René Angélil, the husband of international pop superstar Céline Dion, died Thursday morning two days shy of his 74th birthday.
“Rene Angelil, 73, passed away this morning at his home in Las Vegas after a long and courageous battle against cancer,” said a message posted on Dion’s Facebook page Thursday afternoon. “The family requests that their privacy be respected at the moment; more details will be provided at a later time.”
Angélil, who started as Dion’s manager, was credited with transforming Dion from a little-known teen francophone chanteuse to international pop diva.
He had undergone cancer treatment several times in the past two decades.
Last summer, Dion announced she was putting her career on hold to care for her ailing husband, cancelling all future performances of her Las Vegas show as well as an upcoming Asian tour slated to begin in the fall.
In his final years, Angélil lived in Las Vegas with Dion and their three children: René-Charles, 14, and five-year-old fraternal twins Eddy and Nelson.
Son of Arab immigrants
Angélil began his show-business carreer in the early 60s. The son of Syrian and Lebanese immigrants, he made a name for himself in the boy band Les Baronets alongside two childhood friends.
The group took English pop songs from groups like The Beatles and translated them into French.
After the group broke up in 1972, Angélil changed gears and went into talent management.
He took on some of Quebec’s biggest pop artists, including René Simard and Ginette Reno.
But it was the bigger-than-life voice of Dion that truly launched Angélil’s career into the stratosphere.
He discovered Dion, 26 years his junior, when she sent him a demo tape when she was 12 years old.
He mortgaged his house to launch her career and told anyone who would listen that he was going to make the songstress a worldwide star.
The two eventually developed a romantic relationship, one that was initially kept secret.
They eventually married in 1994 at Montreal’s Notre-Dame Basilica.
Battle with cancer
Surviving a bout of throat cancer in the late 1990s, Angélil and Dion welcomed their first son in 2001.
The twins were conceived nearly a decade later through in vitro fertilization.
His top client always remained Dion, but Angélil was involved in a number of other entertainment ventures during the course of his career.
In 2008, he was named director of the popular Quebec reality show Star Académie, a French-language singing competition in the American Idol genre.
In 2012, a conglomerate that included Dion and Angélil, purchased beloved Montreal landmark Schwartz’s Deli for an undisclosed sum.
Angélil was also an avid poker player and qualified for several high-level tournaments, including the World Series of Poker.
Angélil and Dion were appointed members of the Order of Canada in 2012.
In his citation, Governor General David Johnston called Angélil an “example of generosity,” noting that he helped created the first otorhinolaryngology oncology research chair in Quebec and that he was an honorary lifetime patron of Sainte-Justine Hospital in Montreal.
Angélil stepped aside as Dion’s manager in June.
No plans for the funeral have been announced.
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