies, as this photo from Radio City Music Hall in 1973 illustrates. She was paying close attention to her diet, and her live-in boyfriend at the time, Ken Cunningham, encouraged her to stay in shape.
(Photo: Chuck Pulin / Star File)

After Jerry Wexler left Atlantic Records in 1975, Aretha's recording career had fallen into a slump. Her 1976
Sparkle
album paired the diva with producer Curtis Mayfield. Together they created a fresh-sounding concept record that contained Franklin's most successful music of the late 1970s.
(Photo: Atlantic Records / MJB Photo Archives)

In the late seventies Aretha starting putting on extra weight, and took to wearing unflattering tube tops, like this one she wore on the cover of her 1977
Sweet Passion
album. While the sound of disco dominated the record charts, Aretha seemed to lose her musical direction.
(Photo: Atlantic Records / Mark Bego Collection)

On April 12, 1978, Aretha walked down the aisle with her second husband, actor Glynn Turman. The ceremony took place at New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, where they were married by her father, Reverend C. L. Franklin.
(Photo: AP / Wide World)

Five days after their wedding in Detroit, on April 17, 1978, Aretha and Glynn had a reception at a hotel in Los Angeles. Aretha's youngest son, eight-year-old Kecalf (left), looks on in awe.
(Photo: AP / Wide World)

In the 1980 film
The Blues Brothers
, Aretha Franklin made her screen acting debut. She played a sassy waitress in a diner, who warns her man that he had better “Think” before he considers walking out on her!
(Photo: Universal Studios / Mark Bego Collection)

In the 1998 film
The Blues Brothers 2000
, Aretha reprised her role of “Mrs. Murphy.” However, this time around her character had traded in her diner, and now she was the owner of a high-profile car dealership. Here she sings a revamped version of one of her trademark hits, which was rewritten to become: “R-E-S-P-E-C-T.”
(Photo: Universal Studios / MJB Photo Archives)

Aretha's love of low-cut gowns caused her problems throughout the years with television producers, and with the art directors at Arista records. To retaliate, Franklin showed up at one public event in a men's tuxedo, and a fur coat.
(Photo: Charles Moniz Collection)

Once Aretha signed with Arista Records, Clive Davis made it his game plan to find the right songs, as well as record producers who understood Franklin's strengths, and who knew the changing music scene of the 1980s.
(Photo: Arista Records / MJB Photo Archives)

Arista Records president Clive Davis, and Atlantic Records producer Jerry Wexler, at the 1981 party held in Aretha's honor at the Time / Life Building in New York City. Struck by a fear of heights, Franklin refused to take a second elevator to her forty-eighth-floor event. She missed a wonderfully lavish star-studded party that night.
(Photo: Arista Records / MJB Photo Archives)