Winner of Six Grammy Awards, Singer & Actor Whitney Houston died in California

Singer and actress Whitney Houston died on 11 February 2012 in a Beverly Hills hotel room California. Former wife of New Edition singer Bobby Brown Houston is a winner of six Grammy Awards including record of the year for I Will Always Love You and album of the year for The Bodyguard. Houston was the only artist to have seven consecutive No. 1 singles on Billboard magazine’s pop chart. The streak began with “Saving All My Love for You,” from her debut album in 1985. She had also reached the top of Billboard’s rhythm-and-blues, adult- contemporary and dance charts.

Whitney Elizabeth Houston 

Whitney Elizabeth Houston  born on 9 August 1963 in New Jersey was an American recording artist, actress, producer, and model. She belonged to a musical family that included an older brother, Michael, and a half-brother, Gary, from her mother’s previous marriage. In 2009, the Guinness World Records cited her as the most-awarded female act of all time.

Houston's grand entrance into the music industry is considered one of the 25 musical milestones of the last 25 years, according to USA Today.

Arista Records signed Houston in 1983 and spent two years working on her first album. During that period, she teamed with singer Teddy Pendergrass on a duet, Hold Me, which reached the top 50 on Billboard’s pop charts as a single.
Houston’s self-titled first album was the biggest-selling debut for a female artist at the time. After the record yielded a top-five single, “You Give Good Love,” the No. 1 streak began. Saving All My Love for You was followed by How Will I Know and The Greatest Love of All at the top of the pop charts.

The first four singles from her 1987 follow-up album, Whitney, -I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me), Didn’t We Almost Have It All, So Emotional and Where Do Broken Hearts Go had also topped music charts.

I’m Your Baby Tonight, her third album, arrived in 1990. The title song and All the Man That I Need added to her list of No. 1 singles.

After the release of her fourth studio album My Love Is Your Love (1998), she renewed her recording contract with Arista Records. She released her fifth studio album Just Whitney in 2002, and the Christmas-themed One Wish: The Holiday Album in 2003. In 2009, Houston released her seventh studio album, I Look to You.

Arista had signed her to a contract that the label valued at more than $100 million in 2001. The six-album deal triggered a legal conflict with her father, who had guided her career since 1986 and kept the position after divorcing her mother in 1993.
She had made her national televised debut alongside Davis on The Merv Griffin Show. She also had roles on television’s Gimme a Break and As the World Turns.

She had won her first Grammy award for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female for Saving All My Love for You.At the same award show, she performed that Grammy-winning hit; that performance later winning her an Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program. On 16 January 201o she received The BET Honors Award for Entertainer citing her lifetime achievements spanning over 25 years in the industry.

The Credits

Houston was also one of the world's best-selling music artists, having sold over 170 million albums, singles and videos worldwide. Houston is the only artist to chart seven consecutive No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hits (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 is the second artist behind Elton John and the only female artist to have two number-one Billboard 200 Album awards (formerly Top Pop Album) on the Billboard magazine year-end charts.

Houston's 1985 debut album Whitney Houston became the best-selling debut album by a female act at the time of its release. The album was named Rolling Stone's best album of 1986, and was ranked at number 254 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Houston's debut album is listed on The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's Definitive 200 list.

Her second studio album Whitney (1987) became the first album by a female artist to debut at number one on the Billboard 200 albums chart.

Houston's first acting role was as the star of the feature film The Bodyguard (1992). The film's original soundtrack won the 1994 Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Its lead single I Will Always Love You, became the best-selling single by a female artist in music history. With the album, Houston became the first act (solo or group, male or female) to sell more than a million copies of an album within a single week period. The album made her the only female act in the top 10 list of the best-selling albums of all time, at number four.

Houston also acted in movies and the sound track of her film, The Preacher's Wife (1996)became the best-selling gospel album in history.

Personal Life

She met R&B singer Bobby Brown at the 1989 Soul Train Music Awards. After a three-year courtship, the two were married in July 1992.After years of controversy and turmoil, Houston separated from Bobby Brown in September 2006. Her life was plagued by her addiction to substrance.