And The Hits Keep Coming

6:00 AM PDT 8/7/2012 by Kim Masters

They're black, Muslim and gorgeous in an industry not known for its diverse embrace. Yet husband and wife Salim and Mara Brock Akil have made one Hollywood winner after another, and now have Whitney Houston's final film, "Sparkle," as their biggest bet yet.

When Mara Brock Akil was a girl of 11, IN November 1981, she saw a copy of Seventeen with Whitney Houston on the cover. The future pop icon wasn't known as a singer then but as a teen model -- one of the first African Americans to grace the magazine's cover. The image made a huge impression on young Mara, then growing up in Kansas City, Mo. "It was like -- things are possible," she says.