Celine Dion: The truth about the man who changed her forever

Celine Dion is a household name and one of the globe's most legendary. She is strong, powerful and venerable. Much have been said about her unique, melodic, haunting and beautiful voice. But what do we really know about her?

Wherever Celine wants drama will take place! especially with these drastic new surprises she have to deal with. Celine had to learn how to balance her tremendous success, forbidden love affair, and health problems – all while facing her complax past.

Despite how Celine felt about Rene, her mom was strongly against the relationship and did almost everything in her power to dissuade Celine from being involved with him. It was probably the fact that he already had two failed marriages that worried Celine's mother.

In 1999 Celine’s husband Rene was diagnosed with throat cancer. His illness progressed at a rapid speed and soon he was unable to do even the basic things. Celine turned things around and spent almost every waking moment taking care of him.

When she first recorded Titanic's theme song "My Heart will go on" she believed it will fail and hurt her career. She even said in an interview "I didn’t really like the song at first. I did another song for a movie before. It was very successful, and I thought we were pushing our luck.”

In 2000 Celine decided to take a complete break from her hectic performance schedule and spend time with her family. After many failed attempts to conceive she underwent a surgical intervention to help her with her chances. On 25 January 2001, she gave birth to her first child, son Rene-Charles.

Before marrying Dion, Rene Angelil had already been married twice. His first marriage was to Denyse Duquette all the way back in 1966. The couple had a son together, Patrick Angelil. By the time Celine and Rene married, her stepson Patrick Angelil was older than her by a good few years.

Dion went through a number of near-death experiences, but none was as close and severe as when she was 5 and was knocked over by a truck leaving her with skull fractures and in a coma for almost a week. She thankfully survived this near death experience.

It was Rene who managed to convince Celine to at least do a single demo version of "My Heart Will Go On." She agreed to do the demo and that was the actual version that was used and became a global hit. She only ever sang the song that one time.

Another success for Celine was hit theme song "Beauty and the Beast", from the successful Disney's film of the same name, for which she recieved her first Grammy. But the song caused an extreme backlash from her Quebecois fans, because it was in English. She soon gained favor with them again when she refused the English Artist of the Year award.

Celine’s parents already had 13 children and were struggling financially when her mom found out she was pregnant again. This pregnancy was not planned and the entire family had to make adjustments and changes to welcome her into their already crowded home. It was so crowded that she had to sleep in a cabinet drawer because there were no more available beds.

Aside from her incredible singing talent, Celine is also a great chef, just like her mom, and she opened a restaurant called Nickels, which was so successful that she expanded into a very lucrative chain of restaurants across Canada. Celine also published her own magazine called Celine Dion Magazine.

The '90s were tough years for Celine. Rene had just been diagnosed with cancer and she decided to slow things down a bit after releasing 13 smash albums. During this time, National Enquirer released a fake story saying she is pregnant with twins. Dion sued them for $20 million. They apologized and donated money to the American Cancer society.

Over the years, Celine has been awarded many accolades such as the National Order of Quebec and stars on the Canadian and Hollywood Walks of fame. Celine, who did not even graduate from high school, has also received an honorary Doctorate from Laval University. She dedicated the doctorate to Rene as he had such a big influence on her life.

Celine was named after a Huges Aufray song called "Céline." Born into a family filled with the musical talent she gave her first performance at aged 5 at her brother’s wedding and shone above all her siblings. It was the start of her very illustrious singing career that just keeps getting better.

Celine’s brother, Jacques, and mother wrote a song for her to perform. Her mother insisted that it be sent out as her talent was not to be ignored. They sent the recording to many producers whose names they found on records. Finally, they got a producer to listen to the song. His name was Rene Angelil.

When her mother sent out the recording to producers, she attached a note saying that the singer was a very talented 12-year-old. Rene received many of these type of recordings and ignored it until one of Celine’s brothers got in touch with him. After his first listen he instantly wanted her to audition with him.

