When Whitney Houston died on the 11th February 2012, it was a big shock to us all. Another drug infused battle with another cherished celebrity.
If we look back on the great work she had produced, some of her greatest hits include “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” and “How Will I Know”, where she worked with the talented choreographer Arlene Phillips.
This was the time of the eighties, where pop masters such as Madonna and Michael Jackson were at the peak of their career, and Whitney was not far behind their success.
In an interview with the BBC, Arlene Phillips relives the memories of her time spent with Whitney in the eighties when producing the two favourite Whitney music videos.
“How Will I Know” (1985) incorporated elementary dance moves into what used to be just staged performances by Whitney. Arlene described her ironically as shy and charming and “didn’t wanna dance”. Filming and teaching the choreography in London, Whitney was not used to this, yet Arlene encouraged her to reach her full potential and her moves influenced many around the world thereafter to get up and dance.
“I Wanna Dance With Somebody” was shot in New York and released in October, 1987 and won the 1986 MTV Music Awards for the Best Female Video. On this date, Arlene still described Whitney as “the sweetest person you could meet”, however the singer began to spin into the whirlpool of the music industry’s disadvantage with dependency on drugs and alcohol.
Arlene states that there is always a protective ring around any music icon, so the value is like having a gold bar to keep people out and they think that the way to handle this and escape reality is to take drugs. The reason for such disasters happening is that managers are merely afraid of telling their artist to stop – with the fear of being sacked. Even when she met in New York a couple of years from first working with her, she noticed a difference – there was “no stopping her”.The last 5 years of Whitney’s life probably did not help. The influence stems from who you surround yourself with aswell. Her marriage to R&B singer Bobby Brown ended in 2007 and her focus in life was distorted since then from her shared bad habits influenced by him.
Arlene was honoured to have worked with Whitney, but it is still very unfortunate to lose another great music icon.
Arlene has worked on many different music videos including Kiss, Queen, Robbie Williams, The Bee Gees and Duran Duran, to name a few.
BBC interview with Arlene Phillips:
