COUNTRY OF BIRTH

United States

INDUSTRY

Entertainment

TOP ACHIEVEMENTS

Whitney Houston was an American singer and actress, referred to simply as The Voice for her spectacular five-octave range, power, versatility, and perfect technique. She set a benchmark for superstardom.

EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION

Whitney Elizabeth Houston was born into a musical family on August 9, 1963, in Newark, New Jersey. Through her mother, famed gospel singer Cissy Houston, Whitney was a first cousin of singer Dionne Warwick while Aretha Franklin was her honorary aunt. Houston began singing in church as a child and by the age of 15 was working as a background vocalist. She was also a successful teen model, one of the first African-American women to appear on the cover of Seventeen magazine.

EARLY CAREER

In 1983, when she was 19, Arista Records's Clive Davis heard Houston singing in a nightclub, signed her immediately, and began to guide her transition from gospel to pop stardom. After two years of studio work, her debut album, Whitney Houston (1985), set the record as the biggest selling debut album by a solo artist, yielding three consecutive number one singles and a Grammy Award.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Whitney (1987) delivered another Grammy and four more number one hits. Her first four albums, released between 1985 and 1992, amassed global sales in excess of 86 million copies. In total, Houston released seven studio albums and two soundtrack albums, with global sales of over 200 million records. In 1992, Houston made her movie debut in The Bodyguard, which broke box-office records worldwide and remains the best-selling movie soundtrack album of all time. Throughout the mid-1990s, she continued acting in films such as Waiting to Exhale (1995) and The Preacher’s Wife (1996), generating further hit singles from both soundtracks.

RECOGNITION

Whitney Houston holds the Guinness World Record as the most awarded female artist of all time, with more than 400 career awards, including six Grammys. She is the only artist to chart seven consecutive number one Billboard Hot 100 hits, the first female artist to enter the Billboard 200 album chart at number one, and one of a select number of solo artists with eight consecutive multi-platinum albums. Her career-defining “I Will Always Love You” is the best-selling single of all time by a female artist. Whitney Houston was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020.

ADDITIONAL FACTS

• In 1989, she established the Whitney Houston Foundation For Children, as a non-profit organization that funds projects to help young people in need all over the world. In 2020, The Whitney E. Houston Legacy Foundation was formed to continue Houston’s charitable work
• Whitney Houston died from accidental drowning in a hotel on February 11, 2012.
• In 2012, she posthumously appeared in the musical film Sparkle, which she had been co-producing before her death. In July 2019, she achieved her first posthumous number one hit with “Higher Love,” a previously unreleased recording dating from 1990.