Tiffany (singer)

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Tiffany
Tiffany, performing at Gulfstream Park in 2003
Background information
Birth name	Tiffany Renee Darwish
Born	October 2, 1971
Origin	Norwalk, California
Genre(s)	Pop
Instrument(s)	Vocals

Tiffany Renee Darwish (born October 2, 1971 in Norwalk, California; sometimes mistakenly reported as being born in Oklahoma, where she has some relatives), professionally known as Tiffany, is an American singer who had a number of teen pop hits during the late 1980s.

Contents 1 Life and Career History 1.1 Early childhood 1.2 Singing career begins 1.3 Recording contract and fame 1.4 Family turmoil 1.5 Career stall 1.6 Marriage and comeback attempts 1.7 Back in public eye 1.8 New record contract 2 Other musical Tiffanys 3 Discography 3.1 Regular studio albums 3.2 Other albums 3.3 Hit singles 4 Notes and references 5 External links

[edit] Life and Career History

[edit] Early childhood

Tiffany grew up in Norwalk with parents James Robert Darwish (of part Lebanese descent) and Janie Wilson (of mostly Irish and some distant Cherokee descent). Her parents divorced when she was very young. When Tiffany was four years old, she learned the words to the song Delta Dawn, and she started singing it often.

In 1977, Tiffany's mother married Dan Williams, and in 1979, Tiffany's half-sister Falicia Williams was born.

[edit] Singing career begins

In 1981, Tiffany made her first professional singing show, with a country music band at a country and western spot. She passed a hat along the crowd afterward, and collected US $235 in what would be her first career earnings.

Tiffany was singing at a Los Angeles club named El Palomino when she was discovered by Hoyt Axton and his wife Mae Axton. Mae took her to sing in Nashville, Tennessee, where she performed at the Ralph Emery Show. In 1982 Tiffany toured several cities in Alaska, earning US $3000 for the tour. Also that year, she was an opening act for Jerry Lee Lewis and for George Jones.

During this period, Tiffany also appeared on the syndicated television show Hee Haw, singing Juice Newton's "Queen of Hearts" and Tammy Wynette's "Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad".

In 1983, Tiffany's other half-sister, Charessa Williams, was born. Ronald Kent Surut became her manager that year.

[edit] Recording contract and fame

Finally, in 1984, she was signed to a recording contract by George Tobin, who heard a demo tape she recorded and liked it.

In 1985 Tiffany appeared on Star Search with Ed McMahon, but she came in second place that year. In 1986, she signed a contract that gave Tobin total control over her career. Then, she went into the studio to record her first album, and a contract was signed with MCA. In 1987 the eponymous album, Tiffany, was released, and she promoted it by touring shopping malls across America (the originality of this approach at that time earned substantial coverage on its own).^[1] Her cover of the Tommy James & the Shondells hit, "Around (I Think We're Alone Now)", became a number one smash hit on the Billboard chart, propelling Tiffany to international stardom. Soon, she was vying with Debbie Gibson for space on the covers of teen magazines, including Tiger Beat, Teen Beat and many others, and visiting multiple television shows on MTV, Fox, etc. Her song "Could've Been" also shot to the #1 spot of the Billboard charts in February of '88. "I Saw Him Standing There" and "Feelings of Forever" also saw chart success from the over 4.1 million selling debut. ^[2] Tiffany also set a record for the youngest female artist to top the Billboard charts with a debut album. Later that year, she cast the then-unknown singing group New Kids On The Block as the opening act for her concert tour.

[edit] Family turmoil

In 1988, at the peak of her popularity, she ended up in the middle of a conflict between her manager (George Tobin) and her mother and stepfather over control of her career and earnings. This led to a court fight which included an attempt by Tiffany to have herself declared an emancipated minor; this was rejected by the court, but her grandmother became her temporary guardian.^[3][4][5][6]

[edit] Career stall

In late 1988, she released her second album, Hold An Old Friend's Hand. It did not do as well as her first album as it did not spawn any number one hits, though the song "All This Time" made the top ten.^[7] Hold An Old Friend's Hand received mixed reviews from critics but eventually went double-platinum. Later that year, she signed on to provide the voice of Judy Jetson for Jetsons: The Movie, which was ultimately released in 1990 after some delays.

Shortly after her 18th birthday in 1989, she bought a mansion that used to belong to action movie star Chuck Norris, but later sold it. She also left Tobin's management and signed with Dick Scott, who managed New Kids On The Block, then a very successful teen pop group which had received their first big break by opening for Tiffany on her 1988 tour.

Her career suffered as musical tastes changed in the early 1990s, swinging away from teen pop towards harder-edged rock and rap. This was shown in her third album, the R&B influenced New Inside. It was her first album away from Tobin, and some of her fans felt the new soulful, sultrier Tiffany was a hard sell. New Inside received good reviews from critics^[8], but failed to make the charts at all, although she made several TV appearances to promote it including on the sitcom Out of This World. Tiffany never regained her "Teen Queen" popularity.

