A life well lived: From teen model to top of the world’s music charts

Whitney inspired a generation of music fans with her soaring voice, before substance abuse plunged her into a downward spiral.

The 48-year-old Grammy-winner was a huge star in the 1980s and ’90s, selling over 170 million albums with worldwide hits including I Will Always Love You, before her career and personal life went off the rails.

In recent years she had battled to revive her career, and was reportedly due to perform at a pre-Grammys dinner Saturday when she was found dead in her room at the Beverly Hills hotel, where the event was to take place.

“She was a legend. These people don’t come around often,” British television host and producer Simon Cowell told CNN television. “No one could sell a song like Whitney.”

She was a trailblazer who proved that a female artiste could dominate the pop market, Cowell said.

With a ferociously powerful voice and a dazzling range, Houston achieved stardom as a pop-soul singer known as “The Voice” and the “Queen of Pop” in the 1980s and 1990s.

Her fantastic success — and that of fellow pop icon Michael Jackson — was propelled by a brand new device at the time: the pop music video.

From a musical family that included mother Cissy Houston, a gospel star, and Dionne Warwick, her cousin, Whitney Houston started out as a teen model and then made a dazzling segue to music.

As a performer, she earned a reputation as a regal diva, but not without merit.

“She was entitled to be a diva... when you’ve got that much talent,” added star-spotter Cowell, of American Idol and Britain’s Got Talent fame.

“She had that voice that could just turn a story, a melody into magical notes,” added Lionel Richie, whose career spanned a similar timeframe to that of Houston.

She also was a trailblazing African-American beauty, a teen model who became the first black cover girl on Seventeen magazine.

After several years out of the spotlight, she returned to the recording studio to make her last album, I Look to You, released in 2009.

“I just took a break, which sometimes you have to,” said Houston, cited by CNN. “You have to know when to slow that train down and kind of just sit back and relax for a minute.”

And while her fans kept waiting for more recovery and a bigger comeback, Houston broke some hearts with her passing.

“I am absolutely devastated by this news. I’m so sad for her,” said Cowell.

“She was undoubtedly one of the greatest superstars of all time. One of the greatest voices, you know, in our lifetime we’re likely to ever hear.