Debbie Gibson reprises pop-princess role for one-woman show

The magic of YouTube brings Debbie Gibson back. With her pug nose, toothy smile and pageboy outfits, she was nothing less than the Britney Spears of the late 1980s. Her hits, including two No. 1s - "Foolish Beat" and "Lost in Your Eyes" - were not-a-girl, not-yet-a-woman love songs, slightly overdubbed, but clearly honed and melodic.

Gibson, though, skipped the rehab, the over-paparazzied life, the lingering downside of teen stardom. By her mid-20s, she had acquired the grown-up name "Deborah" and was doing Broadway and national touring musicals.

"I was at the piano as early as I can remember playing my show-tune books. If you asked me at age 5 what I wanted to be, I would have said to star on Broadway," said Gibson, who's doing a one-woman show, "Pop Goes Broadway," six times a week for three weeks beginning Sunday at Harrah's Atlantic City.

"Not too long ago, I was doing a benefit with Andrea McArdle. When I was a kid, that would have been the biggest thing I could think of - singing with the original Annie," said Gibson. "So here I am, combining the things I love most - pop and show tunes - on stage, by myself."

Her sigh of relief was audible over the phone from New York, where she is rehearsing.

She grew up on Long Island, N.Y., in a family of three other sisters, her father working for Trans World Airlines and her mother shepherding the kids to all sorts of music and acting lessons and events. She lives in Los Angeles now but said it seems almost impossible that she left.

"I'm in my comfort zone when I am in New York. Everything is familiar to me, and it is where Broadway is," she said. "But somehow, a few years ago, I thought it best to go to Los Angeles. There are challenges there for me. It's harder and I need that challenge.

"Plus, of course, I like having a car, a house and warm weather."

She is on the phone with her mom about 10 times a day, though.

"I am 37 and she is still my Mom-ager, as they call her, managing my career," said Gibson. "There are ups and downs, as you might imagine, but she has kept me grounded all this time, so I am sure we will continue as long as we can."

Gibson said while all the girls in the family were interested in acting and music, "I was the only one who wanted to take it to the next level." She sang at the Metropolitan Opera at age 8 with a choral group and practiced her piano and songwriting diligently.

By 16, she had a recording and writing contract, and at 17, with "Foolish Beat," she became the youngest person to have written, produced and sung a No. 1 Billboard song.

Her image resembled that of the pre-breakdown, "Mickey Mouse Club" Spears, and Gibson clung to that for a long time. She has played vamps on stage - Sally Bowles in "Cabaret," Gypsy Rose Lee in "Gypsy," Rizzo in a London West End version of "Grease" - but they are still classic American musical comedy roles.

She did, however, pose nude for Playboy three years ago, an apparent counterpoint to her pop-princess contemporary, Tiffany, who had done the same a couple of years before.

Her Atlantic City show will be a little vamp and a little pop princess.

"I laugh and say that I will probably be doing 'Electric Youth' when I am 80 on my cane," she said. "But I don't mind doing the old songs, even in the old styles, since that is what the fans come to see. I don't mind mostly because I wrote them and did them.

"I read that David Cassidy sometimes rebels against it, saying, 'That wasn't me. That was someone they created.' In my case, even if it is long ago, at least it was me."

She said she will be comfortable in Atlantic City and, if fans are lucky, they may be sitting next to a Gibson.

"My grandfather was one of 13, so there are cousins all over in places like Vineland and Cherry Hill," she said. "They will all be coming, so it will be a lot of fun." *

Harrah's Atlantic City, 777 Harrah's Blvd., Sunday through May 24, $25, 800-242-7724, www.harrahs.com.