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Céline Marie Claudette Dion
March 30, 1968
The youngest of fourteen children born to Adhémar Dion and Thérèse Tanguay. Céline Dion was raised a Roman Catholic in a poverty-stricken but, by her own account, happy home in Charlemagne, Quebec, Canada.
Yamaha World Popular Song Festival
October 11, 1982
Dion first gained international recognition in the 1980s after she won the 1982 Yamaha World Popular Song Festival.
Signed on to Sony Records
January 13, 1986
Following a series of French albums in the early 1980s, she signed on to Sony Records in 1986.
1988 Eurovision Song Contest
July 15, 1988
Dion first gained international recognition in the 1980s after she won the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest.
École Berlitz School
May 17, 1989
Dion receded from the spotlight for a number of months, during which she underwent a physical makeover, and was sent to the École Berlitz School in 1989 to polish her English. This marked the start of her English-language music career.
Unison Album
March 22, 1990
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.
Academy Award for Best Song
March 20, 1991
Beauty and the Beast won the Academy Award for Best Song.
Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
June 13, 1991
Beauty and the Beast won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.
Beauty and the Beast
October 20, 1991
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.
Céline Dion
January 13, 1992
"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.
The Colour of My Love Album
November 14, 1993
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.
Married to René Angélil
December 11, 1994 - Now
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.[13] Eventually, Angélil and Dion married in an extravagant wedding ceremony in December 1994, which was broadcast live on Canadian television.
Falling into You Album
March 6, 1996
Falling into You (1996), Dion's fourth Anglophone album, presented the singer at the height of her popularity, and showed a further progression of her music. In an attempt to reach a wider audience, the album combined many elements, such as ornate orchestral frills, African chanting, and outlandish musical effects. Additionally, instruments like the violin, Spanish guitar, trombone, the cavaquinho, and saxophone created a new sound. The singles encompassed a variety of musical styles. The title track "Falling into You" and "River Deep, Mountain High" (a Tina Turner cover) made prominent use of percussion instruments; "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" (a remake of Jim Steinman's song) and a remake of Eric Carmen's "All by Myself" kept their soft-rock atmosphere, but were combined with the classical sound of the piano; and the number-one single "Because You Loved Me", which was written by Diane Warren, was a maudlin ballad that served as the theme to the 1996 film Up Close & Personal. Falling into You garnered career-best reviews for Dion. While Dan Leroy wrote that it was not very different from her previous work, and Stephen Holden of The New York Times and Natalie Nichols of Los Angeles Times wrote that the album was formulaic, other critics such as Chuck Eddy of Entertainment Weekly, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AMG, and Daniel Durchholz lavished the album as "compelling", "passionate", "stylish", "elegant", and "remarkably well-crafted". Falling Into You became Dion's most critically and commercially successful album: it topped the charts in many countries and became one of the best-selling albums of all time. It also won Grammy Awards for Best Pop Album, and the academy's highest honor Album of the Year. Dion's status on the world stage was further solidified when she was asked to perform "The Power of the Dream" at the opening ceremonies of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. In March 1996, Dion launched the Falling into You Tour in support of her new album, giving concerts around the world for over a year.
Atlanta Olympic Games
March 21, 1996
Dion's status on the world stage was further solidified when she was asked to perform "The Power of the Dream" at the opening ceremonies of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.
Titanic Film
May 1, 1997
Serving as the love theme for the 1997 blockbuster film Titanic, the song topped the charts across the world, and became Dion's signature song.[49] The singles "My Heart Will Go On" and "Think Twice" made her the only female artist in the UK to have two singles to sell more than a million copies.[50] In support of her album, Dion embarked on the Let's Talk About Love Tour between 1998 and 1999, which received mixed reviews.
Let's Talk About Love
July 14, 1997
Let's Talk About Love (1997), which was publicized as its sequel. The recording process took place in London, New York City, and Los Angeles, and featured a host of special guests, such as Barbra Streisand on "Tell Him"; the Bee Gees on "Immortality"; and world-renowned tenor Luciano Pavarotti on "I Hate You Then I Love You". Other musicians included Carole King, Sir George Martin, and Jamaican singer Diana King, who added a reggae tinge to "Treat Her Like a Lady". As the name suggests, the album had the same theme as Dion's preceding albums—"love". However, emphasis was also placed on "brotherly love" with "Where Is the Love" and "Let's Talk About Love". The most successful single from the album became the classically influenced ballad "My Heart Will Go On", which was composed by James Horner, and produced by Horner and Walter Afanasieff.
VH1's Divas Live
August 13, 1998
Her status as one of the biggest divas of contemporary music was further solidified when she was asked to perform on VH1's Divas Live special in 1998, with superstars Aretha Franklin, Gloria Estefan, Shania Twain, and Mariah Carey.
Christmas album These Are Special Times
November 15, 1998
On These Are Special Times, Dion became more involved in the writing process. The album was her most classically influenced yet, with orchestral arrangements found on virtually every track. "I'm Your Angel", a duet with R. Kelly, became Dion's fourth and final U.S. number one single, and another hit single across the world.