Celine’s arrived to her audition with Rene Angelil and he gave her a pencil and told her to pretend it’s a microphone and that she was performing to thousands of people. He wanted to see if she really had talent. Needless to say, her performance blew him away.

Celine knew right away that the audition went well because as she looked at Rene, he had tears streaming down his face. That was the moment in which she realized that he could make her a megastar. The journey would not be easy as she was young and had a lot to learn.

Rene was known as a gambling man, but in 1981 he took the biggest gamble. He mortgaged his home so that he could have the money to record and produce Celine’s first single, "La Voix Du Bon." The gamble paid off as the song quickly rose to number 1 in Canada.

Celine quickly rose to stardom. In 1984 Pope John II visited Quebec and Celine was asked to perform the French anthem for him at the Montreal Olympic Stadium. With over 65,000 people present, she says that this was one of the most special performances of her life.

As Celine rose to fame and her career started to blossom, she was still very young and upon advice from Rene, she took a break from her career to grow up out of the public eye. Many believed it to be a risky move, but it paid off.

After taking her 18-month “growing up” break, Celine returned a much more confident singer. Her English had also improved greatly and she released a comeback album Incognito. This album was a great success and she sold over half a million copies. It was the first album she released after signing to CBS, her new record label.

In 1990 Celine released her first full English album Unison. This album propelled her into the American market and spotlight and the single "Where Does My Heart Beat Now," topped the charts in the US. She was getting ready to do her first American tour when something shattering happened to her.

As Dion prepared for her debut American tour she was shattered when she lost her voice. Due to a grueling schedule, her vocal chords were so strained that she was speechless and was immediately advised to stop singing for a month or she would have to undergo major surgery.

Celine Dion has always been a very private person, but amid mounting rumors she finally opened up to the public and revealed that her relationship with Rene has moved from a purely business one to a personal and romantic one. She revealed everything in the sleeve of her album The Colour of My Love. “Maybe at 17, 18 years old, my feelings started to change for him,” Dion said. “I kind of saw him differently.”

They actually started dating when Dion was only 19 and Rene was twenty-six years older than her. The couple knew the public would have opinions about their relationship and the huge age difference. But they also knew this relationship was forever and announced they would be marrying soon and planned to start a family.

Celine and Rene had been secretly dating for almost 5 years before the relationship was revealed to the public. Rene was afraid of what people may think and say but Celine was the one who insisted that they eventually share their secret love. After all, she was in love and wanted the world to know.

As Celine’s fame grown, she was virtually Canadian Royalty. The couple wed in a lavish event, hosted at Montreal's Notre-Dame Basilica. the couple had the ceremony broadcasted on Canadian national TV. Some say that the couple had delusions of grandeur.

Celine commissioned designers Mirella and Steve Gentile to design her lavish wedding gown. The dress took over 1,000 hours to complete and had a train almost 21 feet long. To top it all, Celine wore a 20-pound tiara on her head. The wedding remained a talking point for quite a while.

When they marry, most couples start saving money to buy their first home. Not Celine and Rene. They had both amassed a fortune and had a number of properties to their names before the wedding. After they married they purchased an extravagant property in Florida that later they sold for over $72 million dollars.

Celine’s career skyrocketed after the huge success of Titanic and she embarked on her "Let’s Talk about Love" world tour. Whilst at one of her shows she received the news that Rene had cancer. She still went on stage and performed. Rene sadly passed away in January 2016.

In 2010 Celine and Rene found out they were expecting twins. Celine had undergone a number of IVF treatments and finally conceived. In October she gave birth to beautiful two boys, Eddy and Nelson. Eddy was named after songwriter Eddy Marnay and Nelson was named after Nelson Mandela, South Africa's former legendary president.

Post the catastrophic Asian tsunami in 2004, Celine vowed to do what she could to raise funds to aid the victims of the natural disaster. She aslo donated $1 million for Hurricane Katrina victims, saying “there’s people still there waiting to be rescued. To me that is not acceptable…How can it be so easy to send planes in another country to kill everybody in a second and destroy lives. We need to serve our country.”

