Celine
Dion Biography
(1968–)
WHO IS
CELINE DION?
A STAR
FROM A YOUNG AGE, SINGER CELINE DION HAD RECORDED NINE FRENCH ALBUMS AND WON
NUMEROUS AWARDS BY THE TIME SHE WAS 18. SHE RECORDED HER FIRST ENGLISH LANGUAGE
ALBUM, UNISON, IN 1990. DION'S REAL BREAKTHROUGH INTO POP MUSIC STARDOM CAME IN
1992 WHEN SHE RECORDED THE THEME TO DISNEY'S HIT ANIMATED FEATURE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. SHE WENT ON TO RECORD SEVERAL HITS, INCLUDING FOUR NO. 1'S:
"THE POWER OF LOVE," "BECAUSE YOU LOVED ME," "MY HEART
WILL GO ON" AND "I'M YOUR ANGEL."
Early
Life
Celine Marie Claudette Dion was born on
March 30, 1968, in Charlemagne, Quebec, Canada. The youngest of 14 children of
Adhemar and Therese Dion, she grew up in a close-knit musical family. Her parents
formed a singing group, Dion's Family, and they toured Canada when Dion was
still an infant. They later opened a piano bar, where the 5-year-old Dion would
perform to the delight of customers.
At the age of 12, Dion recorded a demo
tape of a song she had written with her mother. They sent the tape to the
manager and producer Rene Angelil, who handled the career of popular French
singer Ginette Reno. After hearing the tape and inviting Dion to perform for
him in person, Angelil signed her immediately under the condition that he would
have complete control over her career. He mortgaged his own home to finance her
debut album, La Voix du bon Dieu (The Voice of God).
By 18, Dion had recorded nine French
albums and won numerous Felix and Juno awards, the Canadian equivalent of a
Grammy Award. In 1988, she won the Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin, Ireland,
and her performance was broadcast live in countries throughout Europe, the
Middle East, Australia and Japan. After this taste of international acclaim, she
began looking to the south and American stardom.
Dion recorded her first English
language album, Unison, in 1990. Like most of her English language
albums, it was a collaboration with the songwriter-arranger-musician David
Foster. Driven by the top 5 single "Where Does My Heart Beat
Now," Unison sold more than one million copies worldwide.
Dion's real breakthrough into pop music
stardom came in 1992, when she recorded the theme to Disney's hit animated
feature Beauty and the Beast, a duet with Peabo Bryson. The song,
"Beauty and the Beast," made it to No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and
won both a Grammy and an Academy Award. It was featured on her second English
album, Celine Dion, which became her first gold record in the
United States and sold more than 12 million copies internationally. The
undeniable success of her self-titled effort, which also includes the hit
"If You Asked Me To," which made it to No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100
and No. 1 on the adult contemporary chart, allowed Dion to launch her first
headlining tour in the United States.
Making It in America
Dion quickly capitalized on her
newfound fame, releasing the top-selling The Colour of My Love in
1993. The album showcased the romantic power ballads that Dion had become known
for, including "When I Fall in Love," which was featured on the
soundtrack for the hit film Sleepless in Seattle, and "The
Power of Love," her first single to hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
In 1994, Dion merged her personal and
professional life when she married Angelil, who was 26 years her senior.
Angelil and his second wife had divorced in the 1980s, and, around this same
time, he and Dion had begun a romantic relationship. The couple became engaged
in 1991 and tied the knot at Montreal's Notre Dame Basilica in an elaborate
ceremony that was celebrated throughout Canada.
Dion's international stardom was
solidified by her performance of "The Power of the Dream," at the
1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia. That same year, her album Falling
Into You, including the No. 1 hit "Because You Loved Me" (from
the soundtrack to Robert Redford's sentimental 1996 film, Up Close and
Personal), won Grammy Awards for album of the year and best pop album. The
following year, however, would hold even greater glory for Dion, with the
release of the blockbuster film Titanic (1997), starring
Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, for which Dion sang the theme song,
"My Heart Will Go On." The film had raked in a record number of
Oscar nominations (it won 11, including the award for best song), and Dion's
ballad became ubiquitous on radio stations around the world.
