Céline Marie Claudette Dion,
CC,
OQ (
French pronunciation: [selin djɔ̃] (
listen); born March 30, 1968) is a
French-Canadian singer, songwriter, actress, and entrepreneur. Born in
Repentigny,
Quebec, to a large family from
Charlemagne, Dion emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband
René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record. In 1990, she released the
anglophone album
Unison, establishing herself as a viable pop artist in North America and other English-speaking areas of the world.
Dion had first gained international recognition in the 1980s by winning both the 1982
Yamaha World Popular Song Festival and the
1988 Eurovision Song Contest.
Following a series of French albums in the early 1980s, she signed on to CBS Records Canada in 1986. During the 1990s, with the help of Angélil, she achieved worldwide fame after signing with
Epic Records and releasing several English albums along with additional French albums, becoming one of the most successful artists in pop music history. However, in 1999 at the height of her success, Dion announced a hiatus from entertainment in order to start a family and spend time with her husband, who had been diagnosed with cancer. She returned to the top of pop music in 2002 and signed a three-year (later extended to almost five years) contract to perform nightly in a five-star
theatrical show at the Colosseum at
Caesars Palace,
Las Vegas.
Dion's music has been influenced by genres ranging from
rock and
R&B to
gospel and
classical. While her releases have often received mixed critical reception, she is renowned for her technically skilled and powerful vocals.
Dion is the best-selling Canadian artist of all time, is the second best-selling female artist in the United States of the Nielsen SoundScan era,
and is the only female artist to have two singles that have sold more than a million copies in the United Kingdom. In addition, her 1995 album
D'eux, is the best-selling French-language album of all time.
In 2004, after surpassing 175 million in album sales worldwide, she was presented with the Chopard Diamond Award at the
World Music Awards for becoming the best-selling female artist of all time.
According to Sony Music Entertainment, Dion has sold over 200 million albums worldwide.
Biography
Childhood and early beginnings
The youngest of fourteen children born to Adhémar Dion and
Thérèse Tanguay, both of
French Canadian descent, Céline Dion was raised a
Roman Catholic in a poverty-stricken, but, by her own account, happy home in Charlemagne, Quebec, Canada.
Music had always been a part of the family (Dion was named after the song Céline, recorded by French singer Hugues Aufray two years before her birth
, as she grew up singing with her siblings in her parents' small piano bar called
Le Vieux Baril. From an early age Dion had dreamed of being a performer.In a 1994 interview with
People magazine, she recalled, "I missed my family and my home, but I don't regret having lost my
adolescence. I had one dream: I wanted to be a singer."
At age twelve, Dion collaborated with her mother and her brother Jacques to compose her first song, "
Ce n'était qu'un rêve" ("It Was Only a Dream").
Her brother Michel Dondalinger Dion sent the recording to music manager René Angélil, whose name he discovered on the back of a Ginette Reno album. Angélil was moved to tears by Dion's voice, and decided to make her a star. In 1981, he mortgaged his home to fund her first record,
La voix du bon Dieu ("The Voice of the Good God"), which later became a local number-one hit and made Dion an instant star in Quebec. Her popularity spread to other parts of the world when she competed in the 1982 Yamaha World Popular Song Festival in
Tokyo, Japan, and won the musician's award for "Top Performer" as well as the gold medal for "Best Song" with "
Tellement j'ai d'amour pour toi" ("I Have So Much Love for You").
By 1983, in addition to becoming the first Canadian artist to receive a gold record in France for the single "
D'amour ou d'amitié" ("Of Love or of Friendship"), Dion had also won several
Félix Awards, including "Best Female performer" and "Discovery of the Year".
Further success in Europe, Asia, and Australia came when Dion represented Switzerland in the
1988 Eurovision Song Contest with the song
Ne partez pas sans moi (
Don't Go Without Me) and won the contest by a close margin in
Dublin,
Ireland. However, American success was yet to come, partly because she was exclusively a Francophone artist.
At eighteen, after seeing a Michael Jackson performance, Dion told Angélil that she wanted to be a star like Jackson.
