Whitney Houston

Whitney Houston was one of the biggest female pop music stars of the 1980s and 1990s, thanks to hit singles like "Saving All My Love For You" and "I Wanna Dance With Somebody." The daughter of gospel singer Cissy Houston, Whitney had a modelling career before she was signed as a singer by Arista Records in 1983. In 1985 she released her first album, Whitney Houston, a Grammy-winner and international hit; her second album, 1987's Whitney, debuted at #1 on the charts. By the end of the '80s she had a string of number one hits and was one of MTV's biggest stars. Throughout the 1990s Houston continued to sell millions of records, with hit singles such as "My Love is Your Love" and her popular cover of Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You." Houston tried her hand at acting and landed lead love-interest roles in The Bodyguard (1992, with Kevin Costner) and The Preacher's Wife (1996, with Denzel Washington), and played the Fairy Godmother in the 1997 TV version Cinderella. She married singer Bobby Brown in 1992; their stormy relationship became fodder for the tabloids and seemed to lead to a decline in her career in the early 2000s, and in September of 2006 Houston filed for divorce. Houston's recent record releases have sold modestly, but her production company has had box office success with the films The Princess Diaries (2001, starring Anne Hathaway) and the Disney TV movie The Cheetah Girls (2003, starring Raven Symoné).

Extra credit: Houston is the cousin of singer Dionne Warwick... Houston was the subject of a widespread September 2001 rumor that she had died of a drug overdose.