Mariah Carey

Ms. Carey is one of three children of Patricia Carey, a vocal coach who used to sing with the New York City Opera. Her mother is Irish-American; her father, Alfred Roy Carey, an engineer, was half Venezuelan and half African-American. He died in 2002. Her parents divorced when she was 3. In 1987, she graduated from Harborfields High School in Huntington, L.I., and quickly moved to New York City to break into the music business.