On July 23, 2011, Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse is found dead in her London apartment. She was 27 years old. While the cause was not immediately clear, it was later determined that Winehouse died of alcohol poisoning.
Known for her beehive hairdo, Cleopatra eye makeup, tattoos and sultry voice, Winehouse won five Grammy awards, sold millions of records and is credited with launching a British retro-R&B trend. But her life was scarred by substance abuse and erratic behavior that often landed her on the cover of the tabloids.
Winehouse was born on September 14, 1983, in Southgate, London. Her parents—Mitch, a taxicab driver and Janis, a pharmacist—divorced when Winehouse was nine years old. A natural performer, Winehouse began acting and singing at an early age and attended London’s Sylvia Young Theater School and the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology. By age 16, she was singing with the National Jazz Youth Orchestra.
In 2002, she signed with agent Simon Fuller’s management company 19 Entertainment, launching her professional singing career. Her debut album, the jazz-influenced Frank, was released by Island Records to critical acclaim a year later.
But it soon became clear that Winehouse was struggling personally. Tabloids published photos of her dramatic weight loss and chronicled the ups and downs of her tumultuous romantic relationships, especially with Blake Fielder-Civil, whom she would later marry and then divorce.
Her second album, Back to Black, served as testimony to her personal struggles. The 2006 release, which featured an eclectic mix of Motown, soul, rap and jazz influences, shot Winehouse to the top of the international charts. The album won five Grammy Awards, including two for “Rehab,” a song about her refusal to go to drug and alcohol treatment. However, Winehouse’s legal troubles prevented her from traveling to the United States to accept the awards in person.
Winehouse sought treatment for drug and alcohol abuse several times, without success. In 2011, she canceled a European tour after a performance in Belgrade, Serbia, where she stumbled around on stage and forgot the lyrics to her songs. It was her last public performance.
A duet Winehouse recorded with Tony Bennett entitled “Body and Soul,” released posthumously in 2011, won a Grammy Award. Lioness: Hidden Treasures, a collection of Winehouse songs that had yet to be released, followed a year later.