Though confident in her talent, Angélil realized that her image needed to be changed in order for her to be marketed worldwide Dion receded from the spotlight for a number of months, during which she underwent dental surgery to improve her appearance, and was sent to the École Berlitz in 1989 to polish her English.n 1989, during a concert on
Incognito Tour, Dion injured her
voice. She consulted the
otorhinolaryngologist William Gould.
He gave her an ultimatum: have surgery on her vocal chords, or not utilize them at all for three weeks.
Dion chose the latter and underwent a vocal formation with William Riley,
because, according to Gould and Riley, she "doesn't know sing, she makes a bad use of her vocal chords".
Two years after she had learned English, Dion made her debut into the Anglophone market with Unison (1990), the lead single having originally been recorded by
Laura Branigan.
[4] She incorporated the help of many established musicians, including Vito Luprano and Canadian
producer David Foster.
The album was largely influenced by 1980s
soft rock music that quickly found a niche within the
adult contemporary radio format.
Unison also hit the right notes with critics: Jim Faber of
Entertainment Weekly wrote that Dion's vocals were "tastefully unadorned", and that she never attempted to "bring off styles that are beyond her".
Stephen Erlewine of
Allmusic declared it as, "a fine, sophisticated American debut."
Singles from the album included "
(If There Was) Any Other Way", "
The Last to Know", "
Unison", and "
Where Does My Heart Beat Now", a mid-tempo soft-rock ballad which made prominent use of the
electric guitar. The latter became her first single to reach the top 10 on the U.S.
Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number four. The album established Dion as a rising singer in the United States, and across
Continental Europe and Asia.
In 1991, Dion was also a soloist in
Voices That Care, a tribute to American troops fighting in
Operation Desert Storm. Dion's real international breakthrough came when she duetted with
Peabo Bryson on the title track to
Disney's animated film
Beauty and the Beast (1991).
The song captured a musical style that Dion would utilize in the future: sweeping, classically influenced ballads with soft instrumentation. Both a critical and commercial hit, the song became her second U.S. top ten single, and won the Academy Award for
Best Song, and the
Grammy Award for
Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.
"Beauty and the Beast" was featured on Dion's 1992
self-titled album, which, like her debut, had a strong rock influence combined with elements of soul and classical music. Owing to the success of the lead-off single and her collaboration with Foster and
Diane Warren, the album was as well received as
Unison. Other singles that achieved moderate success included "
If You Asked Me To" (a
cover of
Patti LaBelle's song from the 1989 movie
Licence to Kill) which peaked at number four on the U.S.
Billboard Hot 100, the gospel-tinged "
Love Can Move Mountains", and "
Nothing Broken But My Heart".
As with Dion's earlier releases, the album had an overtone of love. Also during this time, Dion released the Francophone album
Dion chante Plamondon in 1991. The album consisted mostly of covers, but included 4 new songs, which included "
Des mots qui sonnent", "
Je danse dans ma tête", "
Quelqu'un que j'aime, quelqu'un qui m'aime" and "
L'amour existe encore". It was originally released in Canada and France during the 1991–1992 period, but then got an international release in 1994, the first French Celine Dion album to do so. "
Un garçon pas comme les autres (Ziggy)" became a smash hit in France, reaching number 2 and being certified gold. In Quebec, the album was certified Gold the day it was released. To date,
Dion chante Plamondon has sold 1.5 million records worldwide.
By 1992
Unison,
Céline Dion, and media appearances had propelled Dion to superstardom in North America. She had achieved one of her main objectives: wedging her way into the Anglophone market and achieving fame. However, while she was experiencing rising success in the U.S., her French fans in Canada criticized her for neglecting them. She would later regain her fan base at the
Félix Award show, where, after winning "English Artist of the Year", she openly refused to accept the award. She asserted that she was—and would always be—a French, not an English, artist. Apart from her commercial success, there were also changes in Dion's personal life, as Angélil, who was twenty-six years her senior, transitioned from manager to lover. However, the relationship was kept a secret as they both feared that the public would find their relations inappropriate.
Popularity established: 1993–1995
In 1993, Dion announced her feelings for her manager by declaring him "the colour of [her] love" in the dedication section of her third Anglophone album
The Colour of My Love. However, instead of criticizing their relationship as Dion had feared, fans embraced the couple.
Eventually, Angélil and Dion married in an extravagant wedding ceremony in December 1994, which was broadcast live on Canadian television.
