Houston
Seemingly born to be a star, Whitney greets the world in Newark, New Jersey as the daughter of Army veteran and entertainment executive, John Russell Houston, Jr. and gospel singer, Emily "Cissy" Drinkard Houston (she will win two Grammy awards and provide background vocals for many stars, including Elvis Presley) on August 9, 1963. Through her mother, she is a first cousin of singers Dione Warwick (a five-time Grammy winner) and Dee Dee Warwick, and also a cousin of Metropolitan Opera prima donna, Leontyne Price, her godmother is singer Darlene Love ("He's A Rebel" and other hits, plus she plays Danny Glover's wife, Trish, in the hit movie series, Lethal Weapon), and her honorary aunt is the legendary crooner, Aretha Franklin (winner of 18 Grammys and the first female to be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame).
The Houstons
Dione Warwick
Dee Dee Warwick
Price
Phil Spector & Darlene Love - 1963
Aretha
The Midas Touch at first, as a child Whitney accompanies Cissy to gigs and recording studios, is tutored on singing by her mother, learns to play the piano, and at 11 is a soloist for the junior gospel choir of New Hope Baptist Church in Newark. At the age of 14, she begins her professional singing career by providing background vocals on the Michael Zager Band single, "Life's A Party. The next year, 1978, at the age of 15, she is singing background vocals for Lou Rawls and Chaka Khan. And while all that is happening, she gets work as a teenage fashion model when a photographer sees her singing with her mother at Carnegie Hall ... a teen model so successful that she becomes the first woman of color to appear on the cover of Seventeen magazine, and has featured layouts for Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and Young Miss, and in Canada, appears in a TV commercial for Canada Dry soda. Signed to a worldwide recording contact for Arista Records by it's chairman, Clive Davis, in 1983 (two previous contract offers, from Michael Zager and Elektra Records, are turned down by her mother because Whitney hadn't yet graduated from high school) at the age of 19, she makes her United States TV debut that same year on the Merv Griffin Show, singing a duet with Teddy Pendergrass, has a Top 5 R&B hit, "Hold Me," in 1984, and releases her first album, "Whitney Houston," in 1985 ... an album that will go to #1, produce three #1 singles ("Saving All My Love For You," How Will I Know," and "Greatest Love Of All"), garner Houston her first Grammy Award (Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, for "Saving All My Love For You), and sell over 22 million copies over the years.
Little Girl
Teen Model
First Album
After her debut album, success follows success ... according to the Guinness World Records, she becomes the most awarded female artist of all time, she releases seven studio albums and two soundtrack albums which sell over 200 million copies, she becomes the only singer to have seven consecutive #1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, makes her screen acting debut in the smash romantic thriller, "The Bodyguard" (opposite Kevin Costner ... the soundtrack album, featuring seven vocal performances by Houston, will become the best-selling soundtrack album of all time, and one of the song's, the Dolly Parton written "I Will Always Love You," will be the best-selling single by a female in the history of music), her soundtrack album for "The Preacher's Wife" will be the best- selling gospel album of all time, and along with being worth millions and millions of dollars, she will win 22 American Music Awards, 16 Billboard Awards, 1 Emmy award, 6 Grammy Awards (from 25 nominations), 29 NAACP Image awards, 6 People's Choice Awards, 7 Soul Train Awards, and 14 World Music Awards.
Houston Performing "Greatest Love Of All"
At The Welcome Home Heroes Concert - 1991
Behind the public successes though, a different reality is playing out. Despite denials, there are rumors that she and her brother bear the psychic scars of being sexually abused by their Aunt Dee Dee. She is forced to keep her bisexuality under cover for fear of her family's disapproval (despite a two year age difference, high school friend, all-state basketball star Robyn Crawford, is a companion for years and years, Whitney's maid of honor at her 1992 marriage to Bobby Brown, until they part ways over the singer's drug use in 2000). There are rumors of affairs with Eagles QB Randall Cunningham, thug rapper Tupac Shakur, and actor-comedian Eddie Murphy, She is insulted by black critics of her "soulless" and "white" singing style, mockery that gets her booed at the 1989 Soul Train Awards. She has a miscarriage while filming "The Bodyguard" (for her performance, she will also receive a Razzie Award for the worst female acting performance of the year). While her 1992 marriage to musical bad boy, Bobby Brown, does result in the birth of a daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, it also is the cause of endless trauma over infidelity, the marriage being a sham, physical and verbal altercations, and the singer's growing dependency on alcohol and drugs (the couple divorce in April of 2007). She tries to stop smoking off and on for years. And with drugs and alcohol in play, diva drama begins with Whitney becoming notorious for being late, or having to cancel, interviews, rehearsals, photo shoots, talk show appearances, and concerts ... she is two hours late to a White House dinner in which she was to perform for Nelson Mandela, scheduled to perform at Clive Davis' induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Houston is a no show, and ticketed to sing at the Academy Awards, she is instead fired by the Oscar's musical director, her longtime friend, composer Burt Bacharach. There is a 30-day stint in a rehab program that doesn't take, and a fruitless intervention by her mother in 2005, and then another try at rehab in 2011. There is even a lawsuit against her father's company for $100 million before John Houston passes away in 2003.
