Biography

Shania was born August 28, 1965, in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Shania is a singing star performer- entertainer, and almost a legend in her own time. Her fame as a global superstar is the biggest country success story of the '90s. It's also a story of luck in the face of hardship.

This charming Canadian singing star grew up in the mining town of Timmins. Shania Twain, born Eileen Edwards in 1965, watched her father abandon the family when she was a toddler. Before her musical career began, she planted trees with her stepfather as part of a forest crew. Humble, by even rural Canadian standards, her family made great sacrifices to support her early career. When she was 22, her parents were killed in an accident and she became the legal guardian of her two half brothers and sister, putting her musical career on hold to care for them.

The aspiring singer took a job at the Canadian Deerhurst resort in northern Ontario. Shania was the lead performer in a variety of musical productions at Deerhurst. She concentrated on country music, and dazzled the crowds night after night. Five years later, she moved to Nashville. In 1991, Shania cut a demo tape recorded in Nashville with songwriter and producer Norro Wilson and Buddy Cannon. Her song, "God Ain't Gonna Get You For That", was the only part composed by Shania, but definitely pointed the way to the future. The producers and the recording company disregarded the songs Shania had written, and saddled her with second-rate material from the Nashville song mill.

In 1993, Robert John "Mutt" Lange, heard the potential in her voice, and contacted her. If not for "Mutt" Lange, Shania might have continued to languish at the hands of her label's lackluster production team. Later that year, Shania met Lange in Nashville, fell in love, and the couple married in December 1993, nine months after that first phone call.

The two dusted off the old material that Mercury had rejected and started working on Shania's next project, "The Woman in Me". The album, and Lange's pumped-up arena-rock production, sounded like no other country album before it. This isn't to say that "The Woman in Me" doesn't pack plenty of pop punch. Just the opposite, the album consummated the pop-country revolution, won a Grammy for Shania. This album sold more than 11 million copy's, and puts Shania in the same league as Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey, and far above any previous country queen. June Carter Cash says, "With Shania, I see progress, she has opened up a lot of space for future female country singers".

Crucial to the success of "The Woman in Me" was the re-packaged persona of Shania. Gone was the outdoorsy and wholesome image she projected on her debut. In its place was the new sex-kitten alluring country singer posing for male record buyers. Shania has become just as accustomed to swirling gossip and rumors as she is to the sold out shows she performs. Her revealing stage costumes, bare-belly button wardrobe and relentless drive, give her audiences what they have come too see, Shania at her best!

Filmography

Party in the Park 1998 (1999) (V) .... Herself
Shania Twain: Man! I Feel Like a Woman (1999) (V) .... Herself
Winter Break (1999) (TV) .... Herself
... aka Shania Twain's Winter Break (1999) (TV) (USA: complete title)
1998 Billboard Music Awards (1998) (TV) .... Herself
Shania Twain: Live (1998) (V) .... Lead Vocals
Divas Live: An Honors Concert for VH1 Save the Children (1998) (TV) .... Performer
... aka VH1 Divas Live (1998) (TV) (USA: short title)