Whitney Houston

Born on August 9, 1963 in Newark, New Jersey, Whitney Houston almost seemed destined from birth to become a singer. Her mother Cissy Houston, cousin Dionne Warwick and godmother Aretha Franklin were all legendary figures in American gospel, soul and pop music. Cissy Houston was the choir minister at New Hope Baptist Church, and it was there that a young Whitney got her start. Even as a child, Whitney was able to wow audiences. By the time she turned 15, Whitney was often performing with her mother and trying to get a record deal of her own. When she was 19, Whitney Houston was discovered in a nightclub by the renowned Clive Davis of Arista Records, who signed her immediately and took the helm of her career as she navigated from gospel to pop stardom.

In 1985, she released her debut album Whitney Houston and almost immediately became a smash pop sensation. Over the next year, her hit singles “Saving All My Love for You” and “How Will I Know” helped the album reach the top of the charts, where it stayed for 14 non-consecutive weeks. Houston won a Grammy in 1986 for “Saving All My Love for You” Houston followed the monumental success of her first album with a second release,Whitney, in 1987. That record, too, went platinum many times over and won a Grammy for the single “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me),” with a successful world tour following.By 1992, Whitney Houston was on top of the world, but her life was about to get very complicated very quickly. That year she married the R&B singerBobby Brown. At first the marriage was passionate and loving, but things turned sour as the decade progressed and both Brown and Houston battled substance abuse and increasingly erratic behaviour.In spite of these growing personal troubles, Houston continued to progress in her career, crossing over successfully into acting in 1992 by starring opposite Kevin Costner in the wildly popular The Bodyguard. With this project, she set a trend for her films to follow: For each movie she also released hit singles, creating sensational record sales for the soundtracks. Her smash single from The Bodyguard, a cover of Dolly Parton’s 1974 “I Will Always Love You,” proved to be Houston’s biggest hit ever, spending a record-breaking 14 weeks atop the U.S. charts. The soundtrack album went on to win Houston three Grammys, including Album of the Year and Record of the Year. Later in the 1990s, Houston also starred in Waiting to Exhale and The Preacher’s Wife, both accompanied by hit soundtracks as well.

Whitney took a break from her career, divorced Bobby Brown in 2007 and won sole custody of their child, Bobbi Kristina Houston Brown.

Whitney Houston died at the age of 48 on February 11, 2012, after being discovered unconscious in a bathtub at a hotel where a Grammy party was being held by Clive Davis. According to a report released by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office on March 22, 2012, the official cause of her death was accidental drowning. The effects of heart disease and cocaine found in her system were contributing factors as well.On July 26th, 2015, three years after her mother’s death, Bobbi Kristina died a few months after a being discovered face down in a bathtub in her home.