Biography:

Shania Twain

Birth name
Eilleen Regina Edwards

Height
5' 4" (1.63 m)

Shania Twain was born as Eilleen Regina Edwards in 1965, the middle of three daughters to Clarence and Sharon Edwards (sister Jill is two years older and Carrie-Ann three years younger). When she was six, her mother remarried Jerry Twain, a full-blooded Ojibwa native from Timmins, Ontario, who adopted her as his own, making her 50% native in the eyes of the law. She started out singing in bars as a child after hours, and at 13, appeared on "The Tommy Hunter Show". At 22, her parents were killed in an accident, and she became the legal guardian of her half-brothers (Mark, then 13, and Darryl, then 14) and sister, putting her musical career on hold to raise her family. In 1991 she changed her name to Shania (meaning "I'm on my way" in Ojibwa, it was the name of a co-worker), and signed a contract with Mercury Nashville that same year. Her first album went by without notice, but her second album (produced with Mutt Lange, who she wed in 1993) broke world records with its sales!