Legendary Singer/Songwriter Teena Marie Dead at age 54

 

Mary Christine, or Tina as she was called, was the daughter^[2][3] of construction worker Thomas Leslie Brockert and his wife, home renovator Mary Anne. She spent her early childhood in Mission Hills. Her ethnic heritage was Portuguese, Italian, Irish, and Native American.^{[citation needed]} In 2005, while visiting Louisiana, she had discovered that her paternal ancestors once lived in New Orleans.^[4][5][6] She took to singing naturally, performing Harry Belafonte's Banana Boat Song by age two. She also developed a fondness for singing the songs of Motown, and her self-professed “gift from God” would become fine-tuned as the years progressed.

 

When she was eight years old, her parents began sending her on auditions which, among other things, netted her an acting role on The Beverly Hillbillies, credited as Tina Marie Brockert.^[7] She also sang at the wedding of actor Jerry Lewis's son when she was 10 years old. Reared in a Roman Catholic household, she learned to play the piano under the tutelage of two nuns and later taught herself the guitar, bass, and congas. She would go on to form a semi-professional R&B band with her younger brother Anthony and their cousin.

 

In the early 1970s, after the family moved to Venice, Los Angeles, Brockert spent her adolescent years in the historically black Venice enclave of Oakwood, nicknamed "Venice Harlem". There, she would acquire a strong spiritual influence from neighborhood matriarch Berthalynn Jackson, an African American who would become her godmother.^[5][6][8]

 

While attending Venice High School, Brockert joined the Summer Dance Production, and also had the female lead in the school's production of The Music Man.^[9] She also fronted a local Venice rock band "Truvair" in 1974–1975; the band's members were some of her fellow high school students.

Following graduation, Brockert juggled auditioning for various record companies with studying English Literature at Santa Monica College. She credited her love of reading with helping her to write lyrics.