Charlemagne, Quebec, Canada. Charlemagne is on the north shore of the St.
Lawrence River, on the east end of the Montreal Island. Celine Dion began
singing in her parents' piano bar when she was just five years old. By the age of
12 she had written one of her first songs, "Ce N'etait Qu'un Rêve" ("It Was Only a
Dream"), which she recorded with the help of her mother and brother and shipped
off to a manager named Rene Angelil, whose name they found on the back of an
album by Ginette Reno, a popular Francophone singer. After weeks with no
response from Angelil,
Celine's brother Michel phoned him and said, "I know you haven't listened to the
tape, because if you had, you would've called right away." Angelil dug up the tape and called the family back the same day to set up a meeting with Celine. When the
12-year-old performed in his office in Montreal, Angelil cried and set in motion
the process of making her a Quebecois, and later international star. He mortgaged
his house to pay for her first two albums, producing a local number one single. In
1983 she became the first Canadian to have a gold record in France and she won a
gold medal at the Yamaha songwriting competition in Japan. Her worldwide
reputation was in the making, but success in the United States was not yet
forthcoming.
When Celine Dion has just turned 18, she saw Michael Jackson performing on
stage, and at that moment she decided she wanted to be a star. Celine told Angelil
about her desire and Angelil’s response was