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By Jeff Gordinier
Jeff Gordinier
Jeff Gordinier is an editor-at-large for EW; he has occasionally been mistaken for actor Edward Norton

CELINE DION GETS THE SIGNAL and heads for the Tonight Show stage. As the cameras pull in and the French-Canadian chanteuse prepares to blow the shingles off NBC Studios, two men make their way to the green room and settle onto a couch.

One is Rene Angelil, a 54-year-old man with a husky whisper, a neatly trimmed white beard, and a silver ponytail. Angelil is Dion's manager of 15 years. Though twice her age, he's also her husband. To his right sits Vito Luprano, a director of A&R for Sony Music Canada -- and Angelil's loyal sidekick. Before them, a TV.

Dion, 27, has spent the afternoon milling around backstage with barely a trace of butterflies. Angelil and Luprano, however, get the jitters as soon as they hit that couch. ''When it's a live performance, anything can happen. Something in the sound system could break; she could forget her lyrics,'' Angelil muses. ''It never happens, touch wood.'' He leans forward and touches a wooden coffee table three times.

''Touch wood,'' echoes Luprano, giving the table another trio of taps.

Back from a commercial break, Jay Leno flashes the cover of Dion's new CD, Falling Into You. ''Beautiful, beautiful,'' utters Luprano. Then Leno introduces his guest. Luprano and Angelil spend the next four minutes frozen, barely breathing. Dion stares down the cameras, delivers her newest epic ballad, ''Because You Loved Me,'' and wields her five-octave soprano like a light saber. When she finally kicks into the song's gooey crescendo, her husband releases an audible sigh.

''That was good,'' says Angelil.

''That was good,'' says Luprano.

You can understand their relief: As Angelil has conceived it, the Leno gig is the vortex of a whirlwind week of promotion. In the breathless span of seven days, Dion makes national television appearances on the Grammys, The Tonight Show, the Blockbuster Awards. ''Because You Loved Me,'' the theme song from the film Up Close & Personal, saturates radio stations, movie theaters, even television commercials. Remarkably, in one TV spot for the movie, Dion clocks nearly as much screen time as the film's stars, Robert Redford and Michelle Pfeiffer.

Bill Clinton's political virtuoso James Carville is another Tonight Show guest this evening, but you could argue that Angelil is the superior strategist: Within three weeks, ''Because You Loved Me'' will rocket from No. 36 to No. 5 to its current place at No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart; the album will debut at an astonishing No. 2.

Oddly, the woman at the heart of this juggernaut acts less like a powerhouse diva than a '90s version of Mary Poppins. She doesn't smoke or drink; she doesn't throw hissy fits when she has to wait for a table; she greets her fans with a saintly supply of enthusiasm. ''I'm not trying to be a nice girl, but it's me,'' Dion avers in a hearty French-Canadian accent. ''I'm not afraid to be nice.''

True, Dion leavens that sugar and spice with a fair dose of grit -- and incalculable drive. ''She's aggressive in the most sweet way,'' offers Jim Steinman, the producer of several tracks on Falling Into You. Polly Anthony, the president of Dion's Sony label, 550 Music, marvels at the singer's ''almost inhuman work ethic.''


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