Every once in a while we get a special call here at MusicGoldmine.com. One such day occured in early 2021 when a movie set decorator called us and said: "We're making a film about Whitney Houston, and we want some real awards for Clive Davis's office and Whitney's house sets."
"We can help!" we said.
And with that we pointed our caller to the nicest Whitney award we had in stock, which they purchased:
So we were thrilled recently to see the award in the resulting late 2022 Sony Pictures film release Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance WIth Somebody. Not only is it a great film, telling the tumultuous story of Houston's life and career with its' many highs and lows, but it also features great performances by the actors.
They include a stellar turn by Naomi Ackie who plays Houston with great passion and commitment, including incredible lip syncing performances. While Ackie is a talented singer who actually sang in a few scenes including the first song heard in the film, apparently 95% of the music in the film features Houston's actual vocals to which Ackie lip synced.
The award we provided is featured in a scene when Ackie (as Houston) twirls around holding the newly arrived symbol of her early success -- in real life Houston earned the 5x Multi-Platinum award for her debut album on May 1, 1986. Here's a still from the scene, depicting Houston sharing the moment of joy with long-time friend and Creative Director Robyn Crawford, portrayed by Nafessa Williams:
Stanley Tucci also does a solid job as wry, strategic record exec Clive Davis. The decor for Davis's office also came up in our conversation with the set decorator. While we didn't end up providing any awards to the team for the Davis office set, we advised that it should contain a combination of 60s/70s RIAA "white matte" awards, label awards, along with some "floater" (black matte) awards from the early 80s.
This was because Davis's presence in the music industry at that point included a stint as President of Columbia Records from 1967-73 prior to his forming Arista Records in 1974. Davis signed Houston to Arista in 1983.
Here's the trailer for the film, which is currently available on Netflix and Amazon Prime:
We were happy to see a music film made with the artistic team paying close attention to authenticity. We share that committment to authenticity here at MusicGoldmine.com, and we're honored they called us to help -- in this small way -- make this film as realistic as possible instead of resorting to the fake record award props so often seen in music-related movies.
Check out MusicGoldmine's current Whitney Houston items here.
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