From left: Elizabeth Taylor, Liza Minnelli, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and Christine Brinkley at an awards ceremony in New York City in 1988
We here at ABM are saddened to report on the passing of award winning Musician/Actress ’Whitney Houston’ over the weekend!
Ms. Houston, who came from an amazing legendary musical family, including singers, Cissy Houston, and Dionne Warwick, as well as being the god daughter of legendary singer of soul, Aretha Franklin, started off her prolific career in the 70s doing back up singing for people like Chaka Kahn (who Whitney provided back up vocals along with her mother for Ms. Kahn’s 1976 hit, ‘I’m Every Woman’). She would also go on to contribute back up vocals for other such legends, including Jermaine Jackson, and Lou Rawls…
Then in the early 80s, while contributing to other musician’s work, Miss Houston started doing some modeling work. Houston would grace the cover of such magazine’s including, ‘Cosmopolitan’, ‘Glamour’, ‘Young Miss’, and even becoming the first Black Woman to make the cover of the magazine, ‘Seventeen’! Beside’s working as a model and recording artist, Ms. Houston would also go on to star in an early 1980s Canadian Dry Commercial!
Whitney Houston On The Cover Of The November 1981 issue of, 'Seventeen'
With all of this going on, Houston was also getting offers from record labels, people like, Michael Zager (who tried to get her to sign a contract in 1980) and Elektra Records (who tried in 1981). But it wasn’t until 1983, when during a night club performance with her mother, that a young Miss Whitney Houston would sign up with Arista Records and in to the history books!
Starting with her debut album, ‘Whitney Houston’, back in 1985, Ms. Houston would go on to create such truly classic songs, including, 1985′s, ‘Saving All My Love For You’, 1987′s, ‘So Emotional’, 1988′s, ‘Where the Broken Hearts Go’, as well as the unforgettable ballad from 1992′s, ‘The Bodyguard’, ‘I Will Always Love You’!
And speaking of movies, besides the work that she did as both a model and musician, Miss Houston would also, starting in the early 80s begin acting on both the big screen and in the small screen, in such projects as playing Rita on TV’s ‘Gimmie A Break’, and on the big screen in such films as playing, Savannah Jackson in, ‘Waiting To Exhale’ (1995), as Julia Biggs in, ‘The Preacher’s Wife’ (1996), or in the role that Miss Houston would probably be most well known for, that of, Rachel Marron in 1992′s, ‘The Body Guard’.
Whitney Houston, hanging out with Kevin Costner in a movie still from, 1992's, 'The Bodyguard
It was during the early 1990s in which Miss Houston would go on to get married to and have a kid with, Ex-New Edition musician Bobby Brown! (They would end up being divorced in 2007).
What the life and career of this legendary award winning super star did for both the world’s of music and both the big screen and the small screen will make it so that Whitney Houston will live on in the hearts of her loyal fans all over the world, and she will most surely be missed!
In the true spirit of a great talent like Whitney Houston’s, I thought that you guys might enjoy this cross section of both her music and film careers!
Whitney Houston in a cameo on the 1980s sitcom, ‘Gimme A Break’:
Her hit song that she sang at the 1986 ‘Grammy Awards’, ‘Saving All My Love For You’:
And lastly the trailer for the classic, ‘The Bodyguard’:
