He called her “Nippy”, “quick wit”, a reference to a cartoon character who was always looking for trouble. The youngest of two boys, Whitney was the favorite of John Russell Houston, a charismatic hottie married secondly by his mother Cissy Drinkard, backing vocalist for Elvis and Aretha Franklin, and member of the bands Sweet Inspirations and then The Drinkard Singers, including his niece, Dionne Warwick.
Self-taught, John Houston served as a soldier in World War II and then rose through the ranks from truck driver to the office of Kenneth Gibson, the first black mayor of Newark, where the family grew up during the riots of 1967. He is the henchman of the corrupt city councilor and amasses a small windfall in shady deals. He is also the manager of his wife, whose solo career is struggling to take off. It was at church, listening to his 11-year-old daughter sing “Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah” that he had a revelation: the star of the family would be her. Whitney cut her teeth on stage with her mother, who taught her all the singing techniques.
Whitney has a gift: a voice that can rise so high in the treble that she can catch (and especially retain) the “golden note”, which does not prevent her from diving into the bass to dig into the keys. deep in the soul. Long twig with a smashing, funny and sparkling beauty, her smile is contagious, her charm is devastating. She poses for teenage magazines, and she’s even the first black woman to appear on the cover of Seventeen, a publication for teenage girls. A fashion icon, she wears colorful outfits with puffy shoulders and a tight waist. She is the face of the 1980s: open, confident, breaking the taboos of segregation. She also perfectly masters the codes of soul, but also of pop, so much so that the president of Arista, the powerful Clive Davis who discovers her at a concert of her mother in New York, sees in her a bridge between black and white American cultures.
The man who signed Pink Floyd, Janis Joplin, Bruce Springsteen or even Aerosmith strongly believes in it. He directly manages the musical aspect of the young singer’s career. For the business, Whitney gives all authority to her father. He had deserted the family home in recent years; he is coincidentally very present since the majors revolve around his offspring… CEO of his company Nippy Incorporated, he manages all his artistic and advertising contracts, and is paid handsomely.
Indeed, her daughter’s debut album, co-produced by Jermaine Jackson and soberly titled Whitney Houston, topped the charts for 14 weeks in a row. Crowned Best Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards, 25 million copies are sold worldwide thanks to its timeless, bouncy or moving hits “You Give Good Love”, “Saving All My Love for You”, “How Will I Know”, “Greatest Love of All”…Jackpot! World tours, Super Bowl, campaigns for Canada Dry, Coca Cola Light… She also hits hits (“I Wanna Dance With Somebody”!) to become one of the largest record sellers in the world (220 million albums sold in all). At 20, she has already raised $200 million.
Obviously, the cinema does not resist him. In 1992, she starred in the film The Bodygard. This is her first film role. In this romantic comedy thriller directed by Mick Jackson, she plays a star victim of a stalker protected by a former secret agent turned bodyguard played by Kevin Costner. The role was written in the 1970s by Lawrence Kasdan (screenwriter of The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Raiders of the Lost Ark…) for Steve McQueen and Diana Ross, but the project was so postponed that it is finally Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner who will take over the roles twenty years later. He’s white, she’s black, it’s never emphasized in the film: the audience loves it. The film grossed $411 million. Above all, its soundtrack “I Will Always Love You” is the best-selling single in history by a female artist. It remains 14 weeks at the top of the charts. The beginning of a career on the big screen… Whitney enters the small circle of the great divas.
Meanwhile, the entire Houston family lives on the (stage) beast. John, ever so opportunistic, drives away anyone who gets too close to his daughter. He loves money and power, so when she becomes a super star, he uses it to the fullest, wielding her name to open all the doors that have been kept closed to her. It looks like a mac. Parading in a heavy coat, he pays a salary to the singer’s brothers, incompetent drug addicts who introduce him to marijuana and coke. She lets herself go. All she thinks about is having fun and enjoying the moment. “Sometimes we yelled at each other. But it was always about business. I could never argue with my father about anything else. I will never find anyone who loves me as much as my father. I’m still a daddy’s little girl,” she said.
Only Bobby Brown, dirty kid singer of R
However, no one is immune to becoming too greedy. In 2002, John demanded $100 million from her, the full amount of the contract she signed with Arista for its renewal in 1999. For the first time, she said no. Sick, he summons the television cameras to his hospital room. Staring into the lens of his wet pupil, he groaned, “I’m tired, Whitney, of being left behind […] Now is the time to pay me.” Give me the money you owe me or I’ll sue you! Nippy won’t back down. Heartbroken, she won’t speak to him again. Could her fragility in front of men be explained by flaws inherited from childhood? Indeed, her cousin Dee Dee Warwick is suspected of having abused her when she was little…
When John died in 2003, at the age of 82, his only daughter said goodbye to him alone, the day before a funeral which she would not attend. Yet even from her grave, John does not let her go. She was the one who inherited his million dollar life insurance policy (which she funded herself). His stepmother (a cleaning lady who was 40 years younger than him) then rushes to sue him to recover the money, from the house that Whitney bought for them (and which she also inherited). Outcome: Whitney will get the money and the house back, the drafts of which she was still paying.
In 2009, she excused the father’s inexcusable behavior to Oprah Winfrey: “My father was under the influence of liars. He was sick, he was in the hospital…” She was well placed to know it: she was the one who paid for his hospitalization costs. “So you forgive him?” – Absolutely. I loved my father. »
The sequel will be a descent into hell for “The Voice”. Whitney Houston remains one of pop’s most tragic destinies: that of a girl who has everything going for her (an extraordinary voice, spectacular beauty, rare talent, superhuman work skills, phenomenal success) and who will end up ruined, alone, homeless, addicted to crack and cocaine. She was found drowned in a Beverly Hills hotel bathtub at age 48 in 2012.