Celine’s father, Adhemar Dion, has always been in the background and little was known about him. However, on the day he passed away in 2003 Celine went on stage and dedicated her show to him. She said that he would want the show to go on and that he had always been her biggest supporter and fan.

How do you tell your children that their beloved parent has passed away? Celine took the time with her children to prepare them and talk them through Rene’s illness and eventual death. She felt that preparing the children was the best way for them to be able to deal with the emotional turmoil.

Celine had gone a great lengths to shield her children from the manic clicking of the paparazzi. However, after Rene’s passing, her 15-year-old son, Rene Charles, caused quite a social media storm when he presented an award with his mom at the Billboard Music Awards.

Celine’s mother has always been a great driving force and constant support to her daughter. Therese Dion celebrated her 90th birthday in a feisty style. Celine posted a number of photos from her mom's birthday party on social media and said how blessed she was to still have her mom by her side.

Celine Dion has always been very open and gracious with media. She gives them plenty of her time. On an interview on Ellen DeGeneres' show, the latter complimented her on her jewelry and Celine immediately started singing Donna Summer's hit "She works hard for her Money."

The week Celine Dion lost the love of her life to cancer, she also lost her brother to the same disease. The emotional toll on her was heart-breaking, but Celine is a real fighter and always sees the positive in everything. She said in an interviwe that her husband Rene was there to escort her brother to heaven.

Celine Dion comes from a family of 14 kids. The entire family, including her parents, have musical talent, but none of them made it in the industry on the same scale as Celine. Her sister Claudette did venture into the music world and made some money, but nothing compared to the incredible stardom of her sister.

Celine is a very astute businesswoman as well as a megastar. After being renowned as one of the music industry’s best-dressed stars she launched her own fashion line with over 200 items, including handbags and accessories. She has always said that her designs are inspired by her family.

Celine appeared in many TV shows and has had a string of roles over the years. One of her most memorable performances was in thesoap opera All My Children where she played herself and performed her song “Taking Chances.”

From humble beginnings of having to sleep in a drawer to one of the wealthiest performers ever, Celine has an estimated fortune of over $700 million. Her voice is by far her biggest asset and has taken her very far.

After the attack of September 11 Dion returned to the spotlight once again with her emotionally charged performance of "God Bless America" at the concert held as a tribute to the heroes who perished in this terrorist attack.

Hollywood has the most iconic Walk of Fame in the world. But, Canada has its own version of it. Celine Dion is the only celebrity in the world, to date, who has stars on both.

In 1634 Zacharie Cloutier fled France and crossed the ocean and founded one of the first French-Canadian Families. Global stars like Celine Dion, Madonna, Beyonce and Shania Twain, all have genetics tracing right back to him. Apparently, Jack Kerouac and Alanis Morissette are also related.

Celine Dion does not just have an astounding voice, she also has a great ear and tongue for foreign languages. Not only does she sing in French and English, but has recorded and performed in Spanish, German, Italian, Latin, Japanese and even Mandarin Chinese. She has really engaged with fans in their own languages.

Dion hit the number one spot globally with her theme song of Titanic. But before that, Peabo Bryson was included in the recording of “Beauty and the Beast” due to Dion’s lack of fame at the time.

Not only does Dion love to play golf, but is often seen at the big tournaments watching the masters play. Celine decided to open her own golf course located in Terrebonne near Montreal, Canada which is called "Le Mirage."

At music awards, whenever Celine is nominated, the award usually goes to her. Celine has performed at many award ceremonies around the world and holds the record for most performances by a single artist at the Academy Awards.

The smash hit “It’s all coming back to me now” was written by Jim Steinman who wanted the song to be sung as a ballad by a female artist. Originally it was going to be recorded by Meatloaf, but Steinman insisted, Celine got it, and the rest is history. Meatloaf did eventually record a version of the song.

After the loss of her true love, Celine has admitted that it’s incredibly hard for her and she is often lonely. The loving and nurturing of her children brings her immense comfort and purpose.

