Good obituary writers certainly have tact and a healthy sense of understatement. Raging alcoholics who puked on themselves in public and berated everyone in their path become “difficult” people with “strained” relations. Vicious capitalists who spent their lives building companies that flouted environmental and worker safety laws are suddenly “combative leaders” and “litigious personalities”.
I think you’ll agree that the unbylined writer who described John Houston’s $100 million lawsuit against his daughter as “an especially awkward turn” in their relationship really does take the tact cake for today.
John Houston, 82, Manager, Father of Whitney Houston
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 4, 2003 Newark
John Houston, the father of singer Whitney Houston and a theatrical manager since the early days of rhythm and blues, died Sunday after a long battle with diabetes and heart disease. He was 82.
Houston died at a New York hospital, family spokeswoman Nancy Seltzer said yesterday. She said his health had been deteriorating for several years.
Well before his daughter’s rise to fame, Houston managed the career of her mother and his ex-wife, Cissy Houston. She sang with The Sweet Inspirations, a backing vocal group to artists including Aretha Franklin.
Relations between Houston and his daughter, who has acknowledged having drug problems, took an especially awkward turn recently when his company, John Houston Entertainment Llc, sued her company for $100 million. The suit sought compensation for helping to get a marijuana charge against Witney Houston dismissed and for getting her a new record contract.
Houston even made a public appeal to his daughter in an interview with the syndicated news magazine “Celebrity Justice” in December: “You get your act together, honey, and you pay me the money that you owe me.”
Houston was born Sept. 13, 1920, in Trenton. His theatrical management agency was based in Newark, where his daughter was born. In addition to his daughter and wife, Peggy, Houston is survived by three sons.
Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.