On Saturday night, the sad news emerged on media outlets and the internet that singing legend / actress Whitney Houston passed away at the age of 48. Although the circumstances surrounding her death are currently unclear, the entertainment world has been reeling over the sudden death of the troubled singer who was very overdue for a major career-changing comeback.
Movie Buzzers reported back in September that Houston was co-starring alongside American Idol winner Jordin Sparks and The Voice judge, Cee-Lo Green, in the upcoming film, Sparkle, which follows a mother (Houston) who tries to jumpstart the music career of her daughters, including Sparks in her big screen debut.
Houston’s debut as an actress gained a lot of notoriety, starting with The Bodyguard, which also famously starred Kevin Costner twenty years ago. Not only did the love story help catapult Houston into what should have been a more promising movie career, but her vocal chops on the mega-watt power ballad cover of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” cemented her status as one of the century’s most prominent voices in pop music.
Houston followed up with Forest Whitaker’s Waiting to Exhale (1995) and Penny Marshall’s The Preacher’s Wife (1996) before starring in the made-for-television Emmy-winning movie Cinderella with R&B singer Brandy.
The six-time Grammy winner’s career began in 1985 with seven consecutive number one hits from her self-titled debut album, which included “Saving All My Love For You,” “How Will I Know,” “Greatest Love Of All,” “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me),” “Didn‘t We Almost Have It All,” “So Emotional,” and “Where Do Broken Hearts Go.” She had been discovered by Arista Records label head, Clive Davis, after performing in numerous New York City night clubs with her mother.
Houston is also known for singing the theme “When You Believe,“ for Disney’s The Prince of Egypt with Mariah Carey, which won an Academy Award in 1999. Houston’s last album I Look To You (2009) debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, and surpassed the first-week sales of her previously best-selling album Just Whitney in 2002.
Houston’s personal life was riddled with problems after a tumultuous fifteen-year marriage to singer Bobby Brown, the father of Houston’s now teenaged daughter Bobbi Kristina. The singer struggled very publicly in recent years with drug and alcohol abuse, as featured on the Bravo reality show Being Bobby Brown.
It had been recently reported that Houston was asked to fill the now-empty judge’s spot on Simon Cowell’s singing competition show The X-Factor, but there had been no confirmation from Houston’s camp if she was accepting.
At Sunday night’s 54th Grammy Awards, aside from a tribute to the recently passed Etta James, we can be sure to see an homage paid to Houston, an unforgettable force in music that has inspired artists like Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys, and Lady Gaga.
Sparkle is currently in post-production and is due in theaters August 10th. Below is a video which includes an interview with Houston and Sparks about the movie from an Entertainment Tonight segment back in November.
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