Celine has a voice like no one else. She can sing anything and has a natural way of always adding her own spin into the song. Some of her best covers include "I drove all night" by Cindi Lauper, "All by myself" by Eric Carmen or Lennon’s "Beautiful Boy." She also loves to sing duets with the likes of Barbra Streisand, Michael Jackson.

In 1988 Celine Dion represented Switzerland in the Eurovision contest and performed to millions of people globally. Celine won the competition by a single vote over the UK. The competition was held in Ireland and this win propelled her into stardom.

When Celine was signed by CBS she joined the ranks of artists like Michael Jackson at the label. When she was 18 she said she wanted to be like Michael and achieve as much as he had. She remained a firm fan of his, right up to his death.

Celine’s large family owned a piano bar called Le Vieux Baril in Charlemagne, Quebec. All the kids, including Celine, used to practice and perform in the bar. Celine started performing at age 5 and soon became the firm favorite with the clientele. The bar was demolished in later years.

(Source: Tetty Betty)

The couple who died cuddling in bed in ‘Titanic’

The 2 saddest deaths in "Titanic" somehow just got even sadder. This couple's true love story is even more romantic than the one between Jack and Rose, writes Caralynn Lippo in Little Things. Read on: 

Like many natural and manmade disasters, the sinking of the RMS Titanic remains a particular fascination of many people today.

Over 1,500 of the passengers and crew aboard the massive passenger liner died when the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic Ocean, after colliding with an iceberg on April 15, 1912. The tragic event occurred during the ship’s maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City — a much-hyped journey, given that the Titanic was, at that time, the largest ship afloat.

The massive death toll made the sinking one of the deadliest maritime disasters (unrelated to wartime activity) in modern history.

The sinking was memorialized in the 1997 classic, Titanic, which broke box office records and earned a place in pop culture history. To this day, this movie is one of my own all-time favorites, and I’m sure many others can say the same!

I’ve practically memorized the entire (extremely long) film. One of the saddest moments that has always stuck with me is the death scene of two elderly passengers, a couple. But did you know that the onscreen pair was actually based on a real couple?

Scroll through to learn more about the real-life people behind this heartbreaking Titanic moment and their tragic true story.

If you’re a fan of the movie Titanic, you probably know that most of the main characters aren’t actual, historical figures.

That includes the two characters at the center of the movie’s love story, Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater.

There’s some confusion among people; some think Jack was a real historical figure, because it turns out there was a “J. Dawson” who was a casualty in the sinking.

“J. Dawson” is buried in the Fairview Lawn Cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia — but he’s not the one Leonardo DiCaprio’s heartthrob, Jack, was based. The whole situation is actually just a complete coincidence.

It’s a bit of a bummer that the central love story isn’t real, but another relationship in the movie is very much based in reality: the one between the old people who died while cuddling in bed.

As you probably recall from the movie, the elderly couple holds one another in bed while their room fills up with freezing ocean water. They’ve opted to die together and go down with the ship.

It’s easily one of the film’s saddest moments, and we have the real-life Isidor and Ida Straus to thank for that.

According to their Encyclopedia Titanica pages, Isidor and Ida were first-class passengers on the Titanic.

The 67-year-old businessman and his 63-year-old wife traveled with their servants, John Farthing and Ellen Bird.

sidor was famous (and extremely wealthy) for being the co-owner of Macy’s department store, along with his brother, Nathan.

He was also, at one point, a congressman for New York State.

Isidor married Ida in 1871.

They were among the richest people aboard the Titanic, which they’d boarded to return to New York after a winter in Europe together.

As the story goes, after the Titanic hit an iceberg, and it eventually became clear that the ship would sink, Ida (as both a first-class passenger and a woman) was immediately given a priority spot on a lifeboat.

According to a cable sent to their kids only hours after the ship went down, Ida stepped one foot into the lifeboat, thinking her husband was coming with her.

When she realized he wasn’t getting in the lifeboat with her, she stepped out.

