Aretha Franklin was an American singer, songwriter, civil rights activist, actress, and pianist. She embarked on a secular career recording for Columbia Records at the age of 18. She found acclaim and commercial success after signing with Atlantic Records in 1966. She became to known as "The Queen of Soul" by the end of the 1960s.
Aretha Franklin was born on March 25, 1942, in Memphis, Tennessee. She holds American nationality and belongs to Black ethnicity. At the age of 14, she had recorded some of her earliest tracks at his church, which was released by a small label as the album Songs of Faith in 1956.
Aretha Franklin was born to a father name Clarence LaVaughn "C.L." Franklin and a mother named Barbara. Her father was a Baptist minister and circuit preacher originally from Shelby, Mississippi. Her mother was an accomplished piano player and vocalist. Her parents had children from prior relationships in addition to the four children they had together.
Aretha Franklin was the mother of four sons. She first became pregnant at the age of 12 and gave birth to her first child and named Clarence after her father. The father of the child was Donald Burk, a boy she knew from school. On January 22, 1957, she had a second child named Edward after his father Edward Jordan. Her first husband was Theodore "Ted" White, whom she married in 1961 at age 19. Her third child named Ted White Jr was born in February 1964. After involved domestic violence, she separated from White in 1968 and divorcing him in 1969. Franklin married the second husband Glynn Turman is an actor on April 11, 1978, at her father's church. Franklin became stepmother of Turman's three children from previous marriage. They separated in 1982 after Franklin returned to Michigan from California and they divorced in 1984. She had plans to marry her longtime companion Wille Wilkerson. They had two previous engagements stretching back to 1988. She eventually called off the 2012 engagement.
Aretha Franklin was reported to be gravely ill at her home in Riverfront Towers, Detroit. She was under hospice care and her friends and family. Her ex-husband Glynn Turman visited her on her deathbed. Franklin died at her home on August 16, 2018, and aged 7 without a will. The cause of death was a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor, though widely misreported as pancreatic cancer, a different disease.