Howard Dwaine "Howie D" Dorough was born in Orlando, Florida, as the fifth and youngest child of Paula Flores and Hoke Dwaine Dorough. His older siblings include Pollyanna, who is herself an aspiring singer, and Caroline Dorough-Cochran, who unfortunately passed away from Lupus at the age of 38 in 1998. His mother is Puerto Rican and his father had Irish and English ancestry. Although known for his humanitarian efforts with the Dorough Lupus Foundation, created in honor of his late sister, and for his work in producing up incoming stars such as George Nozuka, Howie is best known as being one-fifth of the Backstreet Boys. In 1992, at the age of 19, as Howie was struggling to find work as an actor, he kept running into two younger men on the audition circuit. These young men were Alexander James "A.J." Mclean, and Nickolas Gene "Nick" Carter. The three young men came up with the idea to join together and form a singing group, but decided that they needed at least one more member. It was through auditions that the boys found Kevin Scott Richardson, who was working in Orlando at the time, who would become the oldest member of the Backstreet Boys. Kevin made the suggestion of adding his cousin Brian Littrell to the group, as Brian himself was a phenomenal singer. In 1993, the group known as the Backstreet Boys was born.
