Debby Boone Talks Frank Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney and More

Forty-one years after her classic hit “You Light Up My Life” helped win her a Grammy for Best New Artist, Debby Boone is kicking off a new U.S. tour on August 30. But first things first. “I just had a hip replacement and my husband, Gabriel [Ferrer], is having one as well on September 11, so we’re trying to figure out when we can squeeze in our 40th wedding anniversary celebration in between!” Debby, 62, exclusively tells Closer Weekly in the magazine’s latest issue, on newsstands now.

In recent years, the singer has cut a 2010 tribute album dedicated to her late mother-in-law, Rosemary Clooney — mom of her Episcopal priest husband, Gabriel — while remaining a loyal daughter to her legendary crooner dad, Pat Boone. On the eve of Debby’s “fabulous” recovery from surgery, Closer sat down to talk about her legendary times with Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr., her famous cousin George Clooney and the lessons she learned from Rosemary about being the best grandmother ever.

Let’s go back to your breakthrough hit. Did it feel like a whirlwind?

It was just life-altering. Thankfully I had some experience onstage working with my sisters [as the Pat Boone Family and the Boone Sisters], but it was a whole different skill set — and kind of frightening.

How did you stay grounded?

Well, I was still living at home. My mom would say, “You haven’t cleaned the cat box in four days. Get upstairs.” [Laughs]

Still, you met some legends…

I got to open for Frank Sinatra for a couple of weeks, which was absolutely thrilling. Then I was invited to his home in Palm Springs called The Compound, with guesthouses named after his albums, and taken under his wing a bit. He sent a present to my son, Jordan, when he was born, a sterling silver cup engraved with the words, “Welcome to this world.” Isn’t that great?

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What’s he like as a dad?

It’s very sweet — he’s just a natural at it. He’s such a clown, George, so lots of teasing and joking, but he’s very warm and at ease with his kids. My daughter Tessa is an actress and got cast in [George’s miniseries] Catch-22, playing one of the nurses. She got to spend a week at Lake Como [Italy] with them and was completely taken with its beauty.

Nice to see her following in your footsteps. Was there a moment in your childhood that set you on your path?

My mother used to teach my sisters and me four-part harmony and have us sing for company. I got a lot of attention, because I was little but I had a big voice.

Do you have any favorite memories from your days in the Boone Sisters?

They were all great times. It was hard work, but it afforded us the chance to travel. I wasn’t a big fan of school in middle and high school, so it gave us the chance to leave the classroom.

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Any lessons you learned from your dad?

Very similar to what I learned posthumously from my grandfather, which is the ability to be authentically themselves in front of an audience, which makes everybody comfortable. They just made people feel like they were guests in their home.

What are people’s biggest misconceptions about you?

People think I’m a kind of prim- and-proper goody-two-shoes, just because I inherited my dad’s sort of squeaky-clean image. The worst thing that I think people might think about me is that I’m super judgmental and self-righteous. That is just not the case. I think people are constantly surprised that I am fun, that I’m not stuck up, that I have a good sense of humor and that I’m very inclusive.

Are there any ways you try to work against those misconceptions?

There has been a segment of the Christian church which has been very vocal about who’s in and who’s out. I’ve done a lot of Christian music that I love, which I don’t regret at all, but I think it sometimes gave people a misconception. So when I was out on the road doing shows like The Sound of Music or on Broadway doing Grease, I can have a bit of a bawdy sense of humor that nobody thinks would be coming from me, and a little bit of a mouth sometimes. People just don’t expect that from me. [Laughs]