ON the surface, the discovery and rise to fame of Mariah Carey has
all the plot elements of a showbiz fairy tale: a young and ambitious
girl moves to the big city determined to make her mark. She slaves
away at meaningless jobs to get by, singing whenever and
wherever she can. One fateful evening, she attends a soiree, at
which she passes her demo tape into the hands of a dark,
handsome man, and then disappears into the night. The dark prince
in this particular tale, Sony Music Entertainment President Tommy
Mottola, plays the tape and has an epiphany: he can make this
mystery songstress into a star. He seeks her out, and,
overwhelmed by the extraordinarily Cinderella- like vibe of it all,
they fall in love.
At any rate, that's how Mariah Carey and
Tommy Mottola recounted their personal and professional courtship
to the press. In a darker version of the story, some music- industry
observers suggested that Carey was more like Rapunzel than
Cinderella sequestered in their gaudily enormous Hudson River
Valley mansion and creatively stifled by Mottola's Svengali- like
domination, the diva was compelled to spin sugary ballads into
gold.
Carey was born to a half- Venezuelan, half- black father and an
Irish mother. As you might imagine, the family faced a fair amount
of prejudice due to its mixed heritage. Mother Patricia, an opera
singer and vocal coach, was disowned by her family when she
married Alfred Roy Carey, an aeronautical engineer. Over the years,
the couple had various atrocities visited upon them by bigots,
including having their cars blown up and their dogs poisoned. The
marriage crumbled under the strain of such malicious events, and
the couple divorced when Mariah was 3 years old. Mariah's older
sister moved in with their father, and her older brother was soon
off to college, leaving just Mariah at home with a mother who
struggled to make ends meet.
Patricia Carey's vocation qualified her to truly "discover" her
daughter's talent. "From the time Mariah was a tiny girl," she
recalled, "she sang on true pitch. She was able to hear a sound
and duplicate it exactly." The proud mother nurtured her daughter's
talent by coaching her at home, all the while trying not to force
the issue too much. Mariah sang for friends, and performed in
talent shows and at folk- music festivals; by the time she entered
junior high, she had begun to write her own songs. In high school,
she started commuting to Manhattan in order to study music with
professionals, and upon her graduation, in 1987, she moved to the
city. She paid the rent on her barren apartment by working as a
waitress (she claims to have been fired from 20 restaurants
because of her "attitude"), coat checker, beauty salon janitor, and
part- time backup singer. It was this last gig, backing rhythm-
and- blues singer Brenda K. Starr, that brought Carey close enough
to Mottola to slip him her tape. After only ten months of slumming
in the big city, Mariah Carey was about to become a star.
Carey's 1990 eponymous debut album created quite a stir, largely
because of the incredible virtuosity of her voice, which many say is
rivaled only by that of Whitney Houston. Critics babbled on and on
about her remarkable octave- dancing (Carey has a vocal range of
between five and seven octaves, based on varying reports), but
generally agreed that there wasn't much substance to what she
was saying. These days, Carey co- writes most of her songs, but
her debut album was penned by professional hit- makers and it
dripped with a cloying sweetness. However, nothing the critics said
mattered much after the album sold over six million copies and
made Mariah Carey an overnight sensation: two singles from the
album shot to No. 1, and the music community awarded the
newcomer with a gaggle of Grammys for her impressive debut.
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Carey's post- wedding albums (1993's Music Box, 1994's Merry
Christmas, and 1995's Daydream) offered more chart- dominating,
syrupy pop. The generally well- regarded Daydream earned her six
Grammy nominations and helped push her career sales to the 80-
million mark. ...
She seemed to have it all soaring career, powerful husband, and
a huge mansion outside of Manhattan. But, alas, all fairy tales must
someday come to an end, and after nearly five years of marriage,
Mottola and Carey split for good. In March 1998, Carey flew to the
Dominican Republic to obtain a quickie divorce from the record
mogul (the house they shared reportedly sold for $20.5 million).
Immediately after obtaining the divorce, the singer flew to Tampa
to take in an exhibition game featuring New York Yankee shortstop
Derek Jeter, with whom, at the time, she had been romantically
linked. That romance fizzled in June, with Carey laying blame on
the press. "Media pressure was too much for them as a couple," a
Carey mouthpiece told USA Today, adding that the duo are now
just good friends.
However, the singer was still riding high on the wings of Butterfly,
an album that in retrospect seems to be her call for freedom, the
title song ending with "Spread your wings and fly/ Butterfly." And
she was keeping plenty busy. She took her huge tour production
complete with an army of dancers to Japan and Australia; won
the American Music Awards Best Soul/R&B Female Artist (beating
Mary J. Blige and Toni Braxton); recorded a concert for MTV; and
helped host that station's Spring Break. On the downside, the
singer did elect to shutter her label, Crave (a Sony imprint), which
she'd been overseeing since its inception in February 1997.
Further pushing her creative limits, Carey's performance in the
"Honey" video may have been a screen test of sorts it came to
light that Mariah is indeed looking to get involved in acting. To that
end, she switched agencies, from CAA to William Morris, the latter
known for its movie-deal prowess.
In August, news of a significant duet in divaland came to light:
Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey were in the studio together.
The strong- lunged, octave- jumping singers recorded "When You
Believe," the theme song from the animated DreamWorks pic The
Prince of Egypt, which tells the story of Moses. Kenneth
"Babyface" Edmonds was on hand to referee, er, produce the
single. Dispelling rumors of competitiveness, Houston and Carey
appeared together at the MTV Video Music Awards in September
wearing the same dress no less. After some canned banter ("Nice
dress," Carey offered. "Yeah, you look pretty good, too," Houston
answered) the women presented Will Smith with the Best Male
Video Award. As far as billing goes, rumor has it that the first
pressing will list one singer first, followed by another pressing with
the names reversed. It can be a delicate balance
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