They are among the most successful pop videos of the 1980s – certainly in terms of the sales they drove – and they made Whitney Houston’s powerful voice and gentle face familiar around the world. But for the British choreographer Arlene Phillips, who worked on the dance routine that accompanied 1987’s hit track I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me), there were clear signs of the acute self-doubt behind Houston’s talent even then.
“The funniest memory is how she hated her feet. She thought they were too big. It was always about what shoes she was going to wear and how I was going to make her walk,” the former Strictly Come Dancing judge once recalled.
