Original Post from Yahoo! News:
LOS ANGELES – Whitney Houston, who ruled as pop
music's queen until her majestic voice was ravaged by drug use and her
regal image was ruined by erratic behavior and a tumultuous marriage to
singer Bobby Brown, died Saturday. She was 48.
Beverly Hills police Lt. Mark Rosen told reporters
outside the Beverly Hilton that Houston was pronounced dead at 3:55 p.m.
in her room on the fourth floor of the hotel. Her body remained there
and Beverly Hills detectives were investigating.
"There were no obvious signs of any criminal intent," Rosen said.
Houston's publicist, Kristen Foster, said the cause of death was unknown.
Rosen said police received a 911 call from hotel
security about Houston at 3:43 p.m. Saturday. Paramedics who were
already at the hotel because of a Grammy party unsuccessfully tried to
resuscitate the singer, he said.
Houston's end came on the eve of music's biggest
night — the Grammy Awards. It's a showcase where she once reigned, and
her death was sure to cast a heavy pall on Sunday's ceremony.
Her longtime mentor Clive Davis was to hold his
annual concert and dinner Saturday at the same hotel where her body was
found, and a representative of the show said it would proceed.
Producer Jimmy Jam, who had worked with Houston, said
he anticipated the evening would become a tribute to her, and he
expected there to be one at the Grammys as well.
Houston was supposed to appear at the gala, and Davis
had told The Associated Press that she would perhaps perform: "It's her
favorite night of the year ... (so) who knows by the end of the
evening," he said.
Houston had been at rehearsals for the show Thursday,
coaching singers Brandy and Monica, according to a person who was at
the event but was not authorized to speak publicly about it. The person
said Houston looked disheveled, was sweating profusely and liquor and
cigarettes could be smelled on her breath.
Two days ago, she performed at a pre-Grammy party
with singer Kelly Price. Singer Kenny Lattimore hosted the event, and
said Houston sang the gospel classic "Jesus Loves Me" with Price, her
voice registering softly, not with the same power it had at its height.
Lattimore said Houston was gregarious and was in a
good mood, surrounded by friends and family, including daughter Bobbi
Kristina.
"She just seemed like she was having a great night that night," said Lattimore, who said he was in shock over her death.
Aretha Franklin, her godmother, also said she was stunned.
"I just can't talk about it now," Franklin said in a
short statement. "It's so stunning and unbelievable. I couldn't believe
what I was reading coming across the TV screen."
The Rev. Al Sharpton said he would call for a
national prayer Sunday morning during a service at Second Baptist Church
in Los Angeles.
"The morning of the Grammys, the world should pause and pray for the memory of a gifted songbird," Sharpton said in a statement.
In a statement, Recording Academy President and CEO
Neil Portnow said Houston "was one of the world's greatest pop singers
of all time who leaves behind a robust musical soundtrack spanning the
past three decades."
"Her powerful voice graced many memorable and award-winning songs,"
Portnow said. "A light has been dimmed in our music community today, and
we extend our deepest condolences to her family, friends, fans and all
who have been touched by her beautiful voice."
At her peak, Houston was the golden girl of the music industry. From the
middle 1980s to the late 1990s, she was one of the world's best-selling
artists. She wowed audiences with effortless, powerful, and peerless
vocals that were rooted in the black church but made palatable to the
masses with a pop sheen.
Her success carried her beyond music to movies, where she starred in hits like "The Bodyguard" and "Waiting to Exhale."
She had the perfect voice and the perfect image: a gorgeous singer who
had sex appeal but was never overtly sexual, who maintained perfect
poise.
She influenced a generation of younger singers, from Christina Aguilera
to Mariah Carey, who when she first came out sounded so much like
Houston that many thought it was Houston.
But by the end of her career, Houston became a stunning cautionary tale
of the toll of drug use. Her album sales plummeted and the hits stopped
coming; her once serene image was shattered by a wild demeanor and
bizarre public appearances. She confessed to abusing cocaine, marijuana
and pills, and her once pristine voice became raspy and hoarse, unable
to hit the high notes as she had during her prime.
"The biggest devil is me. I'm either my best friend or my worst enemy,"
Houston told ABC's Diane Sawyer in an infamous 2002 interview with
then-husband Brown by her side.
It was a tragic fall for a superstar who was one of the top-selling
artists in pop music history, with more than 55 million records sold in
the United States alone.
She seemed to be born into greatness. In addition to being Franklin's
goddaughter, she was the daughter of gospel singer Cissy Houston and the
cousin of 1960s pop diva Dionne Warwick.
Houston first started singing in the church as a child. In her teens,
she sang backup for Chaka Khan, Jermaine Jackson and others, in addition
to modeling. It was around that time when music mogul Clive Davis first
heard Houston perform.
"The time that I first saw her singing in her mother's act in a club ...
it was such a stunning impact," Davis told "Good Morning America."
"To hear this young girl breathe such fire into this song. I mean, it really sent the proverbial tingles up my spine," he added.
Before long, the rest of the country would feel it, too. Houston made
her album debut in 1985 with "Whitney Houston," which sold millions and
spawned hit after hit. "Saving All My Love for You" brought her her
first Grammy, for best female pop vocal. "How Will I Know," "You Give
Good Love" and "The Greatest Love of All" also became hit singles.
