And Now the Silence: Things You Didn’t Know About Whitney Houston (1963-2012)

It just so happens that I live about two miles west of the hotel where Whitney Houston’s body was found yesterday afternoon. Driving down Santa Monica Blvd. and seeing the chaotic swirl of paparazzi, news vans, ambulances, cop cars and - most importantly – lines of fans singing her songs, all congregating to form yet another reminder of the bizarre thing that calls itself “Celebrity”. . . reminded me of one thing: the first album I ever bought as a kid was Whitney Houston’s “The Bodyguard”.

I imagine that this is true for a lot of people. A good friend of mine told me that his first concert was also a Whitney Houston concert in Boston. So, with all the shock and mournful head shaking it just might do everyone a little bit of good to think about a few lesser known things about not just Whitney “The Voice” Houston, but Whitney Houston, the face behind the fame.

1. She started her professional career not as a singer, but as a fashion model after a photographer spotted her singing live with her mother.

2. Her father was half Italian, making her of mixed heritage, including Dutch and Native American.

3. She always cited her greatest musical influences as Aretha Franklin, Roberta Flack, Gladys Knight and Chaka Khan. She, in turn, influenced every major female recording artist after her, including Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera, Beyonce, and Adele.

4. She is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as The Most Awarded Female Act of All Time, having won over 400 awards throughout her career.

5. The worldwide popularity of her No.1 single from The Bodyguard soundtrack “I Will Always Love You” put the album in the Top Ten Best Selling Albums of All Time.

6. Houston is the only female artist on the list of the Top Ten Best Selling Albums of All Time.

7. Her middle name was “Elizabeth”.

8. She was paid $10 million to star in The Preacher’s Wife in 1996 opposite Denzel Washington. Though the film fared poorly at the box office, her salary made the highest paid African American actress in Hollywood at the time.

9. Houston will appear posthumously in a remake of the 1976 film Sparkle alongside Jordin Sparks and Mike Epps. She produced the film herself and will appear as the main character’s mother.

10. Houston always said that her favorite role on screen was that of Savannah Jackson in Wating to Exhale. She considered it a “breakthrough” because it depicted a black woman who was both professionally successful and a good mother and resisted the “Angry Black Woman” stereotype.