Houston & Crawford
Wedding Day
Yikes!
Turn around seemingly possible with a new boyfriend (Willie "Ray J" Norwood ... the brother of recording artist Brandy, the cousin of rapper Snoop Dogg, and the sex video partner of Kim Kardashian), a new musical project, and continuing plans to remake one of her favorite movies, Sparkle, after nine months of sobriety (or so the public thinks), everything falls apart for the singer when she arrives in Los Angeles the week before the 2012 Grammy Awards, in town to attend Clive Davis' annual pre-Grammys party. A tornado of trouble almost immediately, disheveled and acting erratic, Houston is seen guzzling vodka at a Hollywood nightclub while celebrating 31st birthday, she goes on a tirade about "watered down drinks" in the lobby bar of the Beverly Hilton Hotel, does handstands by the hotel's pool, erupts in the gift shop when she sees herself on the cover of the National Enquirer under the headline, "Whitney Collapses," she dismisses three fans she encounters at the hotel, and then the next morning, smelling of booze and wearing sun glasses, she has a "makeup" breakfast with the same three strangers, there is a confrontation with X Factor contestant Stacy Francis over who "Ray J" belongs to, and she is seen in the company of admitted con man and illegal immigrant (from the Republic of Suriname), Raffles Dawson (calling himself Raffles van Exel at the time). Joining Kelly Price on stage, on Thursday, February 9, 2012, Whitney performs in public for the last time, singing "Jesus Loves Me."
Norwood
Houston & Dawson
On the day of the celebrity party, the singer's assistant, Mary Jones, lays out a gown on the singer's bed for her to wear later that Saturday night, then leaves to pick up a package at a nearby Neiman Marcus ... when she returns at about 3:35 in the afternoon, Houston's brother-in-law and bodyguard, Ray Watson, is outside the room, watching the hall for unwanted fans ("Ray J" is on his way back from San Diego). Inside, Jones finds the suite quiet, and when calls for her employer go unanswered, she makes her way into the bathroom and finds Houston face down in a little over a foot of water. Cries for help, emergency CPR, and a phone call to first responders are made, but all are for naught, Whitney Elizabeth Houston has drowned to death, with help by way of a heart attack brought on by champagne, cocaine, and other chemicals (her autopsy will also show traces of Benadryl, Xanax, cannabis, and Flexeril). At 3:55, EMTs on the scene pronounce the singer dead. Unknown what happened for sure, based on the items found in the room and the later toxicity reports, it appears the singer is drinking and snorting cocaine prior to taking her bath, and when she bends over to test the heat of the 93 degree water, she falls in (there are some small abrasions on her head) and expires. A gathering of ghouls, four flights below, the Davis party Houston was to attend goes on as scheduled, (among the guests are Tony Bennett, Tom Hanks, Sean "Diddy" Combs, and Neil Young), morphing into a Houston wake (body still in the building, investigation in progress, invitees Sharon Osbourne and Chaka Khan are quite vocal in their disdain for the party not being cancelled).
Last Picture - Two Nights Before
The Beverly Hilton
The Bath - Gravy Boat Had Been Full Of Olive Oil To Keep Houston's Skin Soft
Big News
Major news around the world (CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News all break into their regular programming to announce the news, and the next night at the Grammy Awards, footage is shown of Houston performing "I Will Always Love You," host LL Cool J reads a prayer for the singer, and Jennifer Hudson performs a musical tribute that has her sing her version of "I Will Always Love You"), with condolences and remembrances coming from around the world, the following Saturday, an invitation only memorial is held for Houston at the New Hope Baptist Church she once sung at ... scheduled for two hours, the celebration of the singer's life lasts for over four. Among the performers at the Houston memorial are Stevie Wonder, CeCe Winans, Alicia Keys, Kim Burrell, and R. Kelly, while speakers include Clive Davis, Kevin Costner, Rickey Minor, her musical director, Dione Warwick, and Ray Watson. The next day, Houston is laid to rest next to her father, at the Fairview Cemetery in Westfield, New Jersey.
Gold Casket
The Stars Say Goodbye
And sadly, the story doesn't stop with Houston's death and burial. Tabloids always on the salacious prowl, the National Enquirer will run a shot of Houston's body in her casket ... said to be compliments of the photography work of one Raffles Dawson! Worse though follows, three years later, never recovering from the loss of her mother or her exposure to the dark side of the world of entertainment, Bobbi Kristina Brown is found face down in the water of a bathtub in her Alpharetta, Georgia home ... drinking and drugs once more involved, Brown though is not yet dead. Arriving at the North Fulton Hospital in Roswell, Georgia, doctors find Whitney's daughter has suffered extensive brain damage and medically induce a coma state in the youngster. On lie support, she is flown to Chicago to investigate treatment options, but when doctor's say they can do nothing for the girl, is is flown back to Georgia and taken to the Peachtree Christian Hospice in the town of Duluth. There, condition deteriorating, she passes away from lobar pneumonia on July 26, 2015, at the age of only 22.
Brown
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