Another multiplatinum album, "Whitney," came out in 1987 and included
hits like "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" and "I Wanna Dance With Somebody."
The New York Times wrote that Houston "possesses one of her generation's
most powerful gospel-trained voices, but she eschews many of the
churchier mannerisms of her forerunners. She uses ornamental gospel
phrasing only sparingly, and instead of projecting an earthy, tearful
vulnerability, communicates cool self-assurance and strength, building
pop ballads to majestic, sustained peaks of intensity."
Her decision not to follow the more soulful inflections of singers like
Franklin drew criticism by some who saw her as playing down her black
roots to go pop and reach white audiences. The criticism would become a
constant refrain through much of her career. She was even booed during
the "Soul Train Awards" in 1989.
"Sometimes it gets down to that, you know?" she told Katie Couric in
1996. "You're not black enough for them. I don't know. You're not
R&B enough. You're very pop. The white audience has taken you away
from them."
Some saw her 1992 marriage to former New Edition member and soul crooner
Bobby Brown as an attempt to refute those critics. It seemed to be an
odd union; she was seen as pop's pure princess while he had a bad-boy
image and already had children of his own. (The couple only had one
daughter, Bobbi Kristina, born in 1993.) Over the years, he would be
arrested several times, on charges ranging from DUI to failure to pay
child support.
But Houston said their true personalities were not as far apart as people may have believed.
"When you love, you love. I mean, do you stop loving somebody because
you have different images? You know, Bobby and I basically come from the
same place," she told Rolling Stone in 1993. "You see somebody, and you
deal with their image, that's their image. It's part of them, it's not
the whole picture. I am not always in a sequined gown. I am nobody's
angel. I can get down and dirty. I can get raunchy."
Brown was getting ready to perform at a New Edition reunion tour in
Southaven, Miss., as news spread about Houston's death. The group went
ahead with its performance, though Brown appeared overcome with emotion
when his voice cracked at the beginning of a ballad and he left the
stage.
Before his departure, he told the sell-out crowd: "First of all, I want
to tell you that I love you all. Second, I would like to say, I love you
Whitney. The hardest thing for me to do is to come on this stage."
Brown said he decided to perform because fans had shown their loyalty to
the group for more than 25 years. During an intermission, one of
Houston's early hits, "You Give Good Love," played over the speakers.
Fans stood up and began singing along.
It would take several years for the public to see the "down and dirty"
side of Houston. Her moving 1991 rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner"
at the Super Bowl, amid the first Gulf War, set a new standard and once
again reaffirmed her as America's sweetheart.
In 1992, she became a star in the acting world with "The Bodyguard."
Despite mixed reviews, the story of a singer (Houston) guarded by a
former Secret Service agent (Kevin Costner) was an international
success.
It also gave her perhaps her most memorable hit: a searing, stunning
rendition of Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You," which sat atop the
charts for weeks. It was Grammy's record of the year and best female
pop vocal, and the "Bodyguard" soundtrack was named album of the year.
She returned to the big screen in 1995-96 with "Waiting to Exhale" and
"The Preacher's Wife." Both spawned soundtrack albums, and another hit
studio album, "My Love Is Your Love," in 1998, brought her a Grammy for
best female R&B vocal for the cut "It's Not Right But It's Okay."
But during these career and personal highs, Houston was using drugs. In
an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2009, she said by the time "The
Preacher's Wife" was released, "(doing drugs) was an everyday thing. ...
I would do my work, but after I did my work, for a whole year or two,
it was every day. ... I wasn't happy by that point in time. I was losing
myself."
In the interview, Houston blamed her rocky marriage to Brown, which
included a charge of domestic abuse against Brown in 1993. They divorced
in 2007.
Houston would go to rehab twice before she would declare herself
drug-free to Winfrey in 2009. But in the interim, there were missed
concert dates, a stop at an airport due to drugs, and public meltdowns.
She was so startlingly thin during a 2001 Michael Jackson tribute
concert that rumors spread she had died the next day. Her crude behavior
and jittery appearance on Brown's reality show, "Being Bobby Brown,"
was an example of her sad decline. Her Sawyer interview, where she
declared "crack is whack," was often parodied. She dropped out of the
spotlight for a few years.
Houston staged what seemed to be a successful comeback with the 2009
album "I Look To You." The album debuted on the top of the charts, and
would eventually go platinum.
Things soon fell apart. A concert to promote the album on "Good Morning
America" went awry as Houston's voice sounded ragged and off-key. She
blamed an interview with Winfrey for straining her voice.
A world tour launched overseas, however, only confirmed suspicions that
Houston had lost her treasured gift, as she failed to hit notes and left
many fans unimpressed; some walked out. Canceled concert dates raised
speculation that she may have been abusing drugs, but she denied those
claims and said she was in great shape, blaming illness for
cancellations.
Houston was to make her return to film in the remake of the classic
movie "Sparkle." Filming on the movie, which stars former "American
Idol" winner Jordin Sparks, recently wrapped.
___
Associated Press writers Andrew Dalton in Los Angeles Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tenn., and contributed to this report.
Source:
Yahoo! News 
