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Quick, who's the only singer ever to have three consecutive albums certified 10 times platinum? No, not Patsy Cline. Not Whitney Houston. Not even Michael Jackson. It's Shania Twain, the 39-year-old Canadian who shook up Nashville with her hook-laden brand of corn-fed pop, forever changing the sound and look -- goodbye poufy gowns, hello bare midriff -- of country music.But that was Twain's second biggest accomplishment. The first was simply surviving. Born Eileen Regina Edwards in Windsor, Ontario, she made it through hardship before she ever thought of the record charts. In her childhood home, there was often not enough to eat and no electricity. Her father walked out on the family when she was two. And she was left to care for her three younger siblings when her mother and stepfather were killed in a car accident the year she turned 22.
Though she'd been singing in bars since age eight, her first thought was to forget music. But, with all those mouths to feed, she needed a paycheck, fast. So the one-time tomboy became a resort singer, and morphed into one of the sexiest women alive.
Married to music producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange and mother to three-year-old son, Eja, Twain has just released a greatest-hits album. She's also pouring herself into her new personal goal, building a children's charity to keep poor families -- like hers was -- from falling through the cracks.
Twain's intelligent brown eyes snapped when she talked with RD about tragedy, success and more, during a recent stopover in Los Angeles.
RD: You turn 40 this year. Is that a little scary for you?
Twain: My mother died at 42, and I remember when she was in her late 30s, she used to say, "I'm approaching 40, and I'm loving getting older." She was getting to the point where she was struggling less with her life, and I feel the same way. I've got so many things to look forward to.
RD: Tell us about some of them.
Twain: Not a day goes by that I'm not planning this charity to help underprivileged kids, hungry kids in North America. I know what happened to us and what happens to a lot of kids, and somebody needs to help them.
RD: What would your charity do?
Twain: The goal is to find these kids before they end up in social services. All they need is encouragement, support, a place to sleep, food to eat, and they would be on their way.
RD: So your charity should be named after you, since Shania, in your stepfather's native language, means "I'm on my way."
Twain: There you go!
RD: When you were growing up, you could have used a charity like that.
Twain: My parents couldn't always feed us, or couldn't pay the heating bills. Many times we had to go to bed with many layers on and our clothes or coat. A lot of winters I got frostbite. We could have relied on the Native social welfare system, but my father had too much pride. I respect him for all the decisions he made. He was so desperate to break out of that mold of being a Native Canadian on the welfare system. He just couldn't bear it. So a lot of times, we suffered.
RD: Was there a point when you hit rock bottom?
Twain: A few times I was tempted to go to social services at school and say, "We haven't eaten anything but bread and milk in five days. Someone's got to help us." But I never did it.
RD: Your dad would have been angry?
Twain: No. It was because I knew we would have been separated. Children's Aid would have come in and taken us away. It was better to bear it. I was 13, and I remember saying to myself, This is the worst year of my life. I'm never going to live another year like this. And I never did, actually.
RD: Were you embarrassed at school when you didn't have a proper lunch?
Twain: We lied, said, "Oh, I'm not hungry," or, "I had a big breakfast." I remember starving, and watching kids put things back into their lunch.
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