She was comfortable working with him, and she also had a good idea for the soundtrack. Babyface and LA Reid had written and produced “I’m Your Baby Tonight,” the song that won Whitney the R&B acceptance that she really wanted. But first-time director Forest Whitaker brought in Babyface to produce the entire Waiting To Exhale soundtrack and to score the film, and Babyface would come to the set and play music for Whitney. Whitney Houston didn’t want to record anything for the Waiting To Exhale soundtrack. I could say the same thing about the Waiting To Exhale soundtrack, which became a cultural phenomenon and which featured the last #1 hit of Whitney Houston’s career. It’s smooth, escapist mass-market entertainment. The film shows its four leads as capable, successful professionals, and just about everyone onscreen is absolutely beautiful. It’s got a light, breezy tone, a bit like a glossy soap opera, but it’s also raunchy and sometimes really funny. Waiting To Exhale isn’t really a comedy, and it isn’t really a drama. (That’s Angela Bassett, who lights her ex-husband’s car on fire and who ends up with Wesley Snipes at the end.) But the presence of Whitney Houston absolutely helped sell Waiting To Exhale. It’s an adaptation of a Terry McMillan novel about four Black women supporting each other through romantic travails, and Whitney doesn’t have the film’s most memorable arc. Whitney Houston is billed first in Waiting To Exhale, and she’s the nominal star, but it’s really an ensemble piece. Waiting To Exhale was the first time that Whitney Houston actually got a chance to act, and she was good at that, too. Whitney was good in The Bodyguard, but she was essentially playing a version of herself. The soundtrack to The Bodyguard was an even bigger deal, and it gave us Whitney’s version of “I Will Always Love You,” which, in its day, was the biggest hit in Billboard history.
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And without the success of Waiting To Exhale, a whole lot of movies for and about Black women might not exist.īefore Waiting To Exhale, Whitney Houston had only made one movie, but that movie was The Bodyguard, a genuine smash. Without Whitney Houston, it’s hard to imagine 1995’s Waiting To Exhale being made or, at the very least, leaving the kind of cultural impact that it left. I hope I’m not overstating things here, but I believe Whitney Houston’s presence made a difference in terms of which stories were being told in mainstream films. During that time, Whitney never truly disappeared from the pop charts. At the absolute height of her megastar powers, Whitney Houston took an eight-year break from making albums.
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