Debbie Allen on power, pain, passion and prime time

Ebony, March, 1991 by Laura B. Randolph

Before she started dating Nixon, Debbie says she wasn't looking to fall in love again, least of all with the 6-foot-2 L.A. Lakers All-Star guard. They'd met years earlier in 1978 when both were starring in the basketball flick, The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh. Their love, however, was hardly evident from the start. Then in his early 20s, Nixon was five years younger than Debbie who, by her own admission, always preferred older men who were "more settled, didn't play games and could teach you something." Truth be told, Debbie's immediate reaction to Nixon was "cute kid." "It was like, `Child, look at that little boy. He probably doesn't even have a credit card,'" she says laughing.

They became friends and in the process Debbie discovered the "cute kid" had a man's sensibilities. "Norman's never felt younger to me because there's something about him as a man that is just very strong, very powerful, very rooted in the ground," she says today. "I was very attracted to him because of those qualities."

When she and Wilford called it quits, that attraction deepened into desire, but Nixon's reputation as a ladies' man made Debbie deny it. "I just didn't want to accept it," she says of her early feelings for Nixon. "I didn't want them to be real."

Who could blame her? When they started dating, Nixon was a dyed-in-the-wool Don Juan. Rich, young, fine and famous, the L.A. Lakers superstar was one of the most lusted-after bachelors in the country. Debbie knew it. She'd heard all the Norm Nixon and his women-in-every-city stories. Like him, they got around.

"Going into this relationship, Norman had women everywhere and it was like how am I going to deal with all of that," she confides. "I was also coming out of a marriage that wasn't working and I wasn't even sure about wanting to get married again or any of those things because I just wasn't certain of what I was doing."

Not only did Debbie know more than she realized, she had Nixon's number. And she had it in a way all the other women did not. "Norm was going through a period where he had too many women who were after him for what he had. I wasn't," she says matter-of-factly.

Her cool intrigued Nixon. As she puts it, "We weren't holding each other hostage for tommorow." They were, however, seeing each other constantly and, sweet as that live-for-the-moment attitude was, Debbie discovered it had an unanticipated catch: she was falling in love. "There was a magic moment when I knew Norman was the one, but I didn't want to accept it," she reveals. "I said Nooooo. This cannot be. This is not happening."

But it was. And it was happening in a way Debbie had never before experienced. Finally, when she could no longer deny it, they connected. "There was a passion that existed between Norman and me that I just could not deny. It was too powerful," she says.

In 1984, Debbie and Nixon married in an intimate family-and-close-friends-only ceremony in a Santa Monica church. That same year, Debbie gave birth to their daughter, Vivian Nichole, who is now 6 years old. "I was so afraid when she was born," says Nixon of Vivian, who was born prematurely, weighing barely more than three pounds. "She was so tiny but when I saw her pull off the oxygen mask I knew she was okay. I knew she was strong just like her mother." Three years later, Debbie gave birth to their son, Norman Jr., who is now 3. "He thinks he is a Ninja Turtle," says Debbie, who frequently brings both children to the Different World set.