Temporary retirement
April 19, 1999
In 1999, at the height of her success, Dion announced a temporary retirement from entertainment in order to start a family and spend time with her husband, who had been diagnosed with cancer.
All the Way… A Decade of Song Album
May 11, 1999
All the Way... A Decade of Song drew together her most successful hits coupled with seven new songs, including the lead off single "That's the Way It Is", a cover of Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face", and "All the Way", a duet with Frank Sinatra.
Canadian Broadcast Hall of Fame
May 17, 1999
She won the Grammy Awards for "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance".
Career break
January 1, 2000 - January 1, 2002
Dion stated that she needed to settle down, and that she needed to take a step back from the spotlight and enjoy life.
Angélil's diagnosis with throat cancer
January 1, 2000
Angélil's diagnosis with throat cancer also prompted her to hiatus.
National Enquirer
Feburary 16, 2000
In 2000, the National Enquirer published a false story about the singer. Brandishing a picture of Dion and her husband, the magazine misquoted Dion, printing the headline, "Celine — 'I'm Pregnant With Twins!'" Dion later sued the magazine for more than twenty million dollars. The editors of the Enquirer printed an apology and a full retraction to Dion in the next issue, and donated money to the American Cancer Society in honor of Dion and her husband.
René-Charles Dion Angélil
January 25, 2001
A year after the incident, after undergoing fertility treatments, Dion gave birth to a son, René-Charles Dion Angélil, on January 25, 2001 in Florida.
America: A Tribute to Heroes
September 13, 2001
Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Dion returned to the music scene, and in a televised performance sang "God Bless America" at the benefit concert America: A Tribute to Heroes. Chuck Taylor of Billboard wrote, "the performance... brings to mind what has made her one of the celebrated vocalists of our time: the ability to render emotion that shakes the soul. Affecting, meaningful, and filled with grace, this is a musical reflection to share with all of us still searching for ways to cope."
Signed a five-year contract
January 1, 2002 - January 1, 2007
She returned to the music scene 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.
A New Day Has Come Album
March 18, 2002
Dion's aptly titled A New Day Has Come, released in March 2002, ended her three-year break from the music industry. The album was Dion's most personal yet, and established a more mature side of Dion with the songs "A New Day Has Come", "I'm Alive", and "Goodbye's (The Saddest Word)", a change that resulted from her new-found maternal responsibilities, because, in her own words, "becoming a mother makes you a grown-up." She stated, "A New Day Has Come, for Rene, for me, is the baby. It has everything to do with the baby...That song ["A New Day Has Come"] represents very well the mood I'm feeling right now. It represents the whole album." While the album achieved commercial success, critical comments suggested that it was "forgettable" and the lyrics were "lifeless". Both Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone magazine, and Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly, stated that Dion's music had not matured during her break, and classed her music as trite and mediocre. Sal Cinquemani of Slant magazine called the album "a lengthy collection of drippy, gooey pop fluffer-nutter."
One Heart Album
May 22, 2003
Drawing inspiration from personal experiences, Dion released One Heart (2003), an album that represented her appreciation for life. The album largely consisted of dance music—a deviation from the soaring, melodramatic ballads, for which she had once been given mixed reception. Although it achieved moderate success, One Heart hinted at Dions' inability to overcome the creative wall that she had hit, and words such as "predictable" and "banal" appeared even in the most lenient reviews. A cover of Roy Orbison's "I Drove All Night", released to launch her new advertising campaign with Chrysler, incorporated dance-pop and rock and roll and was called reminiscent of Cher's 1980s work. However, it was dismissed as Dion trying to please her sponsors.
Miracle
June 11, 2004
By the mid 2000s Dion's music had changed to the point where her releases possessed maternal overtones. Miracle (2004), a multimedia project conceived by Dion and photographer Anne Geddes, had a theme centering on babies and motherhood. The album was saturated with lullabies and other songs of maternal love and inspiration, the two most popular being covers of Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" and John Lennon's "Beautiful Boy". The reviews for Miracle were generally weak: while Charles Taylor of Billboard magazine wrote that the single "Beautiful Boy" was "an unexpected gem" and called Dion "a timeless, enormously versatile artist", Chuck Arnold of People Magazine labeled the album as excessively sentimental, while Nancy Miller of Entertainment Weekly opined that "the whole earth-mama act is just opportunism".
Chopard Diamond Award
July 15, 2004
In 2004, after amassing 175 million in album sales, she was presented with the Chopard Diamond Award from the World Music Awards show for becoming the "Best-selling Female Artist in the World".
Sold more than 200 million albums worldwide
April 24, 2007
In April 2007 Sony BMG announced that Celine Dion had sold more than 200 million albums worldwide.
Live in Las Vegas - A New Day DVD
December 10, 2007
The Live in Las Vegas - A New Day... DVD was released on December 10, 2007 in Europe and the following day in North America.
