SKY Magazine

June 1989

TALENT
DEBBIE HARRY
BACK TO THE FUTURE

Written by: Simon Hills
Photography by: Chris Sanders

Debbie Harry is sitting in a large New York studio reading a magazine and wearing a pair of black slacks and a woolly jumper. Her hair has lost it’s peroxide bleach and is pushed roughly across her face in a more natural ash blonde.
Now in her mid-40s, Harry has come full circle. She’s recorded her new album with her ex-boyfriend and Blondie guitarist Chris Stein (as well as a couple of tracks in London with the Thompson Twins) and this summer embarks again on a singing career after a lay-off that has given her time to do mainly acting work. Her latest role is in an American TV show Wise Guy in which she plays a cabaret singer.
“I love music,” she says. “I would never give it up. I’m a singer and a performer. This will never stop.
“I really wanted to work with Chris, as I had done the other solo albums by myself, and make a statement of growth with people I knew. I thought it would be a pretty cool thing to do.”
Harry is still part of the New York culture from which Blondie sprung in the late 70s and her flat is bang in the heart of Manhattan.
“The most important thing to me is having friends around. I don’t really want to have much solitude. I guess people who are desperate for that live in the country. I’d be talking all day long. My phone bill would be enormous.
“Since I haven’t had a real hit pop record for a while, it’s much different. I can walk around now. I had a sweet little girl come up to me in Broadway the other day wanting to know directions. It’s the first time somebody’s ever just come up to me like that.”
Now she is preparing to go on the road and restart the career that made her a superstar. But this time it will be more mature, less frenetic.
And the girl everyone thought was a latter-day Monroe bimbo can have a career in music and acting and still walk through New York streets without being mobbed.