This trivia article was originally posted for Whitney's 60th birthday on Aug 9th, 2023.
1)
Whitney Houston was almost a COSBY -- instead she was determined to make it on her own. Whitney was a complete unknown when she was poised to land the part of Sondra Huxtable on The Cosby Show in 1984. She had no recorded music. But she declined the temptation of a role that would have guaranteed her fame & security, in order to focus on working on her first album.
2) And that first album was a HIT! Released on Valentines Day 1985, Whitney Houston's self-titled 1985 debut album spend 14 weeks on the Billboard 200, generated three #1 singles, and topped the charts in Canada, Norway, Sweden and Australia, becoming certified Diamond by shipping some 10 million copies. She was the first female album to debut at #1 on the Billboard Charts.
That album would kick off an unprecedented run of seven consecutive #1 records in the United States.
3)
Whitney Houston is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most awarded artist of all time.
4) Whitney was the only person Kevin Cosner would consider for the 1992 hit movie The Bodyguard. In fact, Costner was so confident that Whitney Houston was the perfect casting for the movie, that he stalled production for a full year until Houston was available. Before The Bodyguard, she'd never acted in a movie. The movie became an enormous international hit, grossing over $400,000,000.
Not only that, but her cover of Dolly Parton's, "I Will Always Love You" from the movie held the #1 spot on Billboard's Hot 100 for 14 weeks, from November 28, 1992 to February 27, 1993.
5)
Whitney Houston recorded the bestselling gospel album of all time -- the soundtrack to her hit 1996 movie The Preacher's Wife. It makes sense. Whitney first learned to sing in the church, years later vividly recalling her first solo, "Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah", when she was twelve at Newark New Hope Baptist Church in New Jersey. Her mother Cissy Houston was the choir director. Speaking of her mother...
6) Whitney Houston's mother Emily "Cissy" Houston sang backup vocals on Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl".
7) Whitney had other soulful relatives.
Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick are Whitney Houston's cousins. Her godmother was Darlene Love, of Shindig! and Elvis Presley fame.
8) Whitney was offered a record deal by MCA Records at just 17 -- but her parents insisted she graduate high school first.
9) On April 25th, 1986,
Whitney was given the keys to the city of her hometown of Newark, New Jersey by then-mayor Kenneth Gibson -- proclaiming April 25th to be "Whitney Houston Day"
10) Because of her lifelong charitable contributions for children, a Boston-area hospital, now called Feingold Center for Children, named a wing after the singer -- the Whitney Houston Hearing and Language Disorder Clinic. She also contributed to The Rainforest Foundation, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Emmanuel Cancer Foundation, St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, The Special Olympics and others.
She had a school named after her in 1997, the Whitney E. Houston School of Creative and Performing Arts in her East Orange, New Jersey hometown.
11)
Bonus Trivia -- In 2001, Whitney Houston signed the biggest contract in music history with Arista Records -- an eight album, $100,000,000 deal.
