Denzel Washington wanted to “protect” Whitney Houston when he worked with her on ‘The Preacher’s Wife’. The ‘Man on Fire’ actor, 69, starred as Dudley alongside the tragic singer in the Oscar-nominated 1996 film, in which Whitney played Julia Biggs – 16 years before she died aged 48 from accidental drowning, with contributing factors of heart disease and cocaine use. Nearly three decades after the movie came out, Denzel said at his African Black Film Festival retrospective about feeling protective towards the ‘I Will Always Love You’ performer: “I felt like I always wanted to protect her.
” The event’s host Chaz Ebert – who is the widow of the late film critic Roger Ebert – added: “There was a vulnerability that you saw.” Journalism for the curious Australian across politics, business, culture and opinion. Denzel asked: “So you really got that?” and when Chaz, 71, said she did, the actor went on: “Well, of course.
I always felt like I wanted to protect her. You know? “She wanted to be so tough, but she really wasn’t. That’s all.
Okay.” ‘The Preacher’s Wife’ was a remake of 1947’s ‘The Bishop’s Wife’ and also starred Courtney B Vance, Jenifer Lewis, Gregory Hines and Justin Pierre Edmund – while Lionel Richie, Loretta Devine and Whitney’s mother Cissy Houston also had roles. Whitney is said to have grown close to several of the cast, and Courtney, 64, who played her husband Reverend Henry Biggs in the family film.