Isidor and an officer reportedly urged Ida to get back into the lifeboat, but she refused. One account recalled overhearing Ida say, “We have lived together for many years. Where you go, I go.”

“Then, they walked to the opposite end of the ship,” Brett Gladstone, the Strauses’ great-great-grandson said. “They were last seen standing on the deck, clasping each other, calmly waiting.”

Ida’s maid, Ellen Bird, got Ida’s spot in the lifeboat. She gave a similar account of events to the family, confirming that the older woman willingly remained behind on the Titanic with her husband.

“Ida handed the fur she was wearing to her maid and said, ‘Get in the lifeboat,'” Brett recounted.

“She said, ‘You’re going to need this more than I will.’ I heard that the maid eventually gave the coat back to the family. Someone may still have it.”

While the specific circumstances of Isidor and Ida — lying in bed while the water engulfed them, waiting to die — were invented for the movie, they did indeed both lose their lives on the Titanic.

Isidor’s body was later recovered, and he was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York. Ida’s body was never found, but she was given a memorial on her husband’s grave.

There is also a statue dedicated to the pair in the Isidor and Ida Straus Memorial located in the Straus Park in Manhattan.

Though the Strauses died in the tragedy, their beautiful love story will never be forgotten, thanks to these memorials and the movie Titanic.

“Titanic Orphans”- Two brothers put on the last lifeboat by their father.Sadly, he went down with the ship

We cannot even imagine how it was for  Michel (4) and Edmund  (2) to be alone on a ship, surrounded by hysteria and terror, without being aware that they will never see their father again who just had placed them on the last lifeboat. Michel Marcel Navratil, Jr. (12 June 1908 – 30 January 2001).along with his brother, Edmond (1910–1953), were known as the “Titanic Orphans”, having been the only children rescued without a parent or guardian.

Michel, Edmond, and their father boarded the Titanic at Southampton , England on 10 April 1912, as second-class passengers. For the journey, Mr. Navratil assumed the alias “Louis M. Hoffman”, and the boys were booked as “Lolo and Momon”. On board the ship, he led passengers to believe that he was a widower. He let the boys out of his sight only once, when he allowed a French-speaking woman, Bertha Lehmann, to watch them for a few hours while he played cards.

After the collision with the iceberg at 11:40 pm on 14 April 1912, Navratil placed Michel and Edmond in Collapsible D, the last lifeboat successfully launched from the ship.

Michel, although not quite four years old at the time, later claimed to remember his father telling him, “My child, when your mother comes for you, as she surely will, tell her that I loved her dearly and still do. Tell her I expected her to follow us, so that we might all live happily together in the peace and freedom of the New World.” The elder Navratil died in the sinking, and his body was recovered by the rescue ship, Mackay-Bennett. In his pocket was a revolver. Because of his assumed Jewish surname, he was buried in Baron de Hirsch Cemetery, Halifax, a Jewish cemetery in Nova Scotia.

Edmond and Michel Navratil are reunited with their mother.Library of Congres

While in Collapsible D, Michel was fed biscuits by first-class passenger Hugh Woolner.  When the rescue ship Carpathia arrived at the scene, he and Edmond were hoisted to its deck in burlap sacks. Since they were toddlers and spoke no English, they could not identify themselves and were soon referred to as the “Titanic Orphans”. French-speaking first-class passenger Margaret Hays cared for them at her house until their mother could be located, which occurred as a result of newspaper articles which included their pictures. She sailed to New York City and was reunited with them on 16 May 1912. She took them back to France aboard the Oceanic.

Michel later recalled his memory of the Titanic:
“ A magnificent ship!…I remember looking down the length of the hull – the ship looked splendid. My brother and I played on the forward deck and were thrilled to be there. One morning, my father, my brother, and I were eating eggs in the second-class dining room. The sea was stunning. My feeling was one of total and utter well being. ”
 — Michel Navratil

and later:
“ I don’t recall being afraid, I remember the pleasure, really, of going plop! into the lifeboat. We ended up next to the daughter of an American banker who managed to save her dog–no one objected. There were vast differences of people’s wealth on the ship, and I realized later that if we hadn’t been in second-class, we’d have died. The people who came out alive often cheated and were aggressive. The honest didn’t stand a chance.”