[edit] Marriage and comeback attempts

In 1992, she married make up artist Bulmaro Garcia and on September 17 of that year she gave birth to her son Elijah Garcia. In a brief early-1990s comeback attempt, she got back together with Tobin, released the album Dreams Never Die in Asia (but not in the United States), and did some performances at the Las Vegas Hilton, before breaking with Tobin again.^[9] In 1995, she moved to Nashville to attempt a country music career, but never released any music of that genre.^[10] In 2002, she was the subject of an E! True Hollywood Story television show. She also had a greatest hits album released in Singapore and three in Japan. At the age of 31, she appeared in a nude photo spread for Playboy magazine.^[11]

In 2000, her "comeback" album, The Color of Silence, was released, and received stellar reviews. Billboard pegged it as "one of the best pop albums of the year" and the year's "biggest surprise".^[12] Despite the critical validation - and a record-breaking turnout for her college campus tour - a record deal with a shady, now defunct company and the teen-pop "stigma" attached to her name hindered the album's potential success.

Having divorced her first husband Bulmaro, on August 1, 2004 she married a British man named Benn George, and now divides her time between Cannock, a small town in Staffordshire, England; and Los Angeles.

[edit] Back in public eye

On April 2, 2005, Tiffany was featured in British TV show Hit Me Baby One More Time, winning the first heat and subsequently securing a place in the show's final. She also appeared on the U.S. version of the show on June 2, 2005, but lost. The show aims to bring former pop stars back into the limelight.

Tiffany performed the Girls Aloud song "Love Machine" on the show. In 2006, Girls Aloud returned the favour by covering Tiffany's best known song "I Think We're Alone Now" on their greatest hits album The Sound of Girls Aloud.

In May 2005, she released her latest album, Dust Off And Dance, independently and through CDBaby (and later also for download on the iTunes music store). It was dedicated to her new husband, but recorded as a "Thank You" to her fans (particularly her gay and euro fanbase) for reminding her about the fun to be had with her career, and it serves as a reminder of a lighter time when she could lose herself on the dance floor.^[13] The album consists of Eurodance and Hi-NRG style songs. The singles from "Dust Off And Dance" such as "Ride It", "Fly", "Na Na Na", "Be With U Tonite" and "Artificial Girlfriend" all charted on listener sponsored radio stations that also stream online such as WMPH and C895Worldwide. Both radio stations are Rhythmic/Dance format stations.

[edit] New record contract

It was reported in December, 2006 ^[14] that Tiffany has signed with a new record label named 10 Spot and plans an album release in May 2007 to coincide with an appearance on VH1's Celebrity Fit Club.

[edit] Other musical Tiffanys

Tiffany Darwish is not the only musical act to go by the surnameless stage name "Tiffany", which has at times caused confusion for her fans. In 1984, a song entitled "Remembering Love", credited to "Tiffany", was released in Canada, followed up in 1987 by another song "In The Dark". As these turned up in used-record catalogs, fans debated whether they were by "the" Tiffany or not, and even Tiffany's own denial wasn't always fully trusted (people sometimes suggested that she was either mistaken or was trying to cover up early failures in her career). However, these releases were ultimately found to be by Canadian singer Kimberly Warnock, who has sometimes used the stage name "Tiffany" but has no connection with the famous singer of that name.

Other uses of the name for musical artists or groups have included a 1960s British vocalist, a 1970s Dutch band, a German band, an Italian singer, and two different R&B singers (with real names Charli Baltimore and Tiffany Nichole Tatum).

[edit] Discography

[edit] Regular studio albums

• 1987 Tiffany #1 U.S., #5 UK (1988 release)
• 1988 Hold an Old Friend's Hand #17 U.S.
• 1990 New Inside
• 1993 Dreams Never Die (released in multiple Asian countries but not in the U.S.; re-released, this time in the U.S., in 2005 with bonus tracks)
• 2000 The Color of Silence
• 2005 Dust Off and Dance

[edit] Other albums

• 1988 I Saw Him Standing There (EP; Japanese release)
• 1994 Best of Best (Japanese release; greatest-hits compilation)
• 1995 All the Best (Singapore release; greatest-hits compilation with 2 new songs)
• 1996 Best One (Japanese release; greatest-hits compilation)
• 1996 Greatest Hits (U.S. release)

[edit] Hit singles

• from "Tiffany"
  • 1987 "I Think We're Alone Now" #1 U.S., #1 UK (1988 release)
  • 1987 "Could've Been" #1 U.S., # 4 UK (1988 release)
  • 1988 "I Saw Him Standing There" #7 U.S., #8 UK
  • 1988 "Feelings of Forever" #50 U.S., #52 UK
• from "Hold an Old Friend's Hand"
  • 1988 "All This Time" #6 U.S., #47 UK
  • 1988 "Radio Romance" #35 U.S., #13 UK

In addition, her music has been on featured on countless soundtracks.

[edit] Notes and references

[edit] External links

• Official site
• Tiffany on Myspace
• Tiffany at the Notable Names Database
• Tiffany at the Internet Movie Database

Persondata
NAME	Darwish, Tiffany Renee
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Tiffany
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Singer
DATE OF BIRTH	October 2, 1971
PLACE OF BIRTH	Norwalk, California
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH