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"Stop! In the name of love!" Entertainment Weekly has confirmed that Whitney Houston is in negotiations to return to the big screen with the Sony remake of the 1976 musical drama Sparkle, loosely based on the rise of the 1960s girl group the Supremes.
The 1976 film starred Irene Cara, Mary Alice and Tony King as sisters who started out signing in a Harlem church choir and rose to the top of the music business, only to have fame wreak havoc on their lives.
Houston, 48, would play Effie, the unsupportive mother of the three sisters, including American Idol season 6 winner Jordin Sparks (making her acting debut) as the film's title character Sparkle. (Jumping the Broom star Mike Epps is also already on board to play Satin, a comedian who marries one of the sisters.)
Should Houston sign on the dotted line, Sparkle would mark her first film role since 1996's The Preacher's Wife. The multiplatinum-selling singer previously starred in the gigantic hits The Bodyguard (1992) and Waiting to Exhale (1995), but her acting career floundered as her personal life descended into tumult in the late '90s and 2000s. There was her volatile marriage to bad boy Bobby Brown, various stints in rehab and, recently, some disastrous performances, leading many fans to wonder if her career was over.
But a return to film in a role that draws striking parallels to Whitney's own personal struggles could be just what the career doctor ordered. Hopefully this is the beginning of a glorious comeback.