A shot of Michel Navratil from the documentary Titanic – Death of a Dream

In 1987, Michel travelled to Wilmington, Delaware to mark the 75th anniversary of the sinking. It was his first visit to the United States since 1912. The following year, he joined ten fellow survivors at a Titanic Historical Society convention inBoston, Massachusetts. In 1996, he joined fellow survivors Eleanor Shuman and Edith Brown on a cruise to the location of the wreck, where attempts were made to bring a large portion of the hull to the surface. On 27 August 1996, before his return to France, he traveled to Halifax, Nova Scotia to see his father’s grave for the first time.  His  younger brother  Edmond worked as an interior decorator and then became an architect and builder. He joined the French Army during World War II and became a prisoner-of-war. Although he escaped, his health had deteriorated, and he died in 1953 at age 43. Michel was one of the last survivors of the sinking of Titanic, he died in 2001 aged 92.

(Source: The Vintage News)

Titanic sank due to enormous uncontrollable fire, not iceberg!

The sinking of the RMS Titanic may have been caused by an enormous fire on board, not by hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic, experts have claimed, as new evidence has been published to support the theory.

More than 1,500 passengers lost their lives when the Titanic sank on route to New York from Southampton in April 1912.

While the cause of the disaster has long been attributed to the iceberg, fresh evidence has surfaced of a fire in the ship’s hull, which researchers say burned unnoticed for almost three weeks leading up to the collision.

While experts have previously acknowledged the theory of a fire on board, new analysis of rarely seen photographs has prompted researchers to blame the fire as the primary cause of the ship’s demise.

Journalist Senan Molony, who has spent more than 30 years researching the sinking of the Titanic, studied photographs taken by the ship’s chief electrical engineers before it left Belfast shipyard.

Mr Maloney said he was able to identify 30-foot-long black marks along the front right-hand side of the hull, just behind where the ship’s lining was pierced by the iceberg.

He said: “We are looking at the exact area where the iceberg stuck, and we appear to have a weakness or damage to the hull in that specific place, before she even left Belfast”.

Experts subsequently confirmed the marks were likely to have been caused by a fire started in a three-storey high fuel store behind one of the ship’s boiler rooms.

A team of 12 men attempted to put out the flames, but it was too large to control, reaching temperatures of up to 1000 degrees Celsius.

Subsequently, when the Titanic struck ice, the steel hull was weak enough for the ship’s lining to be torn open.

Officers on board were reportedly under strict instruction from J Bruce Ismay, president of the company that built the Titanic, not to mention the fire to any of the ship’s 2,500 passengers.

Presenting his research in a Channel 4 documentary, Titanic: The New Evidence, broadcast on New Year’s Day, Mr Maloney also claims the ship was reversed into its berth in Southampton to prevent passengers from seeing damage made to the side of the ship by the ongoing fire.

Mr Molony said: “The official Titanic inquiry branded [the sinking] as an act of God. This isn’t a simple story of colliding with an iceberg and sinking.

“It’s a perfect storm of extraordinary factors coming together: fire, ice and criminal negligence.

“Nobody has investigated these marks before. It totally changes the narrative. We have metallurgy experts telling us that when you get that level of temperature against steel it makes it brittle, and reduces its strength by up to 75 per cent.

“The fire was known about, but it was played down. She should never have been put to sea.”

In 2008, Ray Boston, an expert with more than 20 years of research into the Titanic’s journey, said he believed the coal fire began during speed trials as much as 10 days prior to the ship leaving Southampton.

He said the fire had potential to cause “serious explosions” below decks before it would reach New York.

An inquiry into the disaster, presented to Parliament in 1912, described the ship as travelling at “high speed” through dangerous icy waters, giving the crew little opportunity to avoid the fatal collision.

(Source: Independent)