Whitney Elizabeth Houston was born to a middle-class family in Newark, New Jersey, in 1963. She was the third and youngest child of US Army serviceman and entertainment executive John Russell Houston Jnr, who passed away in 2003, and gospel singer Cissy Houston.

It was clear that natural talent in music ran through her family.

Her cousins Dionne Warwick and the late Dee Dee Warwick, as well as her godmother Aretha Franklin, all made a huge mark on the gospel and R&B scene.

Whitney first became interested in being in the music industry after frequently accompanying her mother Cissy, who often performed in nightclubs. Sometimes the teen would take to the stage herself and perform.

Houston was offered her first recording contract at the age of 14 by Michael Zanger after she wowed him with her back-up singing on a record for his group, the Michael Zanger band.

But she was forced to turn it down as her mother was determined that she should finish school.

In the years that followed, she lent her voice to albums of both American soul, jazz and blues singer Lou Rawls and Michael Jackson’s brother Jermaine.

Stunningly beautiful, Houston began dabbling in modelling after being spotted by a fashion photographer while she was performing with her mother.

She went on to become the first ever woman of colour to appear in a fashion magazine after gracing the pages of Seventeen magazine in the early 1980s. Subsequently she appeared in Glamour, Cosmopolitan and Young Miss magazines, and also in a TV advertisement for Canada Dry soft drinks.

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,” the American record producer said. “To hear this young girl breathe such fire into this song. I mean, it really sent the proverbial tingles up my spine.”

Houston made her album debut in 1985 with the self-titled record Whitney Houston. It sold millions and spawned hit after hit, including Saving All My Love For You, which won her her first Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal.

Other tracks, such as How Will I Know, You Give Good Love and The Greatest Love Of All, also went on to become giant hits.

Another multi-platinum 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 from 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 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 went on to have a daughter, Bobbi Kristina, in 1993.

Over the years, he was arrested several times on charges ranging from drunk driving to failure to pay child support.

But Houston said their 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 sequinned gown. I am nobody’s angel. I can get down and dirty. I can get raunchy.”

It would take several years, however, for the public to see that 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 guarded by a former Secret Service agent, played by 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 began using drugs.

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2010, she said that 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 him in 1993. They divorced in 2007.

Houston would go to rehab twice before she would declare herself drug-free to Winfrey in 2010.

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 rumours spread that she had died the next day.

Her crude behaviour and jittery appearance on Brown’s reality show, Being Bobby Brown, was an example of her sad decline.

Her Diane Sawyer interview, where she declared “crack is whack”, was often parodied. She then 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.

But 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 only confirmed suspicions that Houston had lost her treasured gift, as she failed to hit notes and left many fans unimpressed; some walked out.

Cancelled 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.

Recently Houston appeared to be battling her demons once more. She was spotted looking worse for wear last week in Hollywood after enjoying a party with friends. – Daily Mail