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Celine Dion

Celine DionAKA Céline Marie Claudette Dion

Born: 30-Mar-1968
Birthplace: Charlemagne, Quebec, Canada

Gender: Female
Religion: Roman Catholic
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Singer

Nationality: Canada
Executive summary: Canadian diva

The youngest child in an enormous French-Canadian family, Celine Dion grew up performing with her parents and 13 siblings in the family-owned piano bar. At the age of 12 she put together a demo tape of a song she had written with her mother and one of her brothers; the tape was submitted to Montreal-based personal manager René Angélil, who was apparently so taken with the young girl that he took out a mortgage on his house to finance the start of her career. Over the next decade Dion released four French-language albums under Angélil's guidance, establishing herself as a popular star in Canada, France and Switzerland, as well as climbing to the peak of Pop Cheese Mountain by winning the notorious Eurovision song contest in 1988.

In 1990 Dion and Angélil began to realize their goal to infiltrate the U.S. market through the arrangement of a deal with Sony and the release of the singer's first record in English, Unison. Four popular singles from the album made a significant impact, but the following year the American record-buying public was strung up and gutted like a helpless sow by means of the soundtrack to the Disney musical Beauty and the Beast, which earned Dion not only a number one song but both a Grammy and an Oscar. Yes, there is a God -- and apparently he's French Canadian. This is perhaps not such good news for the rest of us, though.

The carnage continued throughout the rest of the decade, each subsequent record selling greater quantities than the one before. Her eponymous second album (featuring the title track from Beast) spawned four more hit singles, while it's successors The Colour Of My Love (1993), Falling Into You (1996) and Let's Talk About Love (1997) each contained #1 songs and achieved multi-platinum status, with Falling also landing two more Grammy awards. A significant amount of damage was also done in-between albums through a series of ridiculously popular songs contributed to the soundtracks of the saccharine-oozing films Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Up Close and Personal (1996) and (of course) Titanic (1997).

1999 saw Celine taking a break from pillaging the world and focusing instead on starting a family; the singer had married Angélil in 1994, and in 2001 they had their first child together, with twins to follow in 2010. By 2002 the record A New Day Has Come was on the shelves, and the following year a four-year, five-night-a-week residency at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas was initiated, specially designed to bring extravagant concert spectacles to an all-time absurdist peak (no doubt Tommy Lee curled up under his rotating drum kit and had a good cry). New albums both in English (One Heart) and in French (Une Fille Et 4 Types) were released that same year.

Father: Adhémar Dion (d. 30-Nov-2003 cancer)
Mother: Therese Tanguay
Sister: Claudette Dion
Brother: Daniel Dion (d. 16-Jan-2016 throat cancer)
Husband: René Angélil (her manager, m. 17-Dec-1994, d. 14-Jan-2016 throat cancer, three sons)
Son: René-Charles Angélil (b. 25-Jan-2001)
Son: Nelson Angélil (twin, b. 23-Oct-2010)
Son: Eddy Angélil (twin, b. 23-Oct-2010)

    Afghanistan World Foundation Celebrity Committee
    Grammy Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal (1992)
    Grammy Best Pop Album (1996)
    Grammy Album of the Year (1996)
    Grammy Best Female Pop Vocal Performance (1998)
    Grammy Record of the Year (1998)
    Canada's Walk of Fame 1999
    Order of Canada
    Endorsement of Chrysler Pacifica (2003)
    Jupiter Island
    In Vitro Fertilization
    Miscarriage 2009
    French Ancestry
    Risk Factors: Tonsillitis

    FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
    Muppets Most Wanted (19-Mar-2014)
    Celine: Through the Eyes of the World (17-Feb-2010) · Herself
    America: A Tribute to Heroes (21-Sep-2001) · Himself
    Quest for Camelot (15-May-1998)

Official Website:
http://www.celinedion.com/


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