Included on both the Titanic soundtrack
album and Dion's own Let's Talk About Love (1997), "My
Heart Will Go On" shot to the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100—marking
the singer's third No. 1 hit—and sold a combined 50 million records
worldwide. Let's Talk About Lovealso featured collaborations with
the likes of Barbra Streisand, Luciano Pavarotti, the Bee Gees and Bryan Adams.
Canadian
Diva
Dion received the National Order of
Quebec, her province's highest honor, in April 1998. Later that year, she
appeared alongside Aretha Franklin, Mariah
Carey, Gloria Estefan and Shania
Twain on the high-profile televised concert Divas Live on
VH-1.
While touring relentlessly and
recording several albums (including S'il Suffisait d'Aimer and
a holiday album, These Are Special Times, both released in 1998),
Dion was well-rewarded at the Billboard Music Awards in late 1998, where she
won six awards, including for artist of the year and album of the year, for
1997's Let's Talk About Love. Her extensive 14-country tour, which
began in the summer of 1998, culminated in a gala concert in Montreal on
December 31, 1999, in honor of the new millennium. Dion scored her fourth No. 1
hit with "I'm Your Angel," a duet with R&B singer R. Kelly
featured on These Are Special Times.
In early 2000, Dion announced that she
was taking time off from her career in order to focus on her family. She and
Angelil had been trying to have children for years, and eventually decided to
use in vitro fertilization to conceive. In May 2000, Dion underwent two small
operations at a fertility clinic in New York to improve her chances of becoming
pregnant.
Her efforts were successful, and on
January 25, 2001, Dion gave birth to a boy, Rene-Charles. She revealed in
interviews that she had stored another fertilized egg in the fertility clinic
and planned someday to give her son a sibling. On October 23, 2010, at age 42,
Dion gave birth to twin boys, Eddy and Nelson. Angelil, who was diagnosed with
skin cancer in 1999, was in remission.
Global Fame
After a two-year hiatus, Celine Dion
returned in March 2002 with A New Day Has Come, which topped the
charts in more than 17 countries. A year later, she began a much-hyped 36-month
engagement at Caesars Palace, the famous Las Vegas hotel and casino. Dion
simultaneously released the album One Heart, which did not fare as
strongly as its predecessor.
Dion returned to creating
French-language albums with 2003's 1 Fille & 4 Types.
Partnering with photographer Anne Geddes, she had a hit with the children's
music album Miracle: A Celebration of New Life (2004). In
2007, Dion released two albums: Taking Chances, which nearly
reached the top of the pop album charts and D'Elles which was
another French-language recording.
While no longer dominating the charts
as she once did, Dion remained a popular entertainer. In June 2009, Forbes magazine
reported that the singer earned approximately $100 million in 2008, making her
the second-highest earning musician on the magazine's list after Madonna.
Dion's follow-up albums included the
French-language Sans attendre (2012) and Encore un
soir (2016), as well as Loved Me Back to Life (2013)
for English-speaking fans. She also embarked on a long-running residency at
Caesar's Palace in 2011.
Health
Problems and Personal Tragedy
In August 2014, Dion canceled all of
her shows scheduled through March 22, 2015, to focus on her 72-year-old
husband, whose throat cancer returned, and her children. “I want to
devote every ounce of my strength and energy to my husband’s healing, and to do
so, it’s important for me to dedicate this time to him and to our children,”
the singer said in a statement.
The superstar also dealt with her own
health issues in 2014: according to a press release, she had "inflammation
in her throat muscles" which prevented her from performing in her Las
Vegas show. Dion apologized for "inconveniencing her fans" and
thanked them for their support during her hiatus from performing.
In a 2015 interview with USA Today, the singer spoke about her
husband's battle with cancer: "When you see someone who is fighting so
hard, it has a big impact on you," she said. "You have two choices.
You look at your husband who's very sick and you can't help, and it kills you.
Or you look at your husband that's sick and you say, 'I got you. I got it. I'm
here. It's going to be just fine.'
On January 14, 2016, Angelil lost
his battle with cancer and passed away at the age of 73 in the family's Las
Vegas home.
The
Show Must Go On
Recovering from her loss, Dion returned
to the stage for what became an annual summer tour beginning in 2016. She also
resumed her Las Vegas residency, before announcing it would conclude in June
2019.
Additionally, the singer sparked rumors
that she had rediscovered romance after appearing in public with backup dancer
Pepe Munoz, though she insisted that they were merely "best friends."
No comments:
Post a Comment