A star is reborn

She chose her son over fame. Now Julia Nixon is singing out again

Julia Nixon's four-octave voice carried her as far as a starry-eyed girl could aspire -- all the way from Robeson County to a lead role in Broadway's original "Dreamgirls." She toured with Richard Pryor, formed a singing group and topped the London singles chart with "Breakin' Down (Sugar Samba)."

Then a meeker voice, a little boy's plea, drowned out the call of the stage. Nixon had joined the national tour of "Smokey Joe's Cafe," and her 9-year-old son, Nicholas, was unhappy about staying behind. She had to choose between a career that most people only dream of and the chance to raise her son.

Nixon chose Nicholas. She packed their bags and moved them from Washington, D.C., to Raleigh. She waited tables at Bob Evans restaurant in Cary, working a morning shift so she could be with Nicholas after school. Years went by, and even if Nixon didn't regret her choice, she knew she had paid a high price.

If not for the television psychologist Dr. Phil, her story might have ended there. Instead, Nixon has entered her second prime time with an award-winning performance in Tony Kushner's "Caroline, or Change," a solo CD and a double disc of a performance with a 26-piece orchestra arriving early next year.

"He said, 'If you did it once, you can do it again,' " says Nixon, who appeared on Dr. Phil's syndicated program in 2003. " 'You have the means of getting back there.' "

In the midst of her success, with her son an upstanding young man, a happy ending might seem inevitable.

Not so when Nixon appealed to Dr. Phil.

She was depressed. She still performed on weekends with another musician's band, in Washington, New York and elsewhere. But she was convinced that she had blown her only chance at making a name for herself. Away from her fan bases, she says, she felt invisible.

"It's almost like she was sick," says Nicholas, who had long felt guilty for having pulled his mother away from fame. "She was completely and totally healthy, but it was like a sickness."

Then Nixon saw a Dr. Phil ad on television, seeking contestants for a talent show.

She wrote him a letter, telling him about her "Dreamgirls" turn (under her maiden name, Julia McGirt) as Effie, in the role Jennifer Holliday originated, and about how she had let it all go for her little boy, who by this time was 17.

"I was such a good mom that I forgot how to be the talent and the entertainer that I used to be," she recalls writing.

The producers invited the pair for televised counseling. It was semi-anonymous; they were identified only by their first names.

On the show, Nixon confessed that before her hiatus, she had been so career-driven that she had alienated many people, including her former husband. She said she wished she had held off on motherhood until after her career was more established.

And she still felt smothered by "a huge mommy blanket" and feared abandoning her son.

"Have you noticed it's a little later?" Dr. Phil asked, according to show transcripts. "What am I missing here? You need to get off your butt and get your hat back in the ring."

As Dr. Phil framed it, motherhood had become an excuse for Nixon to avoid putting herself on the line as a solo artist.

"You're afraid you don't have it anymore," he said. "You're afraid you're going to turn into a diva again. ... You're afraid that if you start pursuing this again, your son will guilt-induce you just like your ex-husband did."

A new intensity

When she returned home, Nixon was fired up. She dug out an old "Smokey Joe's Cafe" playbill. She had never had an agent, so she looked up the names of other actors' representatives.