The Trials of Tiffany : A year after filing suit, she and Mom are talking

“Do I look like a bimbo to you?,” asked Tiffany, curtly.

The interview had veered to a discussion of her image, which, in some circles, isn’t very positive. Some fans and music industry personnel do, in fact, think of this 17-year-old singer as a bimbo.

The perception is that the Norwalk-raised teen is little more than a puppet of her manager, family and record company, and that the success she has had is based on image, not talent. That perception was heightened last spring during a tawdry court battle from March to June between her manager and mother over control of her career.

Slightly peeved, Tiffany defended herself as she sat in a hotel suite in Universal City, “Can I put words together? Am I a wind-up doll? Am I stupid? So I come from Norwalk? OK, so it’s not Beverly Hills, but it’s not the slums, either. Does that make me a bimbo? Of course, not. It’s important that people don’t see me as this stupid, shallow person.”

Does it hurt--emotionally--to be perceived so negatively by some people?

“A little,” said Tiffany, looking like a typical teen in jeans and boots. “It would probably hurt more if I let it, but I can’t let that kind of negativity take me over. I couldn’t function. I’d be a mess.”

Apparently it has worked. The singer is currently on a concert tour (she will be at the Celebrity Theatre in Anaheim on Saturday) promoting her second album, “Hold an Old Friend’s Hand,” and is confident enough to talk openly for the first time about the family and image problems that have hounded her since she burst into the limelight with a four million-selling 1987 debut album.

About the celebrated Los Angeles Superior Court case last year in which she petitioned to be considered an “emancipated” minor and thereby no longer under her mother’s legal guardianship, Tiffany, whose last name is Darwish, conceded, “Me being in court against my mother turned a lot of people off. People were saying: ‘What kind of girl goes to court against her mother?’ People thought I hated my mother, which isn’t true.”

When she went to court seeking legal emancipation from her mother, Tiffany said, she was really trying to keep her stepfather, Dan Williams, out of her financial affairs--and her life. Also, Tiffany wanted to put her money in an account that couldn’t be touched until she was an adult. The court rejected her emancipation effort but granted her the account.

Tearing Tiffany down is great sport in the media. For one thing, they say she can’t really sing. Also, they ridicule her ballads as overripe teen Angst. And her record success? A fluke, detractors charge.

But all through that, she was derided as “Tobin’s toy”--the mere tool of her manager, George Tobin. Many consider Tobin’s control over her career--well-documented in media stories last year--excessive. The same goes for his share of her royalties--50 percent after expenses, exceeding the norm for managers.

Her image hasn’t been helped by the fact that “Hold an Old Friend’s Hand,” has not come close to the success of the debut. According to an MCA Records source, sales of the album have exceeded a quite respectable 1.5 million. But there hasn’t been much of a buzz about it, even though its first single, the ballad “All This Time,” went Top 10. The second single, “Radio Romance”--a bubbly tune with a ‘50s sound--fizzled in the 30s on the pop chart.

How is Tiffany now?

“In good shape basically,” replied Tiffany, who now lives with her grandmother in the Norwalk area. “I’m growing up way ahead of schedule. That’s what happens to kids in show business. I accept that. I’ve learned to accept a lot of things.”

Like criticism, for instance.

“The first time I read a critical article, my feelings were very hurt,” she said. “The pain sort of rips through you. I was thinking, ‘Why are people saying such nasty things?’ But a performer can’t go through life like that--especially me.

“Critics are very hard on me. Sometimes they’re right. I know when I haven’t done a great show, when the pacing was off or I was lagging behind or I wasn’t singing as well as I can. Some days I’m not into it.”

Being a teen-age celebrity, she said, has put her through the emotional wringer:

“I’ve got some scars here and there, but nothing deep. My personal life is OK. I’ve got time for friends but no real time for boyfriends. I’m missing out on high school life, but I’m getting something great in return: a chance to travel, a chance to be a star.”

Her relationship with her mother, she emphasized, is the critical relationship in her life right now.

Tiffany and her mother now regularly go to joint counseling sessions which, she said, have been a great help.

“My mom and I weren’t communicating right for a long time,” she said. “She says she was afraid of losing me. I believe her. We disagree about a lot of stuff that we’ll never agree on. But I’m learning to deal better with my mother. You don’t know what a big thing it is for a teen-age girl to say that.”