Whitney Houston, pop titan, dies at 48

Whitney Houston dies at 48
Grammy Award-winning singer and actress Whitney Houston has died aged 48.

Whitney Houston had launched a comeback in late 2009 

By Nick Allen, Los Angeles2:34AM GMT 12 Feb 2012

She died in a room on the fourth floor of the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles where she was a guest. She was pronounced dead at 3.55pm local time, Lieutenant Mark Rosen of the Beverly Hills Police said. Her publicist said the cause of her death was unknown.

Houston reigned as pop music's queen until her majestic voice and regal image were ravaged by drug use, erratic behavior and a tumultuous marriage to singer Bobby Brown.

From the middle 1980s to the late 1990s, she was one of the world's best-selling artists. She wowed audiences with effortless, powerful, and peerless vocals. Her success carried her beyond music to movies, where she starred in hits like The Bodyguard and Waiting to Exhale.

She influenced a generation of younger singers, from Christina Aguilera to Mariah Carey.
But by the end of her career, Houston became a stunning cautionary tale of the toll of drug use. Her album sales plummeted and the hits stopped coming.

She confessed to abusing cocaine, marijuana and pills, and her once pristine voice became raspy and hoarse, unable to hit the high notes as she had during her prime.

"The biggest devil is me. I'm either my best friend or my worst enemy," Houston told ABC's Diane Sawyer in an infamous 2002 interview with then-husband Brown by her side.

LA Times story here