 Turner received top billing with Count Basie in the Kansas City jazz reunion movie "The Last of the Blue Devils" (1979), featuring Jay McShann, Jimmy Forrest, and other players from the city.Turner died of heart failure in November 1985, at the age of 74, in Inglewood, California, having suffered from effects of arthritis, a stroke and diabetes.He was buried at Roosevelt Memorial Park in Gardena, California.