Céline Marie Claudette Dion (/seɪlɪn dɪɒn/ (help·info)) OC OQ (born March 30, 1968 in Charlemagne, Quebec) is a Canadian singer, and occasional songwriter and actress. Born to a large, impoverished family, Dion emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record. 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.
Dion had first gained international recognition in the 1980s by winning both the 1982 Yamaha World Popular Song Festival and the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest. Following a series of French albums in the early 1980s, she signed on to Sony Records in 1986. During the 1990s, with the help of Angélil, she achieved worldwide success with several English and French albums, becoming one of the most successful artists in pop music. However, 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. 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.
Dion's music has been influenced by genres ranging from rock and R&B to gospel and classical, and while her releases have often received mixed critical reception, she is renowned for her technically skilled and powerful vocals. In 2004, after amassing over 175 million albums worldwide, she was presented with the Chopard Diamond Award at the World Music Awards for becoming the best selling female artist of all time. In April 2007 Sony BMG announced that Celine Dion had sold 200 million albums worldwide.
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