Singer Dionne Warwick Plunges Into the Field of Fragrances

Dionne Warwick slips into the study of the airy Beverly Hills Mediterranean home that has celebrity stamped all over it. In white slacks and sweater, she moves to the couch overlooking pool and tennis court. Her cigarette case is open and ready.

She’s the picture of composure--or, more to the point, control. Warwick says she’s not one to leave details to chance. And that goes for her sudden debut in the fragrance industry this month with Dionne perfume, a venture she financed herself.

Familiar Voice

“I wanted control and I wanted to make sure it was absolutely right,” she said in a dark, husky voice made familiar by decades of Top 40 tunes.

“A very big concern of mine has always been credibility. I’ve always followed everything down the line so there’s never any gap and people could say: ‘Aha. She didn’t do this.’ ”

Warwick says she invested $750,000 (“There’s another couple of million dollars down the line.”) on the formula and bottling of Dionne, which will sell exclusively for the first six months at Neiman-Marcus.

“It’s sink-or-swim time right now. But it’s a chance I’m willing to take,” Warwick said. She decided only last October to create the perfume, working with a New Jersey laboratory in search of a scent with the same “flavor” as her 20-year standby, Shalimar.

The resulting Oriental fragrance combines jasmine, rose and orange blossom--a technicality that pales next to Warwick’s description of how she decided on the formula: “When I got the reaction I wanted from men, I knew that I had it.

“It’s a woman’s fragrance for a man,” she said. “Very sensuous. To me that’s vitally important.”

Warwick, who hosts TV’s syndicated “Solid Gold,” considers perfume a way to diversify at a time when “everything that is right, and that I’ve thought of in the past, is finally coming to fruition.”

Performances in the “We Are the World” record and video, Live Aid and work to benefit AIDS research have lately boosted Warwick’s public profile. Warwick also has a production company and hopes to play the film role of former Texas Congresswoman Barbara Jordan. Warwick says she bought the rights to Jordan’s story two years ago and considers her a role model.

“It terrifies me to even think about trying to emulate her strength and power,” she said, acknowledging she has not studied acting. “But she’s the one who said: ‘If I give you my life, I want you to do it.’ ”

Warwick’s own image is far from weak-kneed: Critics have reviewed her stage confidence as bordering on the haughty.

“I kind of have an image of being a pillar of strength--although I have quite a few weaknesses, and I’m very vulnerable,” she said. “I’m a woman too.”

Two Sons at Home

Divorced for a decade, Warwick lives with two teen-age sons and, recently, a nephew--an arrangement she calls more a “buddy system” than parent-to-son.

“There’s a lot of white-knuckle time around here, I’ll tell you that. But it’s OK, because I’d rather they come to me for an answer than try to find out for themselves.”

More white-knuckle time awaits Warwick, as consumers give the verdict on her new scent. Warwick plans promotions for Dionne through July (She will appear at Neiman-Marcus in Beverly Hills Wednesday to June 28, 1 to 3 p.m.), followed by a singing stint in Las Vegas. She states her goals thereafter with no feigned modesty:

“The Oscar, the Emmy and the Tony,” said the four-time Grammy winner--”whatever award there is that I haven’t received.”