'Cool Real Cool'
That's How Denzel Washington Describes Whitney Houston, His Costar In "The Preacher's Wife." It's Appropriate For The Music. Diva On The Verge Of Her Third Box-Office Hit In A Row

Date: December 15, 1996
By Annette John-Hall, Staff Writer

From The Philadelphia Inquirer
Submitted by: Larry A.


Whitney Houston is describing Julia, the earnest but tempted spouse she plays in The Preacher's Wife.

"Julia is pretty steady," she explains. "She doesn't switch up on you. She's faithful. She gets mad and frustrated, but knows how to contain it without making a mess of things."

Sounds like a description of Houston these last few years. Throughout her rough-and-tumble marriage to hip-hopper Bobby Brown - a union lowlighted by his run-ins with the law and reports of womanizing and alcohol abuse - Houston has been the steady and faithful one, trying to clean up her husband's mess before it becomes toxic.

All of that is behind her now, she says. Behind them. Brown is gearing up for a reunion tour with his old group, New Edition, and if reviews are any indication, Houston - whose film opened nationwide on Friday - has her third consecutive box-office hit.

Houston and Brown - who wed when he was 23 and she was nearly 29 - briefly separated last year, the singer acknowledges. Their marriage "was difficult at first," she says in a staccato cadence that is at once formal and urban-contemporary.

"But once you get more secure with each other you get more secure in your marriage. [Now], all's well with my soul, my husband's and my child's. We're going on five years of marriage and we're going strong."

Sitting in a suite at the Parker Meridien Hotel, Houston appears happy. She is pregnant - due in early July - and she and Brown are hoping for a little brother for 3-year-old Bobbi Kristina. ("I like the name Julian," she says, "but Bobby likes Jules.")

Her lean, strong frame is swathed in black - a sleek wool blazer, comfy bell-bottom trousers, and sensible Gucci suede loafers - and she shows no sign of her condition. Not that she'd mind, though.

"I got as big as a house the last time. [But] I wasn't worried because I was eating healthy," explains the tall beauty, who modeled as a teenager. "When I'm pregnant I don't mind eating what I want.

"Plus," she says slyly, "my hips get rounded and I get some breasts and my legs get thick. I like it ... and so does Bobby."

Known for her habitual lateness - this is the woman who kept South African President Nelson Mandela waiting for three hours at the White House - food has her running behind this particular day. Room service is an hour overdue: No interviews granted until after her veal and shrimp pasta have arrived.

("She was only running a half-hour late today. That was pretty good," one of her handlers observes. "She's accessible, she just has her own time schedule.") If diva status excuses tardiness, then Whitney Houston has a lifetime pass. Once simply the queen of pop, she's now also the queen of the sound track. And The Preacher's Wife, for which she was paid $10 million, is likely to affirm her status as a queen of the box office.

At 33, Houston's star is as blinding as the diamonds she flashes (an eight-carat engagement ring, plus a pair of bands good for two more carats). It's been that way ever since 1983, when her Whitney Houston introduction to the world went sextuple-platinum.

The Bodyguard, her first foray into acting, was a smash in 1992. Critics panned the film, in which she plays a superstar singer who falls in love with her security guy (Kevin Costner). But moviegoers loved it, and the sound track - which featured the ubiquitous "I Will Always Love You" - sold more than 32 million copies.

Waiting to Exhale, her second film, defied the expectations of those who predicted only a modest return from a film with an all-black cast. The film, which opened last December, grossed $80 million domestically and sold 9 million copies of its sound track.

The Preacher's Wife and its gospel-dominated sound track are expected to follow suit. Based on The Bishop's Wife - the 1947 Christmas classic starring Cary Grant, Loretta Young and David Niven - the film is about Henry Biggs (Courtney B. Vance), a preacher who struggles with self-doubt; his wife Julia (Houston), who is frustrated by her husband's neglect; and Dudley (Denzel Washington), the angel sent to answer Henry's prayers. Instead, Dudley and Julia unintentionally become attracted to each other.

Directed by Penny Marshall (Big, A League of Their Own), the movie is an engaging tearjerker perfect for family viewing during the holidays. What it lacks in depth it makes up for with Washington's charisma and Houston's voice, which is magnificently accompanied by members of the Georgia Mass Choir.

The thought of Houston as Julia seemed a perfect fit to Washington, whose production company, Mundy Lane Entertainment, developed The Preacher's Wife.

"We talked about Julia Roberts but then we thought of Whitney, making her the head of choir. Then everything clicked. It was off to the races," says Washington.

Was she difficult? Moody? Divalike?

"After I helped her with her singing?" Washington laughs. "No, she's cool, real cool. I'm a regular guy from New York and she's a regular girl from Newark. Once we sat down and talked, we knew we were from the same place.

That place is the church. Washington's father was a Pentecostal minister for 40 years. Houston's mother, gospel/rhythm-and-blues songstress Cissy Houston, is director of music at New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, N.J., the church in which Whitney was raised.

In fact, Houston cut her musical teeth wearing a choir robe. Her rich, searing voice is tailor-made for gospel's ebb and flow. For the Preacher's Wife sound track she got to sing with gospel heavyweights including Shirley Caesar.

At times, she says, making the movie felt like being touched at a revival.

"There were moments when you were just walking around and everybody was joyous and praising and crying ... It was a spiritual event," she said. "It revived my soul, my faith in God."

The defining moment, she recalls, occurred at Trinity United Methodist Church in Newark. Late one night, when Marshall was shooting the final take with Houston and the Georgia Mass Choir, "the Holy Ghost just came down and filled up the room," Houston says.

"Penny was yelling, 'Cut!', and then her mike went out and she kept saying, 'Cut, cut!' and nobody could hear her.

"Baby," Houston says, her almond-shaped eyes widening, "we had church in that church that night! It was a fire in there and it was mighty."

"I just kept the cameras rolling like we were filming a documentary," says Marshall, who left the full scene in the movie. "It was dizzying."

Houston's costars are still marveling over her voice.

"I must tell you, sitting in that church listening to Whitney sing was like watching the eighth wonder of the world," says Jenifer Lewis, a scene-stealer as Houston's mother in the film.

But can she act?

"I didn't say her acting was stellar," chides Lewis, a veteran of stage, screen and television. "I said her voice was."

Lewis isn't revealing a secret. Houston is the first to admit her thespian talents have a way to go. Though she recently closed a two-year deal to produce and star in films and TV shows for Touchstone Pictures, she isn't even sure she wants to be an actress.

"The Bodyguard wasn't something that was calculated, it just happened," Houston says. "It makes me feel guilty sometimes, you know?

"Let me tell you, I didn't want to be a movie star. I'd be fine doing a nice, little role in a substantial movie, and then, I'm out. I don't need this hoopla over here; I got enough hoopla over there."

Making movies, she says, messes with her body clock. "For so long I've had my own time schedule. Then I'm getting up at 6 in the morning and I was like, 'Whoa, this is killing me.' I'm a singer and I know it."

That said, Houston did recently hire Debra Martin Chase, who formerly ran Washington's company, to guide the newly formed Houston Productions. Last year the company acquired rights to Donald Bogle's biography of Dorothy Dandridge, the beautiful, emotionally flawed actress whose performance in 1954's Carmen Jones earned her an Oscar nomination for best actress.

Houston isn't sure if she's ready to carry a film.

"Playing Dorothy Dandridge requires a different level of drama. I'm not sure I'm ready to do that kind of part. I know I could sing her to death, but there's somebody in Hollywood who could eat, drink and sleep her. Halle [Berry] is a person who would kill for that role, and she would be great. I have no problem in thinking someone else is better."

Right now, Houston isn't thinking about much except family. The biggest obstacle in her marriage to Brown has reportedly been her husband's penchant for fooling around. He has fathered four children with three other women, the youngest born after he and Houston were married.

But Houston says she's unworried about Brown straying - though she plans to accompany him on his New Edition tour, which comes to the CoreStates Center on Jan. 19.

"I don't go for no okey-doke," says Houston. "And my husband knows it."

After traveling, she and Brown will go back to their $11 million estate in Mendham Township, N.J., to await the arrival of their baby. That's where she can shed the Whitney Houston, megastar pop-R&B-gospel singer/actress/businesswoman persona and be just plain Nippy, her family's pet name for her.

"When I get home and the baby's all over me and my husband's telling me he ain't got no clean underwear, that's what makes it all connect," she says.

"We got all this extraordinary stuff happening, but sometimes we just break. We just chill, you know?

"Then we get back at it."