Shania Twain wasn't born being a superstar, nor did she grow up on easy street. She's faced some tough stuff to get where she is today, and every bit of success and happiness she has now should be awarded ten times over.

Shania Twain was born as Eilleen Regina Edwards on August 28, 1965 in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. She was the second of 5 children - Jill, Eilleen, Carrie-Ann, Mark, and Darryl. When Eilleen was two years old, her father, Clarence Edwards, left them. Sharon Edwards moved the family to Timmins, Ontario, where Shania grew up. Her mother remarried to Gerald "Jerry" Twain, an Ojibwa Indian, hence the last name. He is the only father Shania has ever known.

Young Eilleen Twain was singing from a very young age. When she was only three, Eilleen would go off by herself and experiment with music, singing a song like "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", changing the rhythm and tones. She remembers her mother placing her on a countertop in a restaurant once at this age, where she sang for the patrons "because I was singing so loud anyway along with the jukebox," Shania told Behind the Music. By the time Eilleen was eight, her parents had bought her a guitar and she would sing in bars or anywhere else she could get booked. (She had to be pulled out of bed to sing these gigs, as the liquor curfew for minors wasn't lifted until midnight or 1:00.) Her first paid performance was at this age at the Mattagami Hotel in Timmins, for which she was paid $25. By the age of ten Eilleen was writing her own songs, though she admits that at the time she was really too young to comprehend the things she was writing about.

The Twain family was poor. Jerry Twain's pride wouldn't let him put his family on welfare, so they scraped by as best they could. Shania remembers times when they would have only bread, milk, and sugar. They would mix it all up into a sort of pudding and eat it. Eilleen also had to take mustard sandwiches to school when there was no other food in the house. She was extremely careful to always look like she had a lunch and was doing just fine; she lived in constant fear of being taken away from her family. Fortunately, this never happened. However, Shania does have some very good memories of that time in her life, such as going out with her grandparents, learning to track and snare rabbits. She also worked on her father's reforestation crew for four or five months out of the year after she turned 17. She started as a planter but quickly moved up to crew foreman, leading a team of Indian men. (She can still handle a chainsaw "as well as any man", as she once demonstrated on television.)

Eilleen continued singing throughout high school, but on November 1, 1987, when Eilleen was 22, her parents were killed in an automobile accident. The young woman had no choice but to temporarily give up singing so that she could raise her three younger siblings - Jill was already married and out of the picture. Eilleen worked anyplace she could get a job, struggling to keep putting food on the table. She called Mary Bailey, a singer and an old family friend, and she helped Eilleen land a job singing at Deerhurst Resort, a Vegas-style place. It was rather glitzy for Eilleen's taste, but it was a steady job that provided security. When the children were finally out of the house, Eilleen decided to go for it! Nashville, though, wanted her to change her name. "They liked Eilleen, but they didn't think it flowed well with Twain," Shania recalls. "They wanted me to change my last name. And I thought, No, I don't want to change my last name. Because my father had died, and that was something I just couldn't let go of." So the singer instead opted to change her first name, calling herself Shania after a young costume assistant at Deerhurst Resort where she'd once worked. The name was Ojibwa Indian for "I'm on my way". It was perfect--it was Ojibwa, and therefore a tribute to her father, but it was also a moniker for what she planned to do with her life. And so Shania Twain hit the music world.

Her first album didn't sell well. Shania had actually written only one of the songs herself, the catchy "God Ain't Gonna Getcha for That"; the others were written for her. There were a couple of songs that people liked, such as What Made You Say That? and Dance With the One That Brought You, but the album sold only about 500,000 copies. However, it was enough to catch the attention of pop producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange. He could sense Shania's potential, and fought to get through to her on the phone. When at last he was able to speak to her, Shania admits that she didn't even know who he was at first. That first conversation lasted for hours, like many more to follow. The first song Shania sang to Mutt over the phone was "Home Ain't Where his Heart is Anymore".

Mutt and Shania met face-to-face at Fan Fair 1993, fell in love, and were married on December 28 of that same year. Mutt became Shania's producer. The two of them were virtually let loose in the studio, and no one was disppointed. They turned out a record-smashing best-selling album in 1995 titled "The Woman In Me". This was the album that sent Shania on her upward course to success, eventually selling 16 million copies. The success of this album sent fans back to the stores to check out Shania Twain, and that first album would eventually edge up to sell a million copies.

However, Shania didn't tour after the huge success of her album. This decision was met with disbelief and strong disapproval, but she wanted a tour that would consist entirely of her own songs. She turned out her next album, "Come On Over", in 1997. She mentioned that she didn't expect it to sell as well as "The Woman In Me". Well, she was wrong! "Come On Over" has passed the 17 million mark and is still climbing, making it the best-selling album ever recorded by a woman in any genre and the fifth best-selling album of all genres EVER! Shania is also the first woman ever to sell 15 million copies each of back-to-back albums.

This gave Shania enough original material for a world tour. She traveled the world for a year and a half, selling out tickets everywhere she went. The tour ended in the summer of 1999, but she then followed it up with a "last blast" mini-tour in the Southeast. Shania and Mutt have moved to Switzerland to get the privacy they need to work on their next album. Release dates are conflicting, but it will be before the end of 2001. Shania will tour again after the release. There is also some talk of a Christmas album, which may be released Christmas 2001. She's a busy woman, but one thing's for sure: wherever she goes, whatever she does, her true fans will be